Listen to the full show podcast with Michael Mclaren

Listen to the full show podcast with Michael Mclaren

Dr Ian Wright, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Science, Western Sydney University, joins Michael regarding yesterday’s announcement that there will be a major overhaul of water bills, which will reduce service charges but increases the rate each family pays per litre of water used in a move to encourage water conservation.

 

The plan is expected to see the average water bill drop by $80 from July 1, but will see prices rise when dam levels fall during drought conditions.

Listen to the full show podcast with Michael McLaren.

Michael is joined by James Paterson, Liberal Senator for Victoria & Chair of Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations & Financial Services, who warns Australia's big banks against backing new Chinese national security legislation aimed at stamping out dissent in Hong Kong in order to keep their licences in the financial hub.

ANZ, National Australia Bank, the Commonwealth Bank, Westpac and Macquarie all have a presence in Hong Kong, which is still on the throws of unrest over Beijing's clampdown on pro-democracy protesters.

Senator Paterson has previously been highly critical of the Chinese Communist Party.  He says Australian companies should be very wary about succumbing to pressure to back Beijing's push into the global financial hub.

"They risk serious brand damage at home if they do so," he said. "And once they start on that slippery slope they might find it hard to get off it.”

Listen to the full show podcast with Michael McLaren.

Michael is joined by U.K. columnist Brendan O’Neill, Editor of spiked and host of the spiked podcast, who writes that Britain is in the throes of a Cultural Revolution as statues are being tumbled, past art erased & people cancelled.

‘When a statue can’t be toppled, it is abused. Churchill’s monument in Westminster was spray-painted with the word ‘racist’. Even Abraham Lincoln, who fought a war to end slavery, did not escape the mob’s graffiti. Well, he’s a white man, thus evil.’

‘In Leeds, the statue of Queen Victoria was defaced, including with the spraying of pink paint on her breasts and crotch, bringing to mind the extra element of sexual humiliation – hair-cutting, the confiscation of clothes – that China’s Red Guards would visit upon women who dared to possess incorrect thoughts.’

‘How did this happen so fast? How did protests over the police killing of a black man in Minneapolis become a PC war on statues, street names, art and people judged to be suffering from wrongthink?’

Michael is joined by Peter Hartcher, Political and international editor for The Sydney Morning Herald, who notes that ‘Australia is about to mark the 20th anniversary of its last major tax overhaul, the last one to actually survive. It was the July 1, 2000, introduction of the tax reform package best remembered by its most controversial feature – the GST.’

‘Yet only two weeks after Scott Morrison’s speech to the press club, Finance Minister, Mathias Cormann, seemed to be arguing against major change.’

‘When asked why Treasurer Josh Frydenberg hadn't raised the question of the GST in talks with his state counterparts, Cormann told Kieran Gilbert on Sky News: "We are focused on lower taxes. We are focused on lowering the tax burden in the economy, not increasing it."’

‘In just 20 words, Cormann had set up a straw man, a distracting fake argument.’

Listen to the full show podcast with Michael Mclaren

Michael is joined by Senator Raff Ciccone, Labor Senator for Victoria, who in his speech to Federal Parliament Wednesday night has called for Australia to diversify its export markets away from China with the aim to prevent the trade relationship being used as "a weapon to secure our silence against injustice". 

 

In the wake of Beijing's move to impose a new national security law on Hong Kong, the Senator also has urged the Australian government to accept Hong Kong residents as refugees if they face persecution under the new laws.