Ben looks at how the events of the week at NSW ICAC and in the Federal Parliament involving the the sentencing of the Obieds, the investigation into Gladys and the protection racket for Porter have made the case for a proper federal ICAC.

Alan Tudge and Peter Dutton express the worst of Australian political values with hypocrisy, greed, entitlement and attacks on democratic debate in an attempt to distract from Morrison's failure to make any progress on climate action as the Nationals make empty threats to quit the government.

Reopening is speeding up as more Australian's get vaccinated against COVID

And Ben looks at two models of attracting workers into an industry with the Strawberry Hunger Games vs Truckie Solidarity.

Van Badham and Ben Davison contrast the former Liberal Minister Pru Goward's opinion piece in the AFR where she calls unemployed workers "the underclass", "proles", "weasels", "damaged", a "deficit" and "lacking in trust and discipline." who need to be "harnessed" to the news today that 1.2M children in Australia went hungry in the last 12 months, the facts laid out in ACTU Secretary Sally McManus's New Daily article that more Australians than ever before are working multiple jobs and the piece by Australian Workers Union leader Dan Walton that exposes the rank hypocrisy of business and Liberal interests trying to import hundred of thousands of temporary migrant workers while hundreds of thousands of people are without secure work and are being denied training opportunities.

The starkness of the political contrast is almost blinding, as is Van's rage!

Morrison's attempts to claim victory on emissions reductions by virtue of state action lowering emissions by 30-35% instead of the Abbott target of 26-28% has been met with scorn by our international allies and has failed to solve his National Party problem.  The Nats continue to ignore the national farmer federation, science, the public opinion and the capital markets to insist on even more pork for them to barrel in exchange for any movement towards net zero emissions. 

The shamelessness of their position has been further highlighted by more revelations of misused tax payer money, "regional" grants going to cities, and BILLIONS handed out without any true assessment of value for the taxpayer. 

Van and Ben both join the calls for a federal ICAC as the NSW ICAC hears damaging revelations about how money is handed out in Liberal/National governments. 

And to think they call us "weasels"!

The good news is people are starting to be reunited, including Van and Ben, and Australian's are getting vaccinated!

Ben Davison wraps up the changes to COVID protections around the country as NSW schools are set to reopen, Victoria announces end of lockdown and Hobart seems set to survive a scare unscathed.

What's Josh Frydenberg's problem.  The Morrison government Treasurer keeps attacking Victoria, that state he's from, on everything to do with COVID.  Why?  Ben Looks at how Frydenberg's failures on Jobkeeper, Jobmaker, Wages and secure jobs might be driving him to create a distraction.

And Morrison has finally decided to go to CoP26 in Glasgow in November after pressure from the opposition, Prince Charles, The Queen (who was attacked in the Herald Sun over it, so much for "mission zero") and comedian Dan Ilic who's billboard campaign has gone from Kooyong and Armadale to Glasgow and Times Square.  WIth emissions targets somewhere around half of the rest of the developed world and the Nationals still demanding an unknown price for policy to get to net zero what will Morrison say when he gets to Glasgow?  Maybe the next two sitting weeks will shed some light.

Van Badham and Ben Davison dive into the miraculous conversion of the Murdoch empire from climate skeptics to "Mission Zero" warriors. They explore how all it has taken is decades of campaigning, billionaires identifying the money making and subsidy extracting opportunities and enough space to allow the likes of Bolt, Gleeson and Panahi to hedge his bets for the man who destroyed Turnbull, Rudd and Turnbull again, over climate policy to start helping save the planet on which he lives.

Meanwhile the National Party, "led" by a very "tired" sounding Barnaby Joyce, is trying to reposition itself as the party of "battlers" after having spent the last twenty years being the party of Gina and Twiggy in a last ditch effort to play  "outsiders on the inside who can get wins for you!"*

*You must be one of a small handful of national party preselectors

Van and Ben also examine a recent report on the impacts of job insecurity in the retail sector on Australians trying to care for their kids and/or their parents.  Van and Ben link the insecure work crisis to how the COVID pandemic has spread through Australia and examine ways in which people can resist casualisation and the under valuing their humanity so we can have a functioning society.

Plus there is good news from France on new ways to recycle plastics using leaves!

Ben looks at the reopening of NSW, some of the issues other places have faced when reopening and what the concerns might be for us here in Australia.

Morrison sent his minister off to Insiders to talk about social media accountability while totally failing to address the fact The Australian has numerous anonymous articles and manage to not be asked a single question on the National Party plan to increase mortgages to support a $250 billion (more than three times the size of Jobkeeper) program to fund mines that no one else wants to invest into.

This continues the Morrison government's record of avoiding tough economic discussions and any accountability for the high levels of real unemployment and underemployment, wage cuts, the replacement of ongoing jobs with casual and labour hire jobs and the handing over of $5Billion in infrastructure funds to foreign head contractors rather than using Australian companies.

By contrast Labor used the NSW State conference this weekend to announce its new Buy Australian Act that would lift us up the innovation index, the digital competitiveness index and see Australian companies get major government contracts to employ local workers.

As we start to hit vaccination targets and things reopen theres never been a more important time to follow the health advice, get vaccinated, wear your mask and ignore the wannabe celebrities prepared to sacrifice your life for a few headlines about them.

Van Badham and Ben Davison dive into the new NSW Premier, Dom Perrottet, his public statements against women's reporductive rights, against marriage equality, against financial support for single mothers, his public sector wage cuts, his privatisation of NSW infrastructure and the iCare scandal that saw 52,000 injured workers ripped off while a former US Republican operative worked out of his office while being paid for by iCare as they gave out undeclared contracts to Liberal Party donors.

Van discusses her own faith and how Perrottet's interpretation of Christianity seems to be more interested in protecting the sins of priests than in loving all God's children.

Van and Ben explore how foreign right wing actors are using Australia as a political stage to spark anti-democratic death cults which are overseeing the deaths of tens of thousands of people in Florida and Tennessee even as Republican law makers are condemning Australia and suggesting sanctions in response to our mask mandates and vaccination requirements for essential workers.

Spoiler alert: The videos of Australian "repression" and "oppression" that are on the internet are foreign made propaganda.

The good news is about the protection of forests in Western Australia and the implementation of a 10 year transition program to ensure the delivery of economic and environmental benefits to the West Australian community.

Ben Davison dives into how Gladys failed in her duty to report possible corrupt conduct while he slams the rose coloured glasses some of the Liberal Party and Sydney's elites have decided to view her through. 

Dom, iCare, Perrottet seems likely to replace Gladys now that Constance has announced he wants to go federal but is the Trump supporting, anti-aboriginal flag, home bulldozing hard right Catholic who wanted to let COVID rip the right man for the job?  John Howard thinks so.  So probably not.

COVID vaccine targets continue to be hit as Victoria announces essential workers will need to be vaccinated to keep their essential worker status and we are all reminded that if 20% of Australians are not vaccinated thats around 5 million people still at risk.

Morrison announced a plan to get Australians home for Christmas 2021.  Which differs from his plan to get Australians home for Christmas 2020 in that it has some hope of actually happening.  

Van Badham and Ben Davison dive into the Morrison government's bungling of the COVID situation in Australia that has seen people with a disability go from being in a priority group to "refocussed" almost out of contention for vaccines, payments being cut from people left unemployed due to COVID restrictions, states going off the road map at the expense of thousands of lives and extra hospitalisations.  All while Victoria has its worst day for cases and NSW has its worst day for deaths. And Singapore is having a lockdown with well over 80% of the population vaccinated.

The choices our political leaders have made during the pandemic and are making again now are determining whether people fall into poverty, homelessness and hunger.  Or not.

The political pantomime that is Coalition policy around climate action has reached WWE levels of spectacle this week.  With a clash between the Nationals (rural seats) and the Liberals (city seats) being billed as part of distracting from the reality that the world is moving to net zero emissions.  The only questions are how and what happens to people as that occurs.  Neither question is one that Morrison's political side show is interested in answering but both are the focus for environment groups, union, companies and farmers.

And the good news is that old European enmities have been set aside to create a land sanctuary some are calling "the European Amazon."

Plus we thank everyone who made The Week on Wednesday the number 1 news and the number 1 politics podcast in Australia last week!