LISTEN: $65 Million To Pay Journalists, A $137 Million Phone Alarm & The Government Waste Jeremy Cordeaux Can't Believe | Court of Public Opinion

Jeremy Cordeaux is in a freezing garage with Pete and Gary, saluting Australia's gold-medal-winning Commonwealth Games team — and Gina Rinehart's $20,000 reward for every gold, which Jeremy holds up as proof that reward and incentive really work. From there it's a forensic tour of government waste: the little-known Journalism Assistance Fund tipping more than $65 million of taxpayers' money into media organisations (up to $7.5 million per applicant), the $137 million emergency phone-alarm test, and the Bureau of Meteorology's $100 million website. His question throughout: what does the taxpayer actually get?

He also skewers a sign-language interpreter relaying a phone-alarm warning to deaf viewers, the $4.2 million paid for a South Pacific luxury "rest stop" for COP delegates en route to Turkey with Chris Bowen, and the $20 Kmart "mouse mover" giving work-from-home staff an instant alibi. Plus Victoria's political chaos and whether Jacinta Allan can survive, the week's inflation and interest-rate watch, a listener's provocative note on the history of Christian nations that became Islamic, and a wander through this day in history — from Route 66's centenary to Henry VIII's fifth wedding and the 32-day marriage that may be a record.

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