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

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.


And we give shoutouts to our Extending the Reach and Cadre
supporters.  You can check out supporter options here
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