Wake Up Australia

Listen to the full show podcast with Luke Grant filling in for Michael Mclaren

Luke Grants speaks with David Janetzki, NLP Member for Toowoomba South & Shadow Attorney-General, who yesterday introduced a Bill to restore optional preferential voting in Queensland – 30 years after it was recommended in the wake of the Fitzgerald Report.

 

The Palaszczuk Labor Government disgracefully scrapped optional preferential voting (OPV) in April 2016 without any community consultation and after giving Parliament just 18 minutes' notice.

 

Shadow Attorney-General David Janetzki said his Voter's Choice Bill would restore the post-1992 voting system, which saw more than 60 per cent of voters regularly 'Vote 1' at state elections.

 

Mr Janetzki said the re-introduction of the CPV system saw the rate of informal voting more than double from 2.11% to 4.34% at the 2017 state election.

Professor James Harrison, AIHW’s National Injury Surveillance Unit based at Flinders University’s Research Centre for Injury Studies, joins Luke Grant to talk about a new report by the Australian Institute of Health & Welfare that shows the rate of head injuries from falls by older Australians has nearly doubled over the past decade.

 

The report, Trends in hospitalised injury due to falls in older people 2007–08 to 2016–17, shows that about 125,000 people aged 65 and over were seriously injured due to a fall in 2016–17. Injuries to the head (26%), hip and thigh (22%) were the most common.

 

‘Falls are common among older people and can result in fractures, head injuries, other serious injuries and even death,’ says Professor Harrison.

 

Rates of injuries to the head nearly doubled over the 10-year period to 2016–17 for both men and women.

Ian Henschke, Chief Advocate for National Seniors Australia, talks to Luke Grant after new figures show an urgent fix is needed on waiting lists for home care.

 

National Seniors Australia says the new figure of 120,000 older Australians waiting for a home care package, shows the situation is still in crisis and needs to be urgently addressed.

 

The figure was publicly released yesterday by the Department of Health and shows of those on the waiting list, most are waiting more than a year.

As the Royal Commission into Aged Care revealed, 16,000 older Australians died waiting for a home care package last year.

Listen to the full show podcast with Luke Grant filling in for Michael Mclaren

Leith Van Onselen, from Macrobusiness - the 'Unconventional Economist', about his article ‘Australia’s services “bogus” jobs boom

 

He writes ‘the types of services jobs that have been created are more about shifting wealth around the economy, rather than creating new wealth. These jobs typically rely on never-ending population growth, exhibit low productivity, are non-tradable, and are paid for to a large extent via taxation, asset sales and debt accumulation.’

Put simply, the Australian economy’s growth levers are not operating properly, and it has become overly reliant on government spending, ponzi growth, and ‘bullshit’ services jobs.

Luke Grant is joined by Bernard Carlon, Centre for Road Safety Executive Director, to discuss changes that will be made to the road rules following the completion of a trial requiring drivers to slow down to 40km/h when passing stationary emergency vehicles with flashing blue or red lights.

 

From September 26:

 

-      Drivers will no longer need to slow down to 40km/h on roads with speed limits of 90km/h or over.

 

-      Drivers will continue to be required to slow down to 40km/h on roads with speed limits of 80km/h or under.

 

-       The rule will be expanded to include tow trucks and breakdown assistance vehicles, which are displaying yellow flashing lights while stopped on the road.

 

These changes include the speed drivers need to slow down to in certain circumstances to avoid unsafe practices like hard braking.

On roads with speed limits of 90km/h or over drivers will need to:

-      Slow to a speed which is safe and reasonable for the circumstances;

-      Give sufficient space between their vehicle and the breakdown assistance or emergency vehicle and workers.

-      On multi-lane roads, drivers must change lanes to keep the lane next to the vehicle free if it is safe to do so.

Listen to the full show podcast with Luke Grant filling in for Michael Mclaren

Dr Keith Suter, Managing Director of the Global Directions Think Tank, joins Luke Grant to discuss US President Donald Trump’s response following a drone attack on a major Saudi Arabian oil facility which has cut into global energy supplies.

President Donald Trump on Sunday tweeted the United States was “locked and loaded” as his administration blames Iran for the attack which has effectively halved the kingdom’s oil production.

Luke Grant talks to Professor Henry Brodaty, Director of the Dementia Collaborative Research Centre & Co-Director of the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing at UNSW, about Dementia Action Week that launched yesterday.

The aim of the campaign is to encourage all Australians to become more aware of dementia, to get a better understanding of what it is like to live with dementia and to learn how we can support people of all ages, living with all forms of dementia, their families and carers.