NEWS WEAKLY 201 – 21ST FEBRUARY 2026

This week on News Weakly: Australian values get workshopped into meaninglessness, Pauline Hanson re-releases her Greatest Bigots collection, ISIS brides become the nation’s worst dating story, and Victoria’s Big Build proves the only thing constructed efficiently is defensiveness.

AUSTRALIAN VALUES GET DEVALUED!

Angus Taylor rediscovers the Liberal Party’s “centre of gravity,” which turns out to be immigration anxiety with better lighting. We revisit the official Australian Values Statement and ask the obvious question: why are migrants the only ones being tested on it?

PAULINE PAULINES!

Pauline Hanson declares there are no “good Muslims,” the ABC obliges, and the outrage machine spins up like it’s 2015 again. Is she a politician, or just a human push notification powered by grievance?

SWIPE RIGHT FOR THE CALIPHATE!

Anthony Albanese has “nothing but contempt” for Australian ISIS brides attempting to return. But if citizenship collapses under the weight of terrible romantic decisions, half the country is in trouble.

BIG BUILD, BIG TANTRUM!

Explosive allegations of corruption on Victoria’s Big Build projects meet a Premier more offended by tone analysis than by bikie infiltration. When the scandal costs $15 billion, the real emergency is apparently eye direction.

AND ENGLAND GETS ONE STEP CLOSER TO BEHEADING A ROYAL AGAIN!

We briefly consider the monarchy, remember Charles I, and decide unless limbs are involved, we simply do not care.

News Weakly is independent and powered by listeners who prefer their news punched gently but repeatedly.

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Sami Shah is a multi-award-winning comedian, writer, journalist, and broadcaster.

For more: http://thesamishah.com

Theme music “Historic Anticipation” by Paul Mottram

This podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Sami Shah.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A suicide bombing in a Shia mosque barely registers before the algorithm moves on, and that erasure opens the door to something darker. This episode looks at why conspiracy thinking no longer lives on the fringes, but feels increasingly rational in a world where intelligence agencies really do assassinate, destabilise, and lie, and institutions keep getting caught doing exactly what they deny. From Pakistan to Australia, from foreign policy to arts boards and police crackdowns, the show unpacks how incompetence, cowardice, and risk-aversion get misread as secret coordination, and why that misunderstanding doesn’t challenge power but lets it off the hook. When everything feels orchestrated, accountability disappears. And once reality becomes optional, nothing democratic survives for long.

Sami Shah is a multi-award-winning comedian, writer, journalist, and broadcaster.

For more: http://thesamishah.com

Theme music Historic Anticipation by Paul Mottram

This podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Sami Shah.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Social Cohesion, News Now…

Australia discovers its newest national value, which mostly means everyone should stop talking while the government imports a global conflict and acts surprised when it doesn’t calm anyone down.

The Epstein Files, News Now…

Three million pages confirm the problem was never just Epstein, it was the elite ecosystem that kept letting him back into respectable rooms, plus Deepak Chopra turns out to be exactly who you thought he was.

Everything Is Fine, News Now…

The media panics over One Nation polling, Cori Bernardi returns from irrelevance, and Australian democracy once again proves it prefers furniture to fascism.

Oman Is the New Geneva, News Now…

The US and Iran meet in Oman to not start a war yet, with Trump threatening bombing as a confidence-building exercise and everyone pretending this is diplomacy.

Sami Shah is a multi-award-winning comedian, writer, journalist, and broadcaster.

For more: http://thesamishah.com

Theme music ‘Historic Anticipation’ by Paul Mottram

This podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Sami Shah.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

• Scott Morrison resurfaces to reform Islam, Western civilisation, and reality itself, proposing authoritarian religious controls while insisting this is what freedom looks like.

• A bomb is thrown into a First Nations gathering in Perth, and Australia carefully waits to see who did it before deciding whether terrorism is the correct word.

• Iran may have killed tens of thousands of protesters in weeks, but struggles to compete with America for global attention, airtime, and moral urgency.

• The world watches state violence selectively, proving outrage is less about scale and more about proximity to English-speaking cable news.

• Why I’ve stopped following American politics altogether, while people drown quietly in the Mediterranean and the global order reshapes itself off-screen.

Sami Shah is a multi-award-winning comedian, writer, journalist, and broadcaster.

For more: http://thesamishah.com

Theme music Historic Anticipation by Paul Mottram

This podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Sami Shah.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sami Shah is a multi-award-winning comedian, writer, journalist, and broadcaster.

For more: http://thesamishah.com

Theme music Historic Anticipation by Paul Mottram

This podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Sami Shah.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Running From Iran

A nationwide internet blackout, mass killings, exile fantasies, and the danger of confusing silence for stability.

Albo Hates Hate

After Bondi, Australia reaches for sweeping hate laws that try to arrest a feeling instead of fixing a mechanism, while New Zealand’s Christchurch response still quietly embarrasses us.

Writers Read the Room

Adelaide Writers’ Week is cancelled, apologised for, then retroactively justified, proving once again that institutions love free speech right up until they have to defend it.

Kevin Oh Succession

Kevin Rudd exits Washington and Canberra realises the next US ambassador’s main qualification is surviving Donald Trump without triggering an alliance incident.

A deep dive into how “foreign meddling” narratives poison solidarity, why cultural institutions keep mistaking safety for optics, and how despair gets rebranded as pragmatism.

And at the end of the episode, a bonus feature:

Mocking the News – Sami’s documentary exploring how satire collides with journalism, objectivity, and power, and why jokes sometimes end up telling the truth faster than headlines.

“Silence isn’t stability. It’s just what violence sounds like once it’s done its job.”

patreon.com/samishah

Sami Shah is a multi-award-winning comedian, writer, journalist, and broadcaster.

For more: http://thesamishah.com

Theme music ‘Historic Anticipation’ by Paul Mottram

This podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Sami Shah.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

NEWS WEAKLY 195 – 10 January 2026

This week on News Weakly, the empire stops pretending, the internet gets unplugged, a royal commission settles in for the long haul, and a writers’ festival demonstrates once again that its strongest literary skill is drafting a press release explaining why someone has been quietly uninvited.

• Trump abandons subtlety entirely, floats Greenland acquisition, and introduces the Donroe Document, which sounds less like foreign policy and more like a hostile takeover clause.

• Iran responds to nationwide protests by pulling the internet plug, proving once again that authoritarian crisis management always starts with “have you tried turning the country off and on again?”

• A long, uncomfortable look at how free speech gets hollowed out not by ideology, but by boards, risk assessments, and the quiet terror of a bad headline.

“Trump didn’t end the international order. He ended the bedtime story version of it.”

If you enjoy long arguments disguised as comedy, consider supporting the show on Patreon: patreon.com/samishah

Sami Shah is a multi-award-winning comedian, writer, journalist, and broadcaster.

For more: http://thesamishah.com

Theme music “Historic Anticipation” by Paul Mottram

This podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Sami Shah.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.