Weekend Wrap 3 December 2023: Employment services reforms, the grind of government and the media circus

"The Week on Wednesday" with Van Badham & Ben Davison

Ben Davison returns to take a look at a week in parliament that saw the Closing Loopholes bill pass the lower house, the greens and coalition team up to block the new shared home equity scheme, the mess that Labor is trying to clean up from Dutton's unlawful immigration detention scheme and Julian Hill's inquiry into Employment services.

The Employment services inquiry has found a huge amount of waste, an ideological system that punishes people and fails to actually help people get work.

Ben takes a look at the report, Van Badham's latest Guardian article on the topic and the insights of Per Capita CEO Emma Dawson as the Labor government considers changes that Dutton's Coalition has already said they will oppose.

The Labor government's reform agenda is starting to face multiple fronts of inertia, vested interest and a media more interested in a fight and "who's winning" than in the impact that governing can actually have in people's lives. Ben take a look at why we need to cut through the noise and keep the debate focused on the billions of dollars and millions of lives that are improved by reform.