Wake Up Australia

On the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Sydney 2000 Olympics Games, Michael is joined by Michael Knight AO, the former Minister for Olympics & Chair of the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG), to reminisce about some of the event’s iconic moments.

Sydney narrowly won the right to host the Games on 24 September 1993, after being selected over Beijing, Berlin, Istanbul and Manchester in four rounds of voting, at the 101st IOC Session in Monte Carlo, Monaco.

Despite a few mishaps, the preparations and the Games themselves went smoothly with the opening ceremony paying tribute to the Australian pastoral heritage of the Australian stockmen and the importance of the stock horse in Australia's heritage, and contributions of the Aboriginal peoples of the continent.

Nearly 11,000 athletes representing 199 IOC member countries (including 3 athletes from the United Nations dependency of East Timor) participated in the Games with several events being contested at the games for the first time in 2000, including men’s and women’s tae kwon do, trampoline, triathlon, and synchronized diving.

 

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Michael is joined by Andrew Fraser, NSW Nationals Chairman, regarding their feud with the Coalition over the proposed habitat protection of koalas.

The National Party say they want to see a thriving koala population in NSW, even a doubling of the population, but the proposed State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP) does not achieve this. It is a blunt instrument to make city-centric lawmakers feel good about themselves.

For six months the NSW Nationals have sought to work collaboratively with the Liberal Party to ensure the State Environmental Planning Policy Koala Habitat Protection, which has replaced the Koala Habitat Protection (SEPP44), does not take away farmers’ property rights.

The National Party brought forward a number of constructive and reasonable proposals but unfortunately the response from the Liberal Party suggests a lack of urgency and unwillingness to give ground on any substantive matters that greatly affect our regional communities.

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Michael speaks with Senator Kimberly Kitching, Senator for Victoria & Shadow Assistant Minister for Government Accountability, who is part of a global coalition of MPs from democratic nations condemning China's intimidation of two Australian journalists. 

For the first time since 1973 Australia has no correspondents in China after the departure, orchestrated by diplomats in Beijing and Shanghai, of the ABC's Bill Birtles and The Australian Financial Review's Mike Smith.

This follows the arrest of Australian citizen Cheng Lei last month who was employed by China's English-language state broadcaster CGTN as an anchor.

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Michael is joined by Dr Peter Hobbins, Medical Historian & Honorary Associate Department of History University of Sydney, regarding how the Spanish Flu outbreak of 1918 faded away without a vaccine being in existence.

The Spanish flu hit in four successive waves, lasting from February 1918 to mid-1920 and infected 500 million people, which was about a third of the world's population at the time.

The death toll was estimated to have been somewhere between 17 million and 50 million, making it one of the deadliest epidemics in human history wiping out entire families leaving countless widows and orphans in its wake.

Funeral parlours were overwhelmed leaving many people having to dig graves for their own family members.

The outbreak came to an end by April of 1920 as those infected either tragically died or developed immunity.

Since 1918, there have been several other influenza pandemics, although none as deadly. 

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Senator Rex Patrick, Senator for South Australia – Centre Alliance, regarding his call for the Australian Government to end the presence in Australia of Chinese state-controlled media organisations.

"Given the forced departure of last two Australian journalists from mainland China, the Australian Government should end the presence in Australia of the Chinese state-controlled Xinhua News Agency," Senator Patrick said. 

"If Australian journalists can no longer safely report from China, then it appears quite inappropriate for Australia to tolerate the Chinese Communist Party’s leading propaganda outlet having a presence here."

The Xinhua News Agency was first allowed to post representatives to Australia in 1973 on the basis of an agreement for reciprocal Australian media representation in China. Xinhau is a state news agency that operates in accordance with the Chinese Communist Party propaganda directives. It is described as ‘the eyes and tongue of the Party’. 

There have been numerous cases worldwide of Xinhau offices providing cover for Chinese state-controlled espionage and political interference activities.

"In the current circumstances it is inappropriate to allow Xinhau to maintain a presence in Australia and the Australian Government should take the necessary action to bring is operations here to a halt," Senator Patrick said.  

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John Quiggin, Professor in Economics at The University of Queensland & author, joines Michael to discuss whether working from home during COVID has given us the biggest productivity increase of the century.

Professor Quiggin writes, ‘one of the most striking responses to the COVID-19 pandemic has been the sudden shift of around half the workforce to working at home.’

‘In many cases, this was combined with an equally sudden shift to home schooling.’

‘Contrary to what might have been expected, working from home was one part of the pandemic response that went remarkably smoothly. Most kinds of office work continued almost as if nothing had changed.’

Read Professor Quiggin’s full article here.

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