55 — Disaster artists (feat. Ben McLeay of Boonta Vista)

We're joined by Ben McLeay of the Boonta Vista podcast to talk about the Government's favorite hobby of packing emissions bodies with fossil fuel ghouls, Australian lawyer Greg Sheppard and his terrible children, and hungry ghost Scott Morrison.

 

Goodish news
46 of the 60 refugees who were in Australia were held for up to 8 years in the Bell, nee Park Mantra hotel prisons have been released.
14 of the refugees have been kept in the hotels, for no apparent reason.
Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton says it was cheaper for people to be in the community.
There’s a rally at 2pm on Jan 30th for the refugees at the Park Hotel.
The day after the release of the refugees, the United Nations royally roasted Australia for our treatment of refugees and indigenous Australians.

Packing the committees
The Government has been quietly stacking the Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee with fossil-fuel dudes.
David Byers is the author of such articles as “Our fixation on renewables narrows the options”.
Also on the board is Dr Brian Fisher, climate-change denier and author of multiple reports incorrectly saying that fighting climate change is too expensive to combat (PDF link).
This follows long history of the Liberal party stacking committees to force carbon capture and hydrogen into clean energy plans.
Andrew Forrest wants to launder fossil fuels fuels launder fossil fuels via hydrogen, but he’s an idiot.

Geronimo Bay
Australian Lawyer Greg Sheppard has been arrested in Papua New Guinea for stealing $98 million from a public trust destined for villagers affected by the Ok Tedi mine in Western PNG.
Sheppard acted as “Local Director” for Wilson Security, which ran the Australian Manus Island refugee detention center.
Under his oversight, guards tortured and cable-tied detainees to chairs, oversaw the death of Iranian Hamid Kehazaei from septicemia, and the sexual harassment of a disabled detainee.
In a 2015 SBS Dateline report Greg Sheppard was caught on camera explaining how to launder bribes to government officials.
Greg’s children have a band, who are “catchy as asian flu”, according to their father.
The in this 2014 puff piece, the band claim that their parents poured their life savings into funding them, as does their dad.

Mitch’s sports corner
Scott Morrison reckons Australia Day is “It’s all about acknowledging how far we’ve come…particularly flash day for the people on those vessels either.”
Cricket Australia has decided to remove references to the term “Australia Day” from their Jan 26 Big Bash League promotions.
This decision was reached after consultation with their Indigenous advisory committee.
The Australia day ads fuckin suck. As does the Australia Day Committee.
Scott Morrison thinks Cricket Australia’s decision is “pretty ordinary”.
During the 2019-20 bushfires, Scott Morrison tried to use the cricket as a distraction from the government’s confused response.
Shoutout to cricketer Dan Christian, who told Scott Morrison to “Read the room”.

Actions
Hospo Voice have a wage tracker app, called Mobilise. It helps track your wages and make sure you’re being paid correctly.
If you got a Robodebt Class Action settlement, you can object to it.