Oliver Twist is a very funny and intelligent up-and-coming Australian comedian. He was born in Rwanda, grew up in a refugee camp in Malawi and has lived in Australia since 2014.

I was planning on taking a week off the podcast this week, but in the midst of everything that’s happening right now, Oliver reached out and we decided to record this honest conversation about his relationship to the police, race, class, Black Lives Matter and what meaningful action looks like.

There are even a few laffs in there too.

CAUSE OF THE WEEK: blacklivesmatter.caard.co

Here are practical ways you can support Aboriginal Lives Matter

@oliveretwist

Oliver’s instagram

ARTICLE: Australia must stop turning a blind eye to our own black deaths

ARTICLE: Victoria Police denounces ‘inappropriate’ memes posted to social account by officer accused of making white power gesture

ARTICLE: How did #BlackOutTuesday Go So Wrong So Fast? 

ARTICLE: Why the media are to blame for racialising Melbourne’s African gang problem

VIDEO: Trevor Noah’s reflections on the riots in the US and the breakdown of the social contract

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Mark Seymour is one of the best singer-songwriters Australia has ever produced. He’s the former frontman of Hunters & Collectors and now writes and performs with Mark Seymour & The Undertow. The new Undertow record is called Slow Dawn and comes out today.

Mark has regularly been outspoken about his politics through his music and public appearances, particularly when it comes to Australia’s refugee policies. Here he tells me about how he approaches tackling social issues in his music (without being sanctimonious), why he’s left-wing, wearing an “Asylum Seeker” t-shirt at the AFL Grand Final, his experiences in South Africa and how the tides of history weigh on us all today.

I’m going to take a break from the pod next week: chat soon.

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You can see me on Stan Australia’s Australia Lockdown Comedy Festival – all episodes are streaming now

@_MarkSeymour

markseymour.com.au

Mark on Facebook

Slow Dawn on Apple Music

Hunters & Collectors at the 2013 AFL Grand Final

Cause of the Week: The Frankston Life Church (frankston.life)

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Tim Wilson is the Liberal MP for the Victorian seat of Goldstein and the Chair of the House Economics Committee. He last joined me on the podcast back in July 2015.

I wanted to talk to Tim about how he’s found dealing with the COVID-19 crisis as a local member and his thoughts on the Morrison’s government’s economic response thus far as a well as a bit old-fashioned ideological argy bargy. We discuss the JobKeeper and JobSeeker payments, neoliberalism, government debt and why being a democratic socialist makes me an evil idiot.

If you’ve got the means please support this show by becoming a Patron

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You can see me on Stan Australia’s Australia Lockdown Comedy Festival – all episodes are streaming now

@TimWilsonMP

timwilsonmp.com.au

ARTICLE: Scott Morrison takes aim at Australia’s industrial relations system, reaches out to business and unions

ARTICLE: Tim Wilson: Freedom fighter by Tim Elliott

Cause of the Week: Bayside Community Information & Support Service Inc (bayciss.org.au) 

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Rick Morton is an award-winning journalist and writer. He reported on Social Affairs for The Australian for years and is now the Senior Reporter for The Saturday Paper. His memoir 100 Years Of Dirt – about surviving his poverty- and trauma-ridden childhood – has been a critical and commercial success.

Here I ask Rick about issues he’s been writing about of late – the conspiracy theories that have thrived amid COVID-19 and the new aged-care “Uber app” that’s been given a multi-million dollar government contract – as well as his broader approach to journalism, the realities of poverty, how class works in Australia and the privatisation of the welfare state.

If you’ve got the means please support this show by becoming a Patron

Join the LIASYO Facebook group here please and thank you

You can see me on Stan Australia’s Australia Lockdown Comedy Festival – all episodes are streaming now

@SquigglyRick

rickmorton.com.au

Rick’s writing for The Saturday Paper

ARTICLE: How COVID-19 energised conspiracy theorists

ARTICLE: A fraction too much friction (on Scott Morrison’s approach to the truth) 

ARTICLE: Exclusive: Gov’s $5.8m aged-care app offers ‘no duty of care’

Rick’s articles for The Australian

Rick’s speech The Power of Money

ARTICLE: Rick Morton found writing his memoir painful enough. Then he had to read it aloud

Cause of the Week: Brotherhood of St. Laurence (bsl.org.au)

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Rachel Siewert has been a Greens Senator for WA since 2005. She’s the whip for the Greens in the Senate and her portfolios include First Nations Affairs, Family, Ageing and Community Services, Gambling and Mental Health. She recently chaired a Senate Committee into the adequacy of the Newstart/JobSeeker payment and has been fighting hard for the government to #RetainTheRate after the COVID crisis has passed.

In this conversation, Rachel explains how her politics are founded on concern for both people and the planet, the realities of our punitive welfare system, just how shitty JobSeeker is and why the Greens’ “Invest To Recover” policy proposal – including a jobs, income and education guarantee – is the kind of bold response Australia needs right now.

If you’ve got the means please support this show by becoming a Patron

Join the LIASYO Facebook group here please and thank you

You can see me on Stan Australia’s Australia Lockdown Comedy Festival – episode one is streaming right now!

@SenatorSiewert

rachel-siewert.greensmps.org.au

RN INTERVIEW: Are welfare payments entrenching Australians in poverty and unemployment? 

SENATE COMMITTEE REPORT: Adequacy of Newstart and related payments and alternative mechanisms to determine the level of income support payments in Australia

The Greens’ “Invest To Recover” Plan

ARTICLE: Greens demand job guarantees and free education for young people in coronavirus recovery plan

The Australian Unemployed Workers Union

ARTICLE: Adam Bandt, the personable hardliner by Margaret Simons

Cause of the Week: The Australian Greens (greens.org.au)

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Dave Anthony is a stand up comedian, writer, activist and co-host of the history comedy podcast The Dollop. In May 2016 he correctly predicted that Hillary Clinton was going to lose to Trump in the presidential election. So yeah – he knows stuff.

Dave joined me from LA in the GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD to talk about the death of American empire, what he’s learned from history, his journey to socialism, the right-wing Democratic Party and why Joe Biden is really really bad. We laugh and also talk about the end of hope.

If you’ve got the means please support this show by becoming a Patron

Join the LIASYO Facebook group here please and thank you

You can see me on Stan Australia’s Australia Lockdown Comedy Festival – episode one is streaming right now!

I’ll be performing comedy to an empty room this Saturday night for Delivered Live and you can stream it if you like

@daveanthony

daveanthonycomedy.com

dolloppodcast.com

The Dollop episode on the Clarence Thomas hearings

A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn

ARTICLE: Biden And Sanders Announce Task Forces To Find Party Unity Over Policy

Cause of the Week: Extinction Rebellion (rebellion.earth)

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Jon Kudelka is a Walkley Award-winning political cartoonist who’s been drawing for over 20 years. He drew thousands of cartoons for The Australian until 2019 and his work now regularly appears in The Hobart Mercury and The Saturday Paper.

Jon kindly joined me from Tasmania via Zoom to reflect on his journey to cartooning, the (minimal) influence that satire has on things, what he learnt from John Clarke, the deterioration and stasis of Australian politics, punching down, how compromised the ALP has become and how COVID-19 might wake people up to shitty free-market ideology.

Here’s some of his work that we touch on in our conversation:

If you’ve got the means please support this show by becoming a Patron

Join the LIASYO Facebook group here please and thank you

You can see me on Stan Australia’s Australia Lockdown Comedy Festival – episode one is streaming right now!

THIS THURSDAY NIGHT I’m hosting this bingo night via Zoom to raise money for the Inner City Legal Centre which do great work for LGBTQIA+ folks

@jonkudelka

kudelka.com.au

Jon’s instagram

Jon’s cartoons for The Saturday Paper

Jon’s cartoons for The Australian

ARTICLE: Data company that “helped locate Osama Bin Laden” recruits former Labor MP Mike Kelly

Cause of the Week: StreetSmart Australia (streetsmartaustralia.org) 

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Celeste Liddle is an Arrente woman, a trade unionist and Leftist who’s written for Eureka Street, The Guardian and SBS.

Celeste Zoom’ed me from her couch to discuss how the COVID-19 crisis is affecting First Nations people, over-policing and deaths in custody, culture warring about Captain Cook and the “Indigenous alt-right”.

If you’ve got the means please support this show by becoming a Patron

Join the LIASYO Facebook group here please and thank you

Ads-Up are doing great work helping out refugees from Nauru and Manus Island who have been resettled in the US and are struggling during COVID-19

You can see me on Stan Australia’s Australia Lockdown Comedy Festival from this Saturday

@Utopiana

Celeste’s blog Black Feminist Ranter

ARTICLE: Vulnerable Indigenous man jailed over locked up by police in ‘string of errors’ during coronavirus pandemic (ABC)

ARTICLE: Tanya Day inquest: coroner refers death in custody of Aboriginal woman for possible protection (Guardian Australia) 

ARTICLE: Social responsibility means care for all of the vulnerable by Celeste Liddle

ARTICLE: Why the term “Australian” can be an imposition on Aboriginal people by Celeste Liddle 

ARTICLE: Cook wanted to introduce British justice to Indigenous people. Instead, he became increasingly cruel and violent by Shino Konishi

endeavour250.gov.au 

Cause of the Week: Djirra (djirra.org.au)

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Adam Creighton is the Economics Editor for The Australian and has written for The Economist and The Wall Street Journal. For the past couple of months he’s been highly critical of the Australian government’s economic response to the COVID-19 pandemic and has called for the immediate easing of restrictions.

I asked Adam to sketch out his critique of the response and his concerns about its economic impact, as well as discussing the Swedish, economic “trade-offs”, the “statistical value of life” (it’s $4.4m, apparently), the joys of tax and what kind of changes he does (and doesn’t) want to see once the pandemic passes.

If you’ve got the means please support this show by becoming a Patron

Join the LIASYO Facebook group here please and thank you

I’m hosting QUEER LOVE IN for Equality Australia this Saturday at 3pm, featuring an amazing line up of LGBTIQA+ artists. It will be great fun, please join us

Please support Alex Makes Meals if you can: he’s providing free meals for healthcare workers! What a cool guy! 

@Adam_Creighton

Adam’s writing for The Australian

ARTICLE: Under 60, in good health? Crossing the road is more risky

ARTICLE: Let’s hope the economic train crash is worth it

ARTICLE: We may be over-reacting to an unremarkable coronavirus

ARTICLE: Coronavirus: Total shutdown may be too high a price

ARTICLE: New Zealand claims it has eliminated coronavirus

Cause of the Week: Alcoholics Anonymous (aa.org.au)

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Mark Humphries is a comedian who regularly makes satirical sketches for the ABC’s 7:30 along with Evan Williams. He always makes me laugh and I’ve been lucky enough to become friends with him over the past few years.

Mark joined me via Zoom from deep in the heart of the ABC to discuss his politics, his (haphazard) journey into comedy (featuring some stories involving ME!!!), Mark Latham and the state of Australian right-wing media craziness and the limits of satirising it. We had a good ol’ giggle and we barely talked about coronavirus at all.

If you’ve got the means please support this show by becoming a Patron

Join the LIASYO Facebook group here please and thank you

Please support Alex Makes Meals if you can: he’s providing free meals for healthcare workers! What a cool guy! 

My discussion with Refugee Legal Executive Director David Manne about the challenges people seeking asylum face in COVID-19 – please support them at refugeelegal.org.au

@markhumphries

Mark’s twitter account about musical theatre is @MarksMusicals

Mark’s satire for 7:30

His sketch on The Greta Thunberg Helpline

Mark on The Roast

VIDEO: Bogan Train Trip Girl Australia

Cause of the Week: Multiple Sclerosis Research Australia (msra.org.au)

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