Wake Up Australia

Listen to the full show podcast with Michael McLaren.

Listen to the full show podcast with Michael McLaren.

Michael is joined by Geoff Bennett, owner of Foodland – Norfolk Island’s largest supermarket, which is facing a real food and supply crisis due to significant cuts to shipping services.

With no cargo ship since December, and a 50% reduction in the cargo ships scheduled to service Norfolk Island in 2020, major supply shortages right across Norfolk Island’s economy has already occurred which is having a serious and growing negative impact on every business and every individual on Norfolk Island. 

Mr Bennett warns that the worst is yet to come. 

With grossly insufficient shipping capacity ahead, he says that their government must act now to prevent this crisis developing further.

Listen to the full show podcast with Michael Mclaren

Michael is joined by Bernard Salt, Managing Director of The Demographics Group and columnist with The Australian & Herald Sun newspapers, who writes that in the old days – prior to the 1980s, celebrities knew their place; their job was to look pretty, to exude wit and/or charm, to dress glamorously and to attract fans.

 

But today’s celebrities have extended this brief to include the opportunistic promotion of a popular cause.

 

And with the awards industry flourishing, there are any number of platforms that enable today’s celebrities to pout, preen and pose on a red carpet just as they have always done, but with the added opportunity of offering “spontaneous” advice to the non-celebrity world about their pet subject.

 

Climate change is a favourite.  Never mind that the celebrity lifestyle involves private jets, multiple homes and a range of egregious consumption sins committed against the environment.

Listen to the full show podcast with Michael Mclaren

Marie Wynan, Director of the Wombat Protection Society of Australia & founder of Jarake Wildlife Sanctuary, joins Michael to discuss whether this week’s reported culling of southern hairy-nosed wombats on the Yorke Peninsula possibly be avoided.

 

Under SA regulations, the department said, landholders can apply for a permit to destroy native wildlife “where those animals are damaging, or are likely to damage, the environment, crops, stock, property or environmental amenity, or are posing a safety risk or hazard to people or industry”.

Listen to the full show podcast with Michael Mclaren

Cory Bernardi, former Senator for South Australia, joins Michael to talk about the

controversial ban on cash transactions of more than $10,000.

 

The policy, first announced in the Turnbull government's 2018 Budget, has created major headaches for the government from within its party room who believe it departs from the party's free-market values and is also an invasion of privacy.

Michael is joined by Robert Gottliebsen, business columnist with The Australian, to discuss his latest article that re-examines Australia’s submarine project and what must be done for the nation.

 

Mr Gottliebsen writes, ‘Coronavirus has reminded Australia that we are a remote island nation and we require a degree of self-reliance. It’s vital for defence.’

 

‘Prime Minister Scott Morrison in backing our $80 to $100bn submarine building project has effectively locked in the nation. It will be very hard for the 2022 government to cancel the 12 vessel contract.’

 

‘And so, in a strange and ironic way, the actions of Scott Morrison and Malcolm Turnbull in the submarine project are akin to Ben Chifley starting Holden manufacturing.’