The IPA With Yo‪u‬ The Institute of Public Affairs

It’s been a long, tough road – but it looks like Australia’s coronavirus nightmare is finally coming to an end. The grotesque apparatus of state coercion that is Australia’s coronavirus response is being dismantled.
But while we may have some freedoms back, we have not been given justice. The villains who have done this to us still have their jobs and positions of power, as the victims rebuild their lives.
What can we learn from this terrible chapter in Australian and world history? And how can we prevent it from happening again?
We talk to Sanjeev Sabhlok - the former Victorian government official who resigned in protest over the coronavirus response - about his new book, The Great Hysteria and the Broken State.
Sanjeev’s important book is available for purchase here: https://www.connorcourtpublishing.com.au/The-Great-Hysteria-and-The-Broken-State--Sanjeev-Sabhlok_p_403.html

It turns out that people have become so terrified of the coronavirus, that they’ll live through absolutely anything, and then ask for more.
Recent elections in New Zealand and Queensland gave sweeping majorities to incumbent governments that campaigned hard on lockdowns and border closures. And increasingly, it looks like coronavirus panic has affected the US election result as well.
We talk to legendary freedom-fighter Daisy Cousens, who explains why we should still be optimistic despite the likely return to the hard-left Democrats to the White House.

After seven months, two lockdowns, 696,000 job losses, a $1.9 billion dollar decline in private sector wages, a 77 per cent rise in calls to Beyond Blue and 117 of those wretched press conferences, Melbourne is out of lockdown.
But this is not over. We are still in a ‘state of emergency’, and many businesses will struggle to turn a profit with punitive patronage limits.
We also talk to Sky News Melbourne Reporter Gabriella Power about the possibility that Victoria’s third-rate contact tracing system and why it may plunge us into a third lockdown.

We thought carefully about how to talk about the subject of today’s episode, but there is really no easy way to discuss it.
Four newborn babies have died in the last month, allegedly because coronavirus restrictions meant that they were unable to be airlifted from Adelaide to Melbourne for specialised medical treatment. This follows the death of an unborn child in August after the mother was prevented from travelling from northern NSW to a hospital in Brisbane.
What kind of a country have we become? Why have we allowed these awful tragedies to happen for the sake of ‘keeping us safe’?
We also speak to writer and political commentator Alexandra Marshall - from her vantage point in regional NSW - for an outsiders’ perspective on what you’re saying about Victoria’s endless lockdown.

Six weeks ago – when Dan released his convoluted, unworkable and unscientific ‘roadmap to reopening’, we said that it wouldn’t last. After suffering from not one but two failed lockdowns, we predicted that Victorians just wouldn’t stand for it and that Dan would either have to backflip on his ‘roadmap’, or he wouldn’t last long.
And sure enough, over the weekend he started to crabwalk away from his original plan, bringing forward the easing of restrictions. But once again, small business have been left out and hospo workers are still being unfairly punished.
Presumably, Dan was trying to distract from the ongoing controversy over hotel quarantine. It didn’t work.
We also speak to Nick Russian, a legend of the hospitality scene who is running for Lord Mayor to Bring Back Melbourne.

The Premier has been humiliated overnight with the shocking revelation that his cruel and extreme coronavirus restrictions aren’t based on ‘the best medical advice’ at all. No, we’re not talking about Dan this time, but Mark McGowan over in Western Australia. For over six months, McGowan has kept the gate into WA shut, claiming that’s what the ‘medical advice’ is telling him.
But the WA Premier was humiliated this week with the appearance of WA Chief Health Officer Andy Robertson before an inquiry of the state parliament. Robertson said that his advice has been to relax border restrictions – to allow for things like family reunions. He’s even floated the idea of scrapping quarantine requirements for people coming from states with no community transmission, saying that WA could open its border to almost every state in the country.
We speak to political commentator and patriotic West Australian Caro di Russo about the fallout from Robertson’s revelations, and why Mark McGowan has been allowed to get away with his cruel and unscientific border closure for so long.
And finally, we turn back to Victoria briefly with a recap of federal minister Alan Tudge’s takedown of Dan Andrews overnight.