"With the media clamouring against lockdown…..". The media against lockdowns and draconian government? News to me! The media is the main cheer leader of such tyranny. Like the political class, public servants and big business, the media is not affected by the strictures it demands for everyone else. To give due where it is deserved, Morisson is the only person who has genuinely spoken against lockdowns and, some time in the near future, the tinpot state premiers need to have their ridiculous powers taken from them.

And, hey! Nobody 'learns from experience' these days. They have memories like goldfish and they are not taught history.

The National Party's David Littleproud has opened up on the states and their clownish leaders - with particular reference to that nincompoop in WA - saying that states are making themselves irrelevant with their ridiculous on again off again lockdowns and stupid rules.

The China virus should be making us think about many things, not the least of which is the threadbare state of Federation. Forget the waffle about the harmless attachment to the Monarchy. Fix the Federation!

OMG. The right-wing media were all over this claiming it was just a new flu. Or a leftie conspiracy to shut down the economy. And that we shouldn't shut down our borders regardless of how bad it got, how many were killed or seriously harmed. Harm that right-wing troglodytes can't see is still harm.

Climbed all over Andrews and the total shutdown when he did that. Held NSW up as the gold standard even though the entire country got it through there and the ruby princess. It's no surprise that there is another outbreak in a relatively wealthy privileged beachside cohort!

These folk don't give a rats! And believe compliance is for other less privileged elite? Or that we should just let er rip until there is herd immunity.

What, you think we could survive for a century and hospitals completely overwhelmed with dead and dying and frontline health workers part of the collateral damage? Given that could still be required? Even with vaccines?

Although, I believe the new vaccines might allow herd immunity if over 90% of the vox populi are vaccinated and therefore must be mandated! Otherwise, the antivaxers will have a field day with their insanity!

The gold standard, if there is one, is NZ and the rational, put the people first, hard, fast and early, NZ response!
Alan B.

Does nature have to invent a nuclear holocaust before humans wake up to fact that they're breeding themselves out of existence ?
Pandemics don't start in little remote villages, they fester in over-populated places where people live on top of each other. COVID-19 clearly shows us that we just simply can't go on gallivanting around the planet, dragging deceases in our slipstream ! For F's sake, stay home MUTTS !

What to believe? There are many expert lockdown sceptics providing research with relevant statistics for those inclined to consider all sides. Cases are not deaths.

I just saw Dazz's gal say on TV that "For many cultures Xmas is an important day."

Unfortunately she didn't name the cultures she was referring to.

Anybody like to have a go at naming them?

Was it the Jewish culture? No, don't think so. Maybe Hindu or Muslim cultures? No, don't think so. Hmmm .... I know how about Buddhist culture? No, don't so.

I give up. Can anybody name them? Remember, Dazza's gal said there are many of them.

Individual, isn't it amazing how few people can see the elephant in the room. Perhaps it is too early yet but at a market where I had a stall last Saturday, I remarked to a few people how few pregnant women were walking around yet. These lockdowns must be doing a lot to exacerbate the population problem. The vaccine should have a contraceptive built into them to do something to help bring our populations down to some manageable level.

David

Is Alan brilliant, or a total twit.

No one on earth could have found any right wing media in Oz, but he claims to have done it.

Cone on Alan, let us know where to find it, some have been looking & hoping for a few decades, unrewarded.

Good article.

Just one comment, Arthur: South Australia did not "learn" from Victoria's experience, but was ready to do what it had to do all along.

One thing this plague shows us, is that the commonwealth is only an encumberment, irrelevant at real times of trial when only the individual states do matter. Vaccines are already available, but Morrison and his commonwealth-bureaucracy denies us this long-awaited relief.

It is time to get rid of the commonwealth: all this continent really needs together is a strong common army to defend our shores from China, but this can also be achieved with a confederation or with a NATO-like defense pact between independent individual states. Perhaps also a common currency, but this also can be achieved like the Euro in Europe.

Hasbeen. You and your (come on) ilk cannot see a right-wing media, because not only do you never look to see these nutters as part of the political cohort you are welded to! But deny that they are part of a community of denialists you'll belong to! As in Fox news/the Murdoch press Peta Credilin and co? The KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremists?

The fact that this cohort is almost a mindless brainwashed moronic cohort (fruit-loop community) is the reason, I believe, science and proof escapes them completely!?

As it does the fellow traveller cohort which you, judged on your personality defects, includes/involves you. I mean you seem to take some issues as if it was always all about you and you have done so since I've become active on this site and acquainted with your ultra-right-wing views, i.e., madness?

You'll have a nice day now y'hear and remember to keep taking the meds, there's a good little ikle diddums.

P.S. I don't believe you actually believe the (flat earther) garbage you write? But feel need to attack me and the cooperative capitalism/Christian economics I advocate. Because of the idiotic ideological imperatives that control you (jerk your strings) and what's left of your minuscule mind?

And without any shadow of reason or actual proof. just slogans, labels and barely veiled abuse.

I stand by these advocated beliefs and point out to you, if you still have enough little grey cells to reason with, that it was cooperative capitalism almost exclusively that saw us as a post-war community enter into a period of unprecedented prosperity as the third wealthiest nation on the planet, but a debt-free creditor one at that. Deny those recorded facts if you can, genius!

And thank you for providing the space and reason to reiterate them, genius.
Alan B.

Yuyustu. Agree with you in part, but point out that, what divides us are state borders and state parliaments, nothing more! That without these anachronisms from the past, we'd be one nation and 70+ billions better off P.A. for the real reform!

70+ annual billions that could be ploughed into self-defence industries/affordable nuclear power and quite massive new job creation! To reiterate, we'd be one nation and 70+ billion P.A.better off for the real reform.

Moreover, utilising cooperative capitalism as a single undivided nation, we'd be able to weaponise the usual economic flow on factors that all but compel every single dollar in our economy to do the work of seven or more. And includes the aforementioned 70+ billions we'd liberate with aforementioned doable reform. Currently, just requires a referendum and a Federal government to finance and call for/legislate one!

During WW11, all state governments were suspended and their budget and roles handed to the federal war cabinet/Federal government! Which could have, given it had the power to do so at that time, completely abolished them and the roadblock state parliaments that seem to go from crisis to corruption-riddled crisis, to corruption-riddled crisis?

If we ever have to confront such an emergency ever again? Then the above must surely be, first cab off the rank!

Simply put, we just do not need yet another layer of intricate complexity as you seem to advocate! That'd be gridlock on steroids!
Alan B.

Dear Alan,

You are probably correct about those $70+Billions, but quality of life, in my view at least, cannot be measured in dollars and cents.

I favour neither capitalism nor nationalism, thus I am interested in neither more jobs nor in being one nation, but then of course, if these are your preferences then it is clear why the extra layer of complexity that you would like to get rid of, are the states. I on the other hand would rather be rid of the commonwealth.

Yes we have emergencies and fear calls for security in numbers, but they will eventually be over and life in general ought to be planned for quality during normal times.

It comes down to what we value. I do not want to be ordered around by people that live 1000's of kilometers away whom I will unlikely ever meet. I value simplicity, direct human relating and less dependence on technology - for these, the smaller the states the better.

...to be ordered around by people that live 1000's of kilometers away...
Yuyutsu,
But, you don't mind enjoying the benefits courtesy of people from 1000's of km away ?

Dear Individual,

The only "courtesy" I benefit from people living 1000's of km away, is the common defense of our continent and its people against external tyrants. However, this can also be achieved with defense pacts like NATO, so no need for a central administration, laws and "identity".

One advantage of smaller states, is that they compete with each other over having less oppressive laws, so if laws are too oppressive in one state, people just vote with their feet and move to another.

At present, for example, some idiot in Canberra decided for all of us, 1000s of kilometers away, that we cannot start having the COVID vaccines until March (nor even import them or travel overseas to be vaccinated). Had states been independent and one state denied the vaccines to its population, then people could just travel and buy the vaccine in another state!

Yuyutsu,
You know what they mean by wanting the cake AND eating it as well ?

individual,

I think the correct saying goes:

Want to eat your cake and have it too.

Yuyutsu,
we should update that to 'wanting unrestricted freedom of movement & demand Govt keep us safe as well" !

Dear Individual,

You are unlikely to understand my answer, but I will respond anyway for the benefit of other readers on this thread:

«we should update that to 'wanting unrestricted freedom of movement & demand Govt keep us safe as well" !»

If we refer to our bodies, then not only are they unsafe, but we can safely say that they will break down and decompose, if not within decades then certainly within a century. Nobody can change that and keep them safe - including government.
And if we refer to ourselves who dwell in these bodies, then we are already safe since nothing whatsoever can destroy us - including government.

Since safety can neither be given nor taken away, why expect government to provide that is not within their ability to provide (and even pay with our freedom for this impossible "service")? Anyone else who pretended to sell us "safety" would immediately be recognised as a fraudster by those who have eyes to see, so what makes government any different?

Yuyutsu,
You should put that to those who whinge & whine about the COVID-19 restrictions, the mollycoddled saturation educated types, they're the one who don't understand that only physical distancing will curb the Pandemic !
The protesters etc.