The Weekly with Charlie Pickering

- Season 6

(2020)

Topics: High profile people in the entertainment industry including Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson and Idris Elba contracted COVID-19; panic buying of toilet paper occurred soon after the Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Australia has a COVID-19 pandemic; some state premiers allowed parents to keep their children at home for home schooling despite Prime Minister Scott Morrison urging parents to keep taking their children to schools; some people seen at Sydney beaches failing to physical distance in public were warned and charged by police.

Topics: Prime Minister Scott Morrison told journalists at a news conference that Australians can go to the pub sooner if they download the COVID-19 contact tracing app named COVIDSafe; Police in Chandigarh India used giant tongs attached to a 5-foot pole to safely round up people violating the COVID-19 lockdowns; Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest and his Minderoo Foundation secured 10 million COVID-19 testing kits which will be distributed to hospitals, clinics and laboratories around Australia, however, the Federal Government will reimburse the full amount of ...

Topics: Victorian Police clashed with protesters in Melbourne for failing to comply with physical distancing rules as up to 100 people demanded an end to COVID-19 lockdowns as well as opposition to 5G networks, vaccinations and called for Bill Gates to be arrested; Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a pandemic roadmap called 3-Step Framework For a COVIDSafe Australia which enables the states and territories to gradually ease COVID-19 lockdown restrictions; Liberal MP Tim Smith accused Victorian premier Dan Andrews of fear mongering and for failing to ease ...

Topics: Restaurants, pubs and cafes around the world implemented physical distancing rules as COVID-19 lockdowns were eased including placing cutout cardboard humans or inflatable humans to make the premises appear full; Australian brewers are faced with the heart-breaking task of dumping millions of schooners of expired beer due to pubs, clubs, bars and restaurant closures during the COVID-19 restrictions; Federal Minister for Small and Family Business Michaelia Cash encouraged Australians to "have a curry for the country!" as the COVID-19 restrictions are relaxed ...

Topics: The Federal Government's JobKeeper scheme, which initially cost $130 billion to assist more than 6 million workers, was revealed to actually be $70 billion and given to 3.5 million employees; Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg called the JobKeeper cost blunder "good news" and confirmed the spare $60 billion would not be reallocated to other areas such as casual workers, university staff and the arts sector to ease financial strain for future generations; Australian states and territories South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland, Tasmania and the Northern ...

Charlie covers George Floyd protests, Dominic Cummings' lockdown trip, Centrelink robo-debt scandal and '5G pandemic' conspiracy theory. Baratunde Thurston, Andy Zaltzman and Annabel Crabb join him. Also, Hugo Weaving has a new film.

Topics: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced all COVID-19 restrictions will be lifted except stringent border controls following no new cases and no active cases of COVID-19 in New Zealand; Celebrity chef Pete Evans made a recording of his interview with 60 Minutes and threatened to leak his unedited version of the interview on social media if he felt unhappy with the current affairs show's portrayal of him; Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg admitted Australia was in a recession; Economic effects of asylum seekers (with Luke McGregor).

Topics: Current affairs show 60 Minutes broadcast derogatory comments Victorian Labor MP Adem Somyurek made about Gabrielle Williams and Marlene Kairouz, and the current affairs show alleged Somyurek was also involved in branch stacking; Netflix removed four of Australian actor Chris Lilley's shows, where he portrayed ethnic characters, from its streaming service.

Outbreak in Victoria; ban on a mullet man; China and India's bloody clash; teens punk Trump; Grim Reaper Bob Katter; Boris Johnson wants Aussie biscuits; Novak Djokovic helps create an outbreak; Andrew Bolt gets a whiskey bottle from a viewer and won't share; Facebook won't fact-check political ads; corona cops; David Boon's airplane tall tale.

A new wave of outbreak hits Victoria, Australia wins the hosting bid for 2023 Women's World Cup, a new wave of outbreak hits New Zealand, Guy Sebastian gets slammed for supporting Scott Morrison, the new economic relief package hits a snag, anti-maskers protest in America, the first election during the outbreak is about to be held in Eden-Monaro - a former bellwether seat, and disgraced former high court judge Dyson Heydon has a controversial nickname. Also, Charlie's team comes up with reasons that would convince the government to continue financing the ABC, and ...

Topics: Premier Daniel Andrews announced Victoria will be under COVID-19 lockdown for six weeks after the number of new cases of infections reached triple digits daily in the past few days; Premier Daniel Andrews announced the closure of the border between Victoria and New South Wales following Victoria's 127 new cases of COVID-19 in a single day and the death of a man aged in his nineties in a Victorian hospital; Residents living in nine public housing towers in the suburbs of Flemington and North Melbourne were placed under 'hard lockdown' to stop the spread of ...

Topics: The emergence of a COVID-19 cluster at the Crossroads Hotel in Sydney's south-west, which was so far linked to 21 confirmed COVID-19 cases, led to group bookings at pubs in New South Wales being reduced from 20 people to a maximum of 10, under new COVID-19 rules; Victoria Police fined 16 people a total of $26,000 for COVID-19 lockdown breaches, who were traced back to a birthday party after paramedics saw two men ordering 20 meals at KFC in Dandenong around 1:30am; Prime Minister Scott Morrison's call that "We're all Melburnians" in an attempt to unify ...

Topics: NASA announced it never created a 13th zodiac sign called Ophiuchus as it existed more than 3000 years ago when the Babylonians split the zodiac into 12 equal parts with one constellation for each month of their 12-year calendar but deliberately omitted Ophiuchus; Princess Beatrice secretly married multi-millionaire property developer Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi at The Royal Chapel of All Saints at Royal Lodge, Windsor; Prime Minister Scott Morrison cancelled the first two sessions of parliament in Canberra and rescheduled the date to 24 August 2020 due to rising ...

Topics: Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg warned the debt and deficit level for Australia's economy resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic will be "eye-watering"; As Australia's population continues to fall, Josh Frydenberg called for Australians to have more babies in a bid to battle the country's recession and help pay off the debt accumulated during the COVID-19 pandemic that is expected to be in the billions and to top $850 billion; Universal Music Group served copyright infringement papers to Clive Palmer over the use of Twisted Sister's 1984 hit song "We're Not ...

Charlie and the Weekly team emerge from their plague bunker to wrap 2020. Was it the worst year ever? Have you washed your hands? Can we remember what happened? All will be revealed, from a safe distance.