Michael talks to Professor Dudley Kingsnorth, Curtin University Head of Critical Materials Initiative and world authority on the rare earths market & rare earths project development, who says it’s possible that Australia could build a $100 billion industry in mining, processing & manufacturing with our ‘rare earths’.

Rare earths are a group of 17 minerals vital for electronics… anything from windfarms to vacuum cleaners, mobile phones to fighter jets for which China currently holds about 40% of the world's reserves but controls about 90% of production.

Listen to Wake Up Australia with Michael McLaren, the Full Show Podcast here.

Michael is joined by Kelvin Thomson, former Federal Member for Wills now advisor for Sustainable Australia Party’s Clifford Hayes to discuss the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that Australia’s population growth treadmill is speeding up.

Figures released Friday for the end of December 2018 show that in 2018 Australia’s population increased by over 400,000 to pass 25 million.

Net migration contributed around 250,000 of this increase while natural increase (births minus deaths) contributed around 150,000 of this figure.

Michael is joined by Yvonne Bonomo, physician in addiction medicine & adolescent medicine - St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne and lead researcher of a new national study that says alcohol causes the most overall harm to the Australian community.  This surpasses crystal methamphetamine (ice) and heroin.

The Australia-first study, funded by St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne, examined 22 drugs and measured the risk to an individual and the damage to society as a whole.

Cambodian migrant brothers, Ryan & Chan Khun have taken out the prestigious title for the second year in a row and this time it's a caramelised pork filling that has excited the judges.

Listen to Wake Up Australia with Michael McLaren, the Full Show Podcast here.

Listen to Wake Up Australia with Michael McLaren, the Full Show Podcast here.

With young people now being advised to avoid buying newly-built apartments, Michael McLaren spoke with John Higgins, the agent who initially sold most of the Mascot Towers apartments in 2006.

Following the mass protest in Hong Kong, Western governments have largely remained silent in defending Hong Kong's inherited freedoms. Michael asks James Morrow, the opinion editor at the Daily Telegraph whether our economic reliance on Beijing is forcing us to bite our tongue?

Stephen Goddard joins Michael Mclaren on Mounting problems with Sydney high rise apartment blocks.