Episode 75: Morrison plays the ukulele while Liberals burn Australia, Dyson Heydon and the Liberal problem with women plus good news about clean energy & trees

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 actions across the train network - it is easy to see why.

At the federal level, the Morrison Liberals aren't doing any better.  The aged care crisis is now exposing the dire state of our sovereign capacity with only 106 of the promised 1,500 defence personnel actually in aged care facilities.  The government's own committee has stated the NDIS will need another 83,000 full-time workers in the next two years - yet the sector is "overworked, underpaid, undervalued and poorly trained".  And total "payroll" wages in the economy dropped nearly 9% in January on the back of the total number of "payroll jobs" (a measure of jobs that are sometimes more secure) dropping nearly 6%.

Even on COVID Morrison is still failing, with January 2022 costing more lives than any month in 2021.

Van and Ben also look at the Dyson Heydon sexual harassment case settlement and draw together the strands of how the Liberal party treats the powerful - like Heydon - vs how they attack the disempowered and the vulnerable, like Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins. 

Plus TWO good news stories.  The first on clean energy from ammonia and the second on reforestation in India that includes an improvement in the social conditions for women.

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