"The Week on Wednesday" with Van Badham & Ben Davison

Van Badham and Ben Davison look at how the Morrison government's current failures around the floods are deeply rooted in their obsessive small government ideology.  From defence readiness to aged care, from the NDIS to flood relief the ideological obsession of Morrison, Dutton and the Liberals has seen billions collected in taxes then doled out in rorts and dodgy deals while the sovereign capacity...

Ben, live from the Adelaide Writers Week, breaks down the Peter Dutton Insiders interview that failed to ask a single question about his involvement with a Queensland business man, who he has made commercials for in the past, which FriendlyJordies has exposed as having been involved in questionable behaviour.  Dutton sabre rattled about China, made up defence policy on the run, refused to be accou...

Van Badham and Ben Davison take a long look into whats happened in aged care now that Morrison has had the Aged Care Royal Commission findings for over a year.  Hundreds have died, minister Colbeck cannot guarantee that funding for nutrition was spent on food, nursing homes don't always have a nurse, minimum care times are not being met and the workers need a 25% pay increase just to get a liveabl...

Ben opens the podcast with the Ukrainian national anthem and a call for peace.  The Week on Wednesday focusses on issues that impact working people, whether in work, looking for work, unable to work or retired for work, and Putin's war will impact working people in Ukraine, Russia and around the world. While giving a breakdown of how Putin has misjudged the resistance of the Ukrainian people, and...

Van Badham and Ben Davison look at how the diverging political fortunes of Morrison and Albo are driving Morrison into ever more desperate acts of political theatre at the expense of working people and children. On Monday the NSW Liberal's effectively conspired to shut down the train system by locking out the workers and then spent the entire day using a decision, made by their management team (so...

Ben Davison is back on the Weekend Wrap following Van Badham's stint filling in last week and he takes a look at the South Australian election. Labor has a good chance of winning back government from Marshall's chaotic Liberals on March 19th with only four seats needing to swing Labor's way. Western Australia is due to reopen on March 3rd with nearly 99% of people over the age of 12 vaccinated.  ...

Van Badham and Ben Davison dive into the politics of the week - and what it tells us about the broader state of the nation. Morrison appeared on 60 Minutes playing the ukulele while his NSW Liberal Party colleagues were being resoundingly spanked in by-elections across the state.  With nurses going on strike about a lack of staff at over 150 hospitals (during a pandemic) - and rolling industrial a...

Van Badham fills in for Ben Davison, who has lost his voice, and gives a full break down of how Morrison's "get Albo" week in parliament turned into one of the worst weeks in Morrison's parliamentary career. The divisive "religious discrimination" bill, a centre piece of Morrison's promises to the Australian Christian Lobby, was effectively gutted by a Labor party, very much in the minority, who w...

Van Badham and Ben Davison dive head first into the big political stories of the week.  Morrison makes an apology for bullying and harassment in parliament but prioritises a bill allowing the bullying of trans children over laws that would give people escaping family violence paid leave, make sexual harassment a workplace health and safety issue and would mean 200,000 women who aren't paid super g...

"We need to get him out." Ben Davison dives into the latest revelations about how much Morrison's own Deputy PM, Ministers, Liberal Premiers, Former Liberal Prime Ministers and his own members don't trust the "horrible, horrible person", who puts "politics before people", is a "liar", a "fraud" and "a hypocrite".  Barnaby Joyce was due to appear on Insiders but due to his own text messages where h...

Van Badham and Ben Davison look at the latest Qanon protests in Canberra that have seen a Go Fund Me suspended, a pile up on the highway and demands for MPs, not in parliament, to come out of parliament to answer questions from unmasked and unvaccinated "protestors". Down the road from the parliament house protests Scott Morrison delivered a National Press Club speech full of self congratulation,...

Ben joins the #BartyParty as Ash Barty becomes the first Australian woman to win the Australian Open in 44 years and the Kyrgios & Kokkinakis "Special K" duo take out the men's doubles. Insiders returns for 2022 with a first up interview with Labor leader Anthony Albanese.  Albo gave all the right answers to the wrong questions.  It boiled down to Speers repeatedly asking how much will that cost/h...

Van Badham and Ben Davison analyse the final day of Grace Tame's tenure as Australian of the Year, that handshake, that look, that photo, Morrison's failures on policy issues, Morrison entrenchment of unsafe cultural attitudes, the conservative response to Tame doing her duty and what it tells us about the state of politics and the status of women in Australia. Van and Ben also remind people they...

Ben Davison dives into Morrison's botched attempt to get children driving forklifts by National Cabinet decree and urges people to check out their health and safety rights at the Australian Unions free webinar this week with ACTU Leader Sally McManus, australianunions.org.au has the details. Triple J's Hottest 100 has been announced with The Wiggles winning the annual song poll with their Like A V...

Van Badham and Ben Davison breakdown the COVID updates in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia while diving into the long rambling list of activities that Scott Morrison's tried to pass off as being Prime Ministerial at his latest press conference. With RATs being stolen, hospitals overwhelmed and death rates spiking Morrison used up an hour of live TV to announce a visa fee w...

Ben Davison gives a wrap up on the COVID figures for the week and looks at how "mild" Omicron has been able to bring much of Australia into an undeclared lockdown. Ben looks at the situation in WA as they learn from the failures of the NSW Liberal Party and prepare for re-opening to the rest of Australia on the 5th of February. Morrison has opened the flood gates to corporations forcing COVID posi...

Van Badham and Ben Davison dive into the mess of Scott Morrison's ideology and the Boy Prince Dom's unenforceable COVID policies as the politics of material reality, that is millions of Australian's having COVID, being exposed to COVID and being too sick to go to work, starts to bite into both NSW based Liberal Party leaders.  Shelves are bare, businesses cannot function, economic activity is coll...

Ben looks at the explosion of COVID across Australia which has seen the country exceed the case load per capita of both the UK and USA.  With over half a million people currently diagnosed with COVID 19, hospitalisations climbing to record levels and daily death numbers the worst in NSW you would hope the Let It Rip strategy of Morrison and NSW Premier Dom Perrottet was keeping the economy booming...

Van Badham and Ben Davison return in 2022 to breakdown the Morrison government's latest announcements about COVID, including the attacks on workplace health and safety, and examine how Morrison has gone from ham fisted and half hearted neo-Keynesian to full blown free market Friedmanite. With COVID being let rip by boy Prince of NSW, Dom Perrottet, Morrison has taken the opportunity to make an ide...

Van Badham and Ben Davison dive into what is happening with the Omicron variant and contrast the UK experience to the let it rip attitude of Morrison and Dom Perrottet.  The northern hemisphere is our early warning system so why are these two Liberal leaders choosing to ignore the UK bringing back protections? Is it just a cowardly political calculation? Morrison's government is crooked, corrupt,...

Ben Davison looks at Queensland reopening to other states in Australia with up to 50,000 cars predicted to make the journey into the sunshine state tomorrow.  The Omicron variant of COVID has inspired regulators to bring forward booster shots from six months to five. A tornado has devastated Kentucky and in the process exposed some major fault-lines in US workplaces.  With 70 killed in a candle fa...

Van Badham and Ben Davison take a deep dive into the problem of insecure work.  Featuring interviews with: ACTU President Michele O'Neil about the macro economic issues and economy wide impacts, particularly on women and carers, of insecure work, National Assistant Secretary of the SDA, Julia Fox, on their groundbreaking "who cares?" campaign looking at the destructive impact of insecure work on r...

Ben Davison looks at the shambles that is the Morrison government as it failed to create a federal ICAC, failed to increase people's super, failed to pass its Trumpian voter ID laws, failed to pass its religious discrimination laws and saw its member's cross the floor to vote for Qanon motions, hold up the senate and possibly mislead Morrison (and Australian's) about their vaccination status. And...

Van Badham and Ben Davison look at the Morrison government's failure to make workplaces in Australia safer for women with the latest report showing even the parliament is plagued by bullying and harassment.  Morrison's failure to deliver on the last report into these issues across the economy doesn't bode well for his so called promise to implement these new 28 recommendations.  Australian living...

Ben Davison looks at the Morrison government's latest announcement on Insiders that they will try to police comments on the internet and how it fits into Morrison's strategy of government "stepping back"  on economic issues while simultaneously starting culture wars and stepping in to protect corporations. Ben looks at Morrison's attempts to stop class action lawsuits, like the one that ended robo...