Disaster artists (feat. Ben McLeay of Boonta Vista)

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.