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Speaker 1: Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Thursday,

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Speaker 1: the fifteenth of April. My name is Sam Kazlowski, and

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Speaker 1: helping me make sense of today's news is Zara Sidler.

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Speaker 1: Making news today a meeting with Britney Higgins.

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Speaker 2: Troops pulled from Afghanistan.

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Speaker 1: Some good news about Colorado, and.

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Speaker 2: A breakdown of what national Cabinet actually is. Here's today's

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Speaker 2: Daily Digest.

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Speaker 1: PM Scott Morrison has confirmed he will formally meet Britney

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Speaker 1: Higgins to discuss quote a range of issues. The announcement

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Speaker 1: of the meeting comes almost two months after Higgins came

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Speaker 1: forward alleging she was raped by a fellow ministerial advisor

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Speaker 1: in Parliament House. On Monday, Higgins announced a major book

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Speaker 1: deal that is set to tell her account of her

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Speaker 1: alleged rape in the office of Minister Linda Reynolds.

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Speaker 2: President Joe Biden has announced the US will remove all

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Speaker 2: remaining troops from Afghanistan on September eleventh, and yes, you

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Speaker 2: heard that date right. The initial deadline agreed to by

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Speaker 2: the Taliban and a Trumpet Minister draation was May one,

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Speaker 2: after the US committed to removing troops in exchange for

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Speaker 2: peace talks with the Afghan government and halts on Taliban attacks.

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Speaker 2: Biden recently hinted that the orderly removal of troops by

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Speaker 2: the May one deadline was proving difficult.

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Speaker 1: Queensland is set to lift COVID nineteen restrictions six hours

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Speaker 1: earlier than expected, after the state recorded almost two weeks

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Speaker 1: of zero community transmitted cases. These restrictions from six am

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Speaker 1: this morning include masks no longer being required to be

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Speaker 1: carried around visit, the restrictions on hospitals and aged care

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Speaker 1: facilities being lifted. Patrons are allowed to stand at restaurants

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Speaker 1: and bars. Vertical consumption and dancing at clubs and weddings

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Speaker 1: is also permitted.

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Speaker 2: Finally, to the good news, the US state of Colorado

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Speaker 2: is on track to grant a free mental health screening

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Speaker 2: and up to three free tongue twister therapy sessions for

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Speaker 2: all children to assist with the effects of the pandemic.

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Speaker 2: The proposed bill was introduced by both a Republican and

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Speaker 2: a Democrat, and it allocates nine million dollars to reimburse

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Speaker 2: the sessions. If passed, the program would run until June

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty two. So Sam got to speak about sport

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Speaker 2: on yesterday's podcast, and naturally that means that today I

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Speaker 2: get to talk about politics. So I thought that given

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Speaker 2: the fact that there is news about National Cabinet again

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Speaker 2: in the papers today, it might be a good time

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Speaker 2: to explain what National Cabinet actually is and what its

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Speaker 2: function is in Australian politics. So to start at the

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Speaker 2: very basics, national Cabinet is a decision making forum and

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Speaker 2: it's composed of the Prime Minister and all of the

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Speaker 2: leaders of the states and territories around Australia. So here

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Speaker 2: at the Daily Oz, we are interested in exposing our

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Speaker 2: audiences to the main political players and ideas. So I

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Speaker 2: want to just quickly rattle off everyone who attends those meetings.

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Speaker 2: So even the Prime Minister Scott Morrison. We've got Dan

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Speaker 2: Andrews from Victoria. We've got Gladys berygically In from New

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Speaker 2: South Wales, Anastasia Palache from Queensland, Andrew Barr from the ACT,

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Speaker 2: Mark McGowan from WA, Peter Gotwin from Tasmania, Michael Gutta

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Speaker 2: in the Northern Territory and Stephen Marshall from South Australia.

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Speaker 1: Bang, thank you.

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Speaker 2: But what you'll notice there is that there isn't any

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Speaker 2: of the opposition leaders, So we don't have Anthony Albanezi

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Speaker 2: representing the Labor Party at a federal level, and we

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Speaker 2: don't have the Liberal Party saved from Victoria the opposition

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Speaker 2: and at the beginning that was deemed controversial. When National

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Speaker 2: Cabinet was first set up in March of last year,

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Speaker 2: there were some people who thought that the opposition leader,

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Speaker 2: especially the federal opposition leader, should have a seat at

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Speaker 2: the table during this global crisis that never eventuated and

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Speaker 2: the original composition of the National Cabinet still stands.

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Speaker 1: So pre COVID times was there a national cabinet.

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Speaker 2: There was something like a National cabinet. It was called COAG,

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Speaker 2: but it certainly didn't meet as regularly as the National

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Speaker 2: Cabinet does meet now, and it didn't garner as much

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Speaker 2: media attention as a National Cabinet meeting would now, because

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Speaker 2: we're all hanging on for what is said for our country.

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Speaker 1: And is their plans to keep this national cabinet model

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Speaker 1: going after COVID it totally ends, yeah, one hundred percent.

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Speaker 2: So last year the Prime Minister announced that this system

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Speaker 2: would be moving forward permanently. So COAG is now done.

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Speaker 2: A national Cabinet is the structure that we go on

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Speaker 2: with forever, and it's not always COVID related. So one

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Speaker 2: of the last meetings, the participants at the National Cabinet

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Speaker 2: actually spoke about the Respect at Work Report, which we've

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Speaker 2: spoken about in another podcast, because there were some recommendations

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Speaker 2: that related to the states and territories as well as

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Speaker 2: the federal governments, so there was a role for all

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Speaker 2: of them to play and they accepted those recommendations at

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Speaker 2: the National Cabinet meeting.

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Speaker 1: I saw a headline in the news yesterday that the

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Speaker 1: National Cabinet are loving each other's company so much that

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Speaker 1: they're doubling their number of meetings. Can you tell me

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Speaker 1: a little bit more about why they've upped the frequency. Well,

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Speaker 1: that it's.

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Speaker 2: Actually not doubling the meetings because they were only meeting

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Speaker 2: at the beginning of the year once a month and

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Speaker 2: now it's going to be twice a week. And the

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Speaker 2: reason for that is because Scott Morrison wanted to convene

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Speaker 2: the National Cabinet more regularly to address Australia's vaccine rollout issues,

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Speaker 2: and with the issues around AstraZeneca are now delaying a

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Speaker 2: lot of the rollout, especially for young people in this country.

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Speaker 2: Scott Morrison's called on his state and territory counterparts to

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Speaker 2: try revise and devise a new plan.

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Speaker 1: Is anybody in opposition to an idea of a national cabinet?

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Speaker 1: Is there any downside? I don't think so.

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Speaker 2: I think that especially last year, it was really nice

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Speaker 2: to see our federation working as intended. We had state

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Speaker 2: premiers really standing up for their states, we had Chief

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Speaker 2: ministers standing up for their territories, and it meant that

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Speaker 2: there was a coordination between the states and the federal

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Speaker 2: government that we really just haven't seen in the past

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Speaker 2: with COAG because it was so infrequent. So I think

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Speaker 2: that this air of collaboration was really welcome at the

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Speaker 2: time and I don't see why that.

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Speaker 1: Would cause any issues moving forward.

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Speaker 2: That said, however, when Scott Morrison announced that National Cabinet

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Speaker 2: would be meeting twice a week for the specific reason

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Speaker 2: to discuss the vaccine role, some critics did think that

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Speaker 2: he was shifting blame to the state for something that

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Speaker 2: is inherently a federal responsibility.

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Speaker 1: Over the course of any given day. In the news,

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Speaker 1: we'll see a statement from Gladyspia Jiclian, We'll see a

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Speaker 1: statement from Anastasia Paliche and we'll see a statement from

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Speaker 1: Scott Morrison. And it's nice to know that our leaders

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Speaker 1: have a forum now to actually have these conversations face

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Speaker 1: to face. That's all we have time for today, but

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Speaker 1: in the meantime, follow the day's news on Instagram at

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Speaker 1: the Zalios. It's where over one hundred thousand Australians get

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Speaker 1: their news throughout the day and we would love you

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Speaker 1: to become part of the community.