Episode 71: Morrison rambles while states make COVID moves, aged care calls for military help, NDIS being left behind in vaccine race and good news about Australian birds

"The Week on Wednesday" with Van Badham & Ben Davison

Van Badham and Ben Davison breakdown the COVID updates in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia while diving into the long rambling list of activities that Scott Morrison's tried to pass off as being Prime Ministerial at his latest press conference.

With RATs being stolen, hospitals overwhelmed and death rates spiking Morrison used up an hour of live TV to announce a visa fee waver for international students and backpackers along with a grant for his former employer, Tourism Australia, in what amounts to just another piece of minor tinkering on his failed "workforce" management policies.

Supermarket shelves are bare, hundreds of thousands of people are sick and exposed to COVID and the Morrison government is talking about changing the rules that keep workplaces safe and bringing in more temporary visa holders as solutions. Australian Unions leader Sally McManus, on the back of stopping a corporate meat-works forcing hundreds of COVID infected workers to process meat alongside healthy workers, has said it will "strongly oppose" moves against "worker's health and safety" while the migrant workers centre has said that "temporary visa holders aren't an expendable last resort workforce".

You can join your union at australianunions.org.au/wow

In aged care the situation has become so desperate that the ACTU, Australian Nurses & Midwives Federation (ANMF), Health Services Union (HSU), United Workers Union (UWU), Australian Workers Union (AWU), Aged and Community Services Australia and Leading Aged Services Australia have requested military support to keep aged care facilities operational. The rare joint request from workers and employers was effectively dismissed by Morrison during the press conference without direct reference but with a curt "there aren't magic workforces".

Australian's living with a disability and on the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) are being left behind in the race to be vaccinated with the supposed priority group well below nationwide vaccine and booster rates. The rollout, described by the Disability Royal Commission in October as "seriously deficient", has been called a "roll call of failure by the Morrison government" by NDIS shadow minister Bill Shorten following damning evidence that booster levels are roughly half what has been provided to the general public.

Plus there is good news about Australian birds and the release of an ARIA Top 5 album of endangered bird songs called "Songs of Disappearance" which is raising money to support repopulation and conservation.

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