Luke Grants speaks with Edward O’Donohue, Victorian Shadow Attorney-General, who is calling for more inquiry hearings to get to the truth behind Melbourne’s bungled hotel quarantine.

 

“With the loss of more than 750 lives, tens of thousands of jobs and countless small businesses, the hotel quarantine inquiry must get to the bottom of the conflict of evidence between Daniel Andrews and Jenny Mikakos”, says Mr O’Donohue.

 

“The dumping of thousands of additional pages of documents by the Andrews Labor Government to the hotel quarantine inquiry after public hearings had concluded is sneaky, disrespectful and smacks of a government with something to hide.”

 

“The work of the Board of inquiry cannot be finished until the truth about these central issues is resolved. Suffering Victorians deserve nothing less.”

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Luke Grants talks to Rachel Baxendale, Victorian political report for The Australian, about her recent article about the Victorian worker who became infected with coronavirus while working in hotel quarantine that was allowed to simultaneously work shifts in an aged-care centre at the height of Victoria’s second wave. 

 

Ms Baxendale writes, ‘The incident occurred at a time when the Andrews government was shutting down entire industries and making it illegal for hundreds of thousands of Victorians to attend work in a bid to suppress the spread of the virus, which was out of control as a result of breaches three months earlier in the hotel quarantine program.’

 

This occurred because the government “can’t reduce” worker movement “to zero”, ­according to Premier Daniel Andrews.

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Michael is joined by Steven Wardill, State Affairs Editor for The Courier-Mail/Sunday Mail, one month out from the Queensland election.

 

The official campaign may still be a week away, but the major parties have already begun making major promises with Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington unveiling a $33 billion, 15-year plan to upgrade the entire length of the Bruce Highway into a modern four-lane road.

 

 

This was followed by Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s announcement that from July 1 this year the State Government had begun the process of hiring an additional 2025 police officers over five years.

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Chris Uhlmann, Nine News Political Editor, joins Michael to discuss Liberal Senator Claire Chandler’s fighting an anti-discrimination complaint for suggesting that only biological females should access women’s sports and toilets.

 

Mr Uhlmann writes, ‘On July 17 she (Senator Chandler) wrongspoke in the pages of The Mercury: “You don’t have to be a bigot to recognise the differences between the male and female sexes and understand why women’s sports, single-sex change rooms and toilets are important.”’

 

‘This elicited a response from an unnamed Hobart man who emailed the senator confronting her crimethink. The senator doubled down: “I do understand the difference between sex and gender. That’s why I’ve made the point in my article that women’s toilets and women’s change rooms are designed for people of the female sex (women) and should remain that way.”’

 

‘The article and email were referred by the constituent as a complaint to Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination Commissioner Sarah Bolt.  Ms Bolt then wrote to Senator Chandler, noting that the complainant was not a member of the trans-community and dismissing the argument that the article had offended the law.’

 

But Ms Bolt determined the complaint about the email had merit. She found, “a reasonable person is likely to anticipate that a person who is a member of the LGBTIQ+ and gender diverse community would be humiliated, intimidated, offended and insulted”.’

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