Saturday marked the 250th anniversary of the day Captain Cook departed on the trip that would ultimately lead to his discovering of Australia.

Though Cook, and the extensive historical revisionism he’s been subjected to, is often tainted by the demonising brush of colonialization, the maritime achievements attributable to his name is something that needs recognising.

Rather than focusing on his association with the archetypal ‘ invader,’ one should look at the accomplishments of his Endeavor voyage – which ought to be revered.

“A lot of people don’t realise the genius of this man,” says Trent Dalton, from The Australia.

“That is what we must cling to, it’s what we must remember. You cannot deny the scientific achievements of this voyage.”

“The people seeing the voyage off, they didn’t know at the time the things he was about to achieve. That when he would return, we’d know vastly more things about astronomy, geology, geography and those deep southern lands that exist in world’s that were once unknown.”

“He made them known. He did the nation a service.”

Listen to the Full Show podcast of Overnight with Michael McLaren on August 27

The Morrison cabinet has been announced and despite a shuffling of the chairs and a few new faces, the fresh frontbench appears to be more of the same.

It’s been speculated that a Labor-lite, moderate policy manifesto could come from Morrison. And yesterday’s Cabinet announcement hasn’t done much to shatter that pre-conception.

It’s just solidified it.  

“That’s because the reality is this cabinet is not dissimilar from the one that’s just been replaced,” says Tom Switzer, Executive Director at the Centre for Independent Studies.

 “The Liberal Party is a broad church of liberals’ and conservatives.’ My sense is the new PM has done very little to reach out to conservatives.”    

However the real test for the new Coalition will be energy policy. After Turnbull’s flagship National Energy Guarantee become the source of his ultimate demise, it’s unclear how Morrison will conduct the sensitive juggle between getting prices down and emission reductions.  

“The NEG was very much a Morrison, Turnbull, Frydenberg initiative. So with Morrison as PM and Frydenberg as Deputy PM, it’s not clear what their agenda is now on energy.”

Many are taking Angus Taylor’s appointment to the energy portfolio as an indication that reliability and cost will be the priority in the energy policy trilemma. Meanwhile, the seperation of energy and environment portfolios, fused together by Turnbull, is thought to be both a symbolic and tangible indication that a new era in electricity market reform is on the horizon.  

“The fundamental problem that everyone needs to recognise is you can’t be saying on one hand that you want to reduction emissions, and then on the other, that you want to reduce prices,” reiterates Switzer.

“If you’re truly going to decarbonise the economy, you have to increase the price. That’s why in virtually all liberal democracies, it’s very difficult to decarbonise an economy.”

“Because the people in electorates, if they’re asked to choose between lower emissions and lower prices, they’ll always go with the latter.”

Today will be a big day for Australia’s political landscape.

Embattled Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has now confirmed he will call a party room meeting at midday today, to deal with any leadership challenges in his fragmented party. However, there is a fundamental caveat on that call.

In an extraordinary move, a defiant Turnbull is demanding the majority of the party room sign a public petition declaring their withdrawal of support, before he allows a leadership contest.

The likely-to-be-toppled PM has also called on the solicitor-general to reveal if Peter Dutton has a case to answer when it comes to his potential constitutional eligibility issues before midday tomorrow.

All this has culminated in what is predicted to be a three-way challenge between Dutton, Treasurer Scott Morrison and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop.

For Senator Cory Bernardi, the party’s internal warfare has not been caused by the National Energy Guarantee – though this was the catalyst. It’s the product of Turnbull’s abandonment of traditional, conservative values. He’s jumped ideological ship and is trying to mold the Liberal Party in his moderate, Labor-lite image.  The Liberal Party’s demarcation from the left has eroded away.  

 “Let’s remember Turnbull’s history,” says Bernardi.

“He was a guy who went to see Grahame Richardson and Bob Hawke about joining the Labor Party. When they said they didn’t want him, he joined the Liberal Party and went about radicalising his agenda.”

“It’s not green enough for me, it’s not left wing enough for me, it’s not republican enough for me. So I’ll undermine everyone to get what I want, that's (Turnbull's thinking).”

“He ditched every convention. He undid all of them and this is the end result.”

Listen to the Full Show podcast of Overnighs with Luke Grant on August 24

Calls for a status quo shake-up in the childcare industry will attract the ire of unionists, as pushes to ditch onerous staff-to-child ratios and relax childcare worker qualifications comes to the fore.

The Senate select committee on red tape has called for a review into the National Quality Framework, which regulates both staffing ratios and worker qualifications. It’s thought amending these stringent requirements could put much needed downward pressure on childcare costs.

“The Government didn’t pay for childcare at all about a decade ago. Now it costs close to $9 billion. It’ll be $10 billion very soon,” explains Senator David Leyonhjelm.

“That’s an enormous amount of money out of the pockets of taxpayers. What kind of public policy outcome is being achieved that justifies that sort of money?”

“The government is really making a terrible mess of it. And whose paying for it? The taxpayers, many of whom don’t have children.”

Michael agrees that childcare costs are illogically high, noting that government’s tendency to give parents more money to make childcare more affordable is counterproductive – it simply incentivises facilities to charge more.

“Clearly there is something broken in the childcare model,” says Michael.

“In Australia, it can be more expensive to send a three-year-old to an early childhood education facility then it is to send a fifteen-year-old to the best private school in town."

“That is clearly ridiculous. Something is wrong.”

“ Is it the wages of the staff, the fact that they’re now overqualified and demanding too much money, is it the ratio of staff to pupils that is driving this unaffordability?”

The plight of despairing small enterprises in the strawberry-growing industry has garnered sympathy this week, after a QLD grower exposed just how many pieces of edible fruit are going to waste.

A jump in cooler winter temperatures has been conducive to a spike in growth rates, leaving farmers with a produce glut.  But sadly, it seems many of this fruit is destined for the waste bin.

The excess has seen wholesale agents become rather choosey it seems – with many rejecting fruit that isn’t “extra-large”

This is seeing top quality Australian produce going to waste, aggrieving the likes of strawberry grower Mandy Schultz.

“It’s great quality fruit being thrown out,” she explains.

“We can’t process it anymore, the freezers are full, we just had to throw it out. There was literally nowhere for it to go."

Schultz says the blame is with bigger farms, who keep planting strawberry plants in a way that's out of kilter with demand. 

“There are far too many plants in the ground.”

“You have to ask the question, what is driving these big farms to keep planting more and more? Because somewhere there is an agenda we’re not aware of.”

“Something needs to be done. There needs to be some form of transparency.”

To extrapolate on the news of the week, Michael McLaren is joined by writer for The Spectator Australia and contributor to Sky News, Terry Barnes.

Listen to the Full Show podcast of Overnight with Michael McLaren on August 23

Michael McLaren chats with Troy Lennon from the Daily Telegraph for the weekly history segment.