Wake Up Australia

Senator Jim Molan AO, Liberal Senator for NSW & Former Australian Army Major General - Chief of Operations, Coalition Forces, Iraq, joins Michael to discuss Australia’s lack of self-reliance and what it means for our families, households and for our nation.

 

Senator Molan has written recently about the need for Australia to defend our sovereignty, meaning our ability to act in our own interests as a nation. He says unless we have an appropriate level of self-reliance, we cannot act in our own interests.

 

Over the last 75 years, market forces have structured our nation to become very efficient in the use of manufactured goods and products from overseas. Because our domestic market is so small, big nations or big industries overseas can produce most things much cheaper than Australia can, so logically we import much and enjoy lower prices.

 

To pay for our imports and to sustain our high standard of living, we export massive amounts of natural resources and services such as education.

 

COVID has made us very aware of Australia’s vulnerability to an interruption to our ability to import and export. COVID has turned many nations away from an international focus to an internal focus on their own needs, not that of their neighbours.

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Michael speaks to Mark Morey, Secretary of Unions NSW, who addresses Gladys Berejiklian’s claim that we are not “good” at building trains in NSW suggests we are missing a great opportunity to bring manufacturing home post-pandemic.

Last week the Premier asserted that “Australia and New South Wales are not good at building trains, that’s why we have to purchase them.”

Mr Morey says, ‘this glib dismissal can’t go ­unchecked, especially when one-fifth of young people in Sydney’s southwest are now jobless.’

‘Does the Premier think there’s something in our collective psyche that prevents us building trains? Are we scared of manual labour? Or is it something to do with Australian weather patterns?’

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Scott Emerson, host of the 4BC Drive show in Brisbane & former Minister for Transport & Main Roads Minister in the Newman Ministry, joins Michael to discuss his SMH opinion piece regarding the Queensland government employing one rule for the AFL & celebrities and another for medical emergencies.

Mr Emerson writes, ‘It underlines the often bizarre nature of this year of COVID-19 that my state of Queensland will host the AFL grand final in October while this traditional rugby league state is repeatedly rebuffed by the NRL in its bid to stage the biggest match of the league season.’

‘But it was perverse, rather than bizarre, to witness a legion of 400 Aussie Rules officials and their families fly into the Sunshine State this week and ensconce themselves in the AFL hub on the Gold Coast.  

‘Perverse because it followed a series of heartbreaking medical emergencies south of the Tweed where patients abandoned their attempts to cross the border to use Queensland hospitals.’

You can read Scott Emerson’s full article here.

 

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Michael is joined by Adam Creighton, Economics Editor with The Australian & Co-Host Sky News Business Weekend, who writes that even though Australia is technically in a recession, the pain won’t be felt for many months yet.

‘If there's a silver lining to the recession, it's that we don't have to hear the self-congratulatory BS about "29 years of uninterrupted growth" ever again. We had at least three per capita recessions during that period, which is what matters for living standards.’

‘While the economy tanked 7%, household income actually Rose 2.2% during the second quarter, suggesting we might have gone a little overboard on stimulus. And unincorporated businesses enjoyed a 22% earnings bump!’, says Mr Creighton.

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Listen to the full show podcast with Michael McLaren. 

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Listen to the full show podcast with Michael McLaren. 

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Anita Dessaix, Director of Cancer Prevention and Advocacy at Cancer Council NSW, joins Michael on the anniversary of tobacco advertising being banned on Australian radio and television in 1976.

Smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death and disease in NSW and the biggest contributing risk factor to lung cancer.

Each year in NSW, about 46,000 people are hospitalised and more than 5,000 people die as a result of smoking with lung cancer being responsible for one in five cancer deaths.

“Quitting reduces your risk of lung cancer, heart attack and stroke and best of all, the risk continues to decrease the longer you’ve stayed quit,” Ms Dessaix

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Listen to the full show podcast with Michael McLaren. 

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