Not Good Enough

56 — Hogwhistling

We discuss bad rocks, the Award for Services to Homophobia, and try to figure out what on earth the Labor Party is up to.

 

We’re on fire

• Adelaide had a massive bushfire south of the city, described as like a firestorm or a volcano.
• Two-year-old packs bad rocks.
• Meanwhile in Melbourne, on Monday a mean and menacing “tip fire” managed to motivate 17 municipalities to move a “major alert” across most media.
• In good news, South Australia met the entirety of it’s power demand with solar for a few hours.

Order of Australia

• Margaret Court, outrageous homophobe and anti-gay activist was given an Australia Day honor.
• Shoutout to the many Australians who are returning their Order of Australia honors: Dr Clara Tuck Meng Soo (AO for her LGBTIQ+ advocacy), Dr Rodney Syme (AO for his work on dying with dignity & human rights campaigning), Alistair Macrae (AO for religious work).
• Shoutout too to Journalist Kerry O’Brien for rejecting the award this year.
• Who did take their award? Malcom Turnbull, for his services toward marriage equality.

Musical chair party

• The Labor party has reshuffled their shadow cabinet, replacing Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy. It was Mark Bulter, now it’s Chris Bowen.
• Mark Butler was fairly solid on Climate Change, despite being a Labor party suit.
• Labor are pursuing a “small target strategy” for the next election, not revealing any plans.
• Labor sees climate change as an “economic portfolio”.
• Joe Biden is actually doing good things for the climate? John Kerry, Biden’s new climate envoy makes allusions to Australia’s bushfires as a reason to act on climate.

Joel Fitzgibbon

• Climate denier Joel Fitzgibbon is still pushing Labor to refuse action on climate change.
• He was the shadow resources minister, but quit to spend more time building support within the right-wing faction of the Labor party.
• On Radio National, Fitzgibbon called Mark Butler “over-enthusiastic” about climate change.
• Labor leader Anthony Albanese said Joel Fitzgibbon’s comments were “wrong”.
• The Iron Law of Institutions states that “The people who control institutions care first and foremost about their power within the institution rather than the power of the institution itself”.

55 — Disaster artists (feat. Ben McLeay of Boonta Vista)

We're joined by Ben McLeay of the Boonta Vista podcast to talk about the Government's favorite hobby of packing emissions bodies with fossil fuel ghouls, Australian lawyer Greg Sheppard and his terrible children, and hungry ghost Scott Morrison.

 

Goodish news

• 46 of the 60 refugees who were in Australia were held for up to 8 years in the Bell, nee Park Mantra hotel prisons have been released.
• 14 of the refugees have been kept in the hotels, for no apparent reason.
• Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton says it was cheaper for people to be in the community.
• There’s a rally at 2pm on Jan 30th for the refugees at the Park Hotel.
• The day after the release of the refugees, the United Nations royally roasted Australia for our treatment of refugees and indigenous Australians.

Packing the committees

• The Government has been quietly stacking the Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee with fossil-fuel dudes.
• David Byers is the author of such articles as “Our fixation on renewables narrows the options”.
• Also on the board is Dr Brian Fisher, climate-change denier and author of multiple reports incorrectly saying that fighting climate change is too expensive to combat (PDF link).
• This follows long history of the Liberal party stacking committees to force carbon capture and hydrogen into clean energy plans.
• Andrew Forrest wants to launder fossil fuels fuels launder fossil fuels via hydrogen, but he’s an idiot.

Geronimo Bay

• Australian Lawyer Greg Sheppard has been arrested in Papua New Guinea for stealing $98 million from a public trust destined for villagers affected by the Ok Tedi mine in Western PNG.
• Sheppard acted as “Local Director” for Wilson Security, which ran the Australian Manus Island refugee detention center.
• Under his oversight, guards tortured and cable-tied detainees to chairs, oversaw the death of Iranian Hamid Kehazaei from septicemia, and the sexual harassment of a disabled detainee.
• In a 2015 SBS Dateline report Greg Sheppard was caught on camera explaining how to launder bribes to government officials.
• Greg’s children have a band, who are “catchy as asian flu”, according to their father.
• The in this 2014 puff piece, the band claim that their parents poured their life savings into funding them, as does their dad.

Mitch’s sports corner

• Scott Morrison reckons Australia Day is “It’s all about acknowledging how far we’ve come…particularly flash day for the people on those vessels either.”
• Cricket Australia has decided to remove references to the term “Australia Day” from their Jan 26 Big Bash League promotions.
• This decision was reached after consultation with their Indigenous advisory committee.
• The Australia day ads fuckin suck. As does the Australia Day Committee.
• Scott Morrison thinks Cricket Australia’s decision is “pretty ordinary”.
• During the 2019-20 bushfires, Scott Morrison tried to use the cricket as a distraction from the government’s confused response.
• Shoutout to cricketer Dan Christian, who told Scott Morrison to “Read the room”.

Actions

• Hospo Voice have a wage tracker app, called Mobilise. It helps track your wages and make sure you’re being paid correctly.
• If you got a Robodebt Class Action settlement, you can object to it.

54 — Roasted celery

We cover the Dutch welfare scandal, the government shovelling more subsidies into the gas industry, the Celery Discorse and what Michael McCormack has been up to.

Clog scandal

• The Netherlands have done a mini-Robodebt, wrongly accusing thousands of families of abusing a childcare allowance scheme.
• The entire Dutch government have “quit” over this scandal.
• However, they remain in place in a caretaker capacity. Shades of Bridget McKenzie’s “resignation” here.

Climate news

• The Federal government is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars of subsidies into gas fracking in the Beetaloo Basin.
• The gas from the basin is set to emit up to 117 megatonnes of greenhouse gas per year. The entire Australian transport sector produces about 100 megatonnes.

Farm news

• Farmers in Victoria have been forced to dump $150,000 worth a celery crops.
• International students were abandoned by the government response to COVID.
• Fact check: Celery is good. A real team player. Put it in a stir-fry you dummies, or this fish stew is seriously great.

Sports corner

• The Australian open has been delayed, and is bringing Coronavirus-positive players and staff into Australia.
• Tennys Sandgren II has covid.
• Players are furious after being forced into hard hotel quarantine, despite being promised practice time.
• Premier Dan Andrews pushed for the Australian Open to remain in Melbourne.
• Who remembers last year’s Australian Open, when Slovenian player Dalila Jakupovic due to bushfire smoke?

Michael McCormack watch

• Scott Morrison is on holiday, leaving real man and Nationals Leader Michael McCormack in charge.
• First, he equated the US Capitol riots to Black Lives Matter.
• Then he doubled down, dropping an “All Lives Matter”.
• During the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, One Nation Senator Pauline Hanson attempted to introduce a motion that “All Lives Matter”.
• Australia doesn’t have a right to free speech.
• McCormack also defended George “Unusually Complex Online Presence” Christenson.
• Read Jeff Sparrow’s article on the rise of Australia’s far-right.

Actions

• Shoutout to Quantas workers and their unions, fighting back against the airline for underpayment and abuses of the Jobkeeper scheme.
• Keep an eye on the Australian media coverage of the US Capitol riots, and complete our bingo card.
• Attend the Invasion Day rallies around Australia.

53 — Cope attempt

We chat about Australia's contributions to the US Capitol riots, online abuse of people who fall through the cracks of coronavirus lockdown, and outages of the inhumane cashless welfare card.

 

We’re on fire

• Australia is yet again on fire.

Union news

• Deliveroo riders have elected health and safety representatives, and are trying to force the company to comply with the Work Health and Safety Act.
• Google workers have formed the Alphabet Union.
• Venture capitalist Mike Solana reckons it’s a LARP.
• Microsoft workers (not IBM) protested to stop the company working with ICE.

Diet coup

• Alan Jones leading protests at parliament house.
• Sky News drives right-wing extremism in the US.
• Australia helped pave the way for the US insurrection.
• The Q viking dude inside the Capitol was posting Sky news on his Facebook page.
• The Christchurch shooter was deeply ingrained in US politics and conspiracy theories.
• Australian politicians George Christenson and Craig Kelly tried to claim the the Capitol rioters were Antifa.
• Scott Morrison refused to condem Donad Trump for encouraging the insurrection.
• The Australia Labor party criticised Scott Morrison in a tweet. Joel Fitzgibbon didn’t want to be associated with it.

Coronavirus

• Brisbane has Coronavirus, and is in a three-day lockdown.
• Brisbane’s rules require masks as long as you’re out of the house.
• Victoria instituted a hard border lockdown with NSW on New Years Eve.
• Many people are still locked out of Victoria.
• A woman suffered a miscarriage while traveling back from NSW, and faced horrific treatment from police.
• The Twitter drips were nightmarish about it.
• The NSW Police let the two Germans through to Victoria.

Cashless christmas

• The Indue cashless welfare card had on outage over Christmas/New Years, so people were unable to access their money for three days.
• There was another outage in 2019.
• There are a long list of rules that restrict what people can do with their card.
• There is no evidence that the cashless welfare cards improve outcomes for the people on them.
• Mining billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest has spent years trying to push the card.
• Pauline Hanson says the quiet part out loud.

Actions

• Support the Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union.
• Listen to the 7AM Podcast series, Climate change will kill you.

52 — Mitch and McLean are scabs for this one

Mitch and McLean cross the podcast picket line to chat about the one-word adjustment to the national anthem, cuts to Jobkeeper and the 2020 drop in emissions.

 

Anthemic adjustments

• The Prime Minister has announced a one-word change to the national anthem.
• The change was originally backed by NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian.
• Scott Morrison remembers Bob Hawke for changing the national anthem.

War on the poor

• The government is going through with their threat to cut jobkeeper.
• Mitch on ABC’s The Drum
• The eviction moratorium is set to end on 28th March 2021.

The climate is sick

• Global emissions dropped 7% in 2020

Actions

• Divest your bank
• Join your union. AUWU and RAHU are good choices.

51 — The Top 10 of 2020

Join us as we wrap up 2020 with Not Good Enough's official Top 10 ranking for the year.

 

10. Forced handshakes

• Scott Morrison’s visit to Cobargo
• The firefighter who really didn’t want to shake his hand.

9. Meme war with China

• The meme war, covered in episode 48 and the trade war fallout in episode 50.

8. Anne Ruston

• Anne Ruston, covered in episode 14 and episode 45.

7. State discourse

• Sexy Dan Andrews covered in episode 28.
• People getting horny for Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton covered in episode 30.

6. Gas led recovery

• We’ve talked about gas before. Check out episodes 4, 9, 11, 16, 19, 20, 23, 26, 28, 34, 38, 43 and 47 for a quick recap.

5. Coronavirus

• Not just SARS-CoV-2, but the Coronavirus too.

4. Industrial actions and union wins

• The NU Unions making big wins: RAFFWU, AUWU, RAHU.
• The Wyong Woolies Workers Winning Their Wages With A Walk Off
• RAFFWU taking McDonalds to court and winning
• AUWU getting in three senate submissions and running a Mutual Obligation strike
• Centrelink workers releasing a letter saying they disagree with the work they’re being made to do
• RAHU helped negotiate over $20k in rental debt and getting eviction notices overturned.
• Spotless Laundry workers walked off the job over safety concerns
• Canberra garbage truck drivers going on multiple strikes
• The Mitre 10 stop work that was won in less than four hours
• The bus driver stop work that was won before it started
• The NTEU wage theft repayment protest that was successful before it started
• Coles workers on indefinite strike after being locked out of their worksites, after striking back in March
• Maritime Union of Australia going on strike all along the east coast

3. Sports!!!!

• Sports rorts covered in episode 3
• The NRL island that wasn’t
• The AFL teams were isolated into quarantine hubs.

2. Insecure work

• Handling of Victorian hotel security covered in episodes 27, 29, 33, and 39.
• In two months, five food delivery workers were killed on the job.
• Government’s move to change laws for part time workers covered in episode 48.

1. Robodebt

• In 2017 it was found unlawful
• The Not My Debt campaign
• Bill Shorten announces class action lawsuit
• Debts will be repaid
• Scott Morrison apologizes
• Kathryn Campbell doesn’t know what Robodebt is?
• Gordon Legal settles out of court
• Correction: Anthony Pratt has donated millions (not hundreds of thousands) to both the Liberal and Labor parties.

50 — I stopped these (coal ships)

We delve into the details on the Ombudsman's report on the Victorian public tower lockdowns, then theorise that Australian politicians are being paid by aliens to perpetuate climate change.

 

NSW Has the Roni

• NSW’s Northern Beaches is under lockdown.
• Seems likely the failures the quarantine requirements are to blame for the outbreak.

Saving Djab Wurrung

• The Federal Court has ruled that the Victorian Government’s decision to build a highway through Djab Wurrung birthing trees was made incorrectly, and must be re-judged by someone who isn’t Sussan Ley.
• On the same highway project in 2015, in a “planning blunder” led to the destruction of 900 native trees.

Cop tower redux

• The Victorian Ombudsman’s report into the public tower lockdowns (PDF link) has been released.
• In July, 3000 people in public housing tower blocks were locked down with zero notice.
• Our podcast episode on the tower lockdown from July.
• Tower residents were only able to go outside and exercise in guarded cages.
• Like the hotel quarantine report, we probably won’t know who was responsible for these decisions.

Posting for climate action

• China’s state media has reported that China is banning all imports of Australian coal.
• Scott Morrison says this is baseless “media speculation”.
• Australia’s coal isn’t really better than other countries.
• Australians now have cheap lobsters for Christmas.
• Resource Minister Matt Canavan’s brother’s coal mine has collapsed.
• Now Canavan is calling for a trade levy on iron ore.
• Morrison’s “I stopped these” plaque.

Atlantean plots

• Treasurer Josh Frydenburg wants an inquiry on why banks aren’t lending to coal projects.
• George Christensen, complex online presence.
• The Federal government are subsidising fuel to keep refineries open.
• Australia is spending $94 million dollars to stockpile fuel in the US.
• The Victorian government is proposing a new tax on electric vehicles.

Pulp facts

• Anthony Pratt’s company Visy has received $10m from Australia’s bushfire recovery fund.
• The application process for the bushfire fund is… obtuse.
• For regular people, the bushfire recovery fund does not exist.
• Anthony Pratt’s wealth grew from $15.57bn to $19.75bn in 2020.

Actions

• The Mantra 60 refugees have been moved to the Park Hotel in Carlton. You can go protest!
• Divest your bank and super!
• Support your unions! AUWU, RAHU and RAFFWU are kicking goals and need the support.
• Watch Mitch on the Drum!
• Listen to Auspol Snackpod!

49 — Billapalooza 2020

It's too hot to podcast but we delve into the content mines yet again to keep you updated on the landslide of bills from the last sitting week of parliament.

 

Shrugging towards apocalypse

• Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been excluded from the recent UN climate summit.
• Morrison has backflipped on the governments use of “Kyoto carryover credits” as an accounting trick to get out of climate targets.
• Australia’s catastrophic bushfires had a slight cooling effect on the global climate.
• At Australia’s current rate of emissions reduction, we’ll hit zero by the year 2300.
• Wish granted, Lang.

Cashless welfare

• The LNP government is pushing through a cashless welfare card for the NT.
• The government’s own research shows the card doesn’t work.
• Pauline Hanson declared that those on the welfare system have given up their rights as humans.
• Jacqui Lambie continues to be a problematic fav.
• Rachel Siewert continues to an unproblematic fav.
• Senator Stirling Griff was a last-minute no-show to the welfare card vote, allowing the bill to pass.
• The Labor party are just a loose sloshing bucket of double-negatives.

Cyber cops

• Laws introduced by Peter Dutton allow for sweeping new online powers for police.
• Labor tried to introduce amendments to the bill, but failed and wave it through anyway.
• The bill will allow police to take over and impersonate people’s online accounts.
• …and introduces powers to reveal journalist’s sources.
• During debate on the bill Peter Dutton labeled Greens Leader Adam Bant an “enemy of the state”.
• The Cristchurch shooter could have been stopped if the AFP took far-right threats seriously.

Breaking up the CFMEU

• The government has passed a bill to make it easier for the CFMEU to break up.
• Secondary and solidarity strikes are illegal in Australia.
• In good news, wage theft will become a criminal offence, under certain conditions.

48 — Digitally manipulated podcast (feat. Jim Malo)

We're joined by jounalist and Posting expert Jim Malo to discuss Australia's return to our natural state: on fire and mad at foreigners.

 

Listening to the experts

• Kristina Kerscher Keneally has urged the NSW Government to slow down on reforms to drug laws.

We’re on fire

• Australia is still on fire. Fraser Island has been burning since October.
• “This shouldn’t be happening. This is just crazy. This is completely terrifying” — David Bowman, professor of fire ecology at the University of Tasmania
• Jim’s article highlighting Gippsland fire survivors.
• Fires aren’t supposed to happen in Australian rainforests.
• After last years fires, the government announced a $4.2 billion emergency response fund, of which $0 has been spent, and a $2.1 billion fund bushfire recovery fund, of which $1.2 billion has been actually distributed to the ruined towns.

Meme Wars

• Jim’s article on Australia caring more about the meme than the war crimes.
• China and Australia are in a meme war.
• This was in retaliation to the Australian-Japan defence agreement, and Morrison calling for an investigation to into China’s Coronavirus handling.
• The image cannot be not called anything but “fake”, “doctored” or “computer generated”.
• Australian soliders were photographed doing a shoey from a dead Taliban fighter’s prosthetic leg.
• Minister for resources Matt Canavan has called for an end to Australia’s “abusive relationship” with China.
• Buying Australia’s wine in solidarity.
• 60 Australian coal ships are stranded off the coast of Chin, for up to 24 weeks.

Coalture Wars

• The Australian newspaper is spruiking coal in an 8-page lift-out on how amazing coal is.
• It’s an annual tradition — they ran a coal liftout in 2019 as well.
• Mining company Santos sponsors cars for the Queensland police.
• Energy Minister Angus Taylor calls for the State Governments to get back in line with federal (lack of) policy.
• The UN climate summit president has thanked Australian states — but not the federal government — for their action on climate change.
• Scott Morrison has dropped the plan to use “Kyoto carryover credits”.

Class Wars

• ACTU head Sally McManus calls for halving of insecure work by 2030.
• Meanwhile Industrial Relations minister Christian Porter has moved to allow bosses to change worker’s hours, duties and location arbitrarily.
• …and proposed additional powers to break up unions.
• From 2018, the laws were supposed to change to allow casual workers to move to permanent part time.

Shoutouts

• Listen to Mitch on the Highbrow Drivel podcast.
• Shoutout to the Gamil Means No protest against Santos.

Actions

• Join the AUWU protest against the cuts to the Jobkeeper rate on December 12.
• Follow Jim on Twitter, read his work in Junkee and listen to Vocal Minory RRR.

47 — Mr. Skeleton, or, A Fistful of Dollarmites

In this blockbuster episode we discuss Gladys Berejiklian's creeping corruption, Virginia Trioli's Dr. Manhattan vibes and the death of the Dollarmite.

 

 

Black book club

• Former Finance Minister Matias Cormann is trying to get a job at the OECD.

Rules for thee, but not for me

• NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian had an affair with corrupt MP Daryl Maguire, facing no consequences.
• She gave $40,000 to Daryl Maguire’s electorate from her own discretionary fund.
• Berejiklian took a COVID test, but didn’t isolate for the 90 minutes she had to wait for the results.
• Evidence from reconstituted shredded documents shows that the NSW Liberals heavily pork-barrelled the last election.

Centrist brain

• Virginia Trioli doesn’t vote.
• Real Dr. Manhattan vibes.
• Yes, her husband’s name is actually Skelton, not Skeleton. But he know’s what he’s doing. Also their child is a boy, not a girl. Whatever. Who cares. ALL POINTS STILL STAND.

Dollarmites are dead

• Dollarmites are dead. (in Victoria at least)
• They used to be cute aliens, now they’re terrifying CG children.
• There’s little evidence that in-school banking programs actually help children learn to save.
• Banks hate regulations, and are lobbying hard to roll back “responsible lending” laws.
• Afterpay and similar non-bank credit services are becoming increasingly popular.
• They claim they are “not a payments system”.
• Afterpay line go up..
• The Committee on Financial Technology and Regulatory Technology will be releasing it’s recommendations on the matter next year.

Smol gas beans

• The Narrabri gas project has been approved!
• That’s nice, they seem like such good customers of the local coffee van.
• The NSW government is looking to fast-track new mine approvals, including 850 new gas wells.
• The Minerals Council is just a smol business.

Actions

• Check out the Hidden Cities podcast, on Victorian housing policy.
• And the Floodcast podcast on Labor party political assassination attempts.
• Shoot the Dollarmite in your brain and change your bank.