Your conclusion "These restrictions will go on for years" is correct. In fact as long as we support these sociopathic bullies it will never stop.
This was never about the new "Common cold" variant it was always about power.
Every sitting politician should be removed without exception and let us promote some new rules. Any pandemic will result in a limit on any or all government payments. $40k p.a. limit on all political and public service pay and pensions and all allowances suspended.
If it cost one dollar to politicians it would be over in the blink of an eye.
Roll on rioting in the streets!

Yes. What pathetic people we are to put up with loss of freedoms. I agree with JBowyer, without the riots. But they will come. They already have in countries where freedoms are not taken for granted as they are in Australia.

Agree!! Given the mutations, may have to find another way beyond endless annual vaccinations to just lessen the severity?

One wonders if, given this thing creates antibodies. We can't attach some new age antiviral to a treatment that seeks out and destroys any element of the virus while not harming the host?

Of interest is a new breath test that seems to reveal both cancer and covid?

Perhaps indicate a new pathway to completely eradicate all the strains almost as soon as the sampling of sewerage systems reveals a new strain has migrated to these shores.

And will continue to do so until the drongos in charge get it through their unusually thick skulls that the way forward must include island quarantine for the infected/inoculation/routine multiple testing of staff and temporary island population.

Supported by total rolling island-hopping evacuations to eliminate any further transmission. And just allow sunlight to do what solar radiation does best! Disinfect the infected. Assisted by good natural convection reliant ventilation of all structures!

Many of which would be relocatable, polycarbonate glasshouses/shadehouses? Fresh food! Something to do with idle hands while passing time? Vacuum towers would allow the extraction of voluminous CO2, which could be used in the glasshouses to purge them and eliminate the bugs after pollination!

I mean the staff would need around a month or three on other isolation islands to eliminate their ability to carry the virus back to the mainland as would truly effective elimination of the virus in any host carrier!

Our west coast has dozens of completely uninhabited desert islands That only need water to turn them into habitable quarantine stations that could be transformed with MS thorium reactors and deionisation dialysis desalination.

MS thorium reactors would then guarantee 24/7 power and an endless supply of the alpha particle, bismuth 213. Which can be attached to this or that cancer antibody without harming the volunteering infected.

And use bismuth 213 as a smart bomb that destroys any trace of the virus in minutes? As it does with some cancers!? Worth a look?
Alan B.

From a political perspective, all this COVID disruption has made the fifty percent of the population owning property, even more wealthy.

Good’ol Gladdy in NSW found a few stray taxpayer dollars (after scorching $30m for her ex boyfriend to play with his land developer mates with), to wave around in front of cameras, during the making of an advertisement encouraging more free giveaways to the wealthy in solar panel subsidies.

Whereas...poor struggling home owners in Byron Bay, lament the fact the homeless are arriving at the tourist jewel from all points of the compass, disguised as back packers.
It’s just not fair on them they cry..(IE Gladies worthy people without solar panels adorning roof tops).

Ah...the Covid fall-out is so unfair.

Dan

Well, COVID took us by surprise so there was no time to apply the democratic process. Emergency textbooks existed to a reasonable degree on the medical side, but not on the ethical side.

Now is the time to sit back and work out well in advance the ethical aspects of handling future emergencies (not only pandemics), as well as approach the common people and poll for our preferred emergency-strategies within the limits of the ethical considerations.

So what are the ethical guidelines:

1) It is legitimate for people to protect themselves and act in self-defense.
2) Nothing else, other than self-defense, allows anyone to hurt or encroach on the freedom of another (note that whether and when it is acceptable for anyone to limit another's freedom in self-defence, is beyond the scope of these guidelines).
3) It is legitimate for people to form or join groups for the purpose of increasing their mutual ability to protect themselves. States (and the governments that run them) are an example of such groups.
4) It is legitimate for people to deposit some of their personal powers in the hands of such groups.
5) It is legitimate for people to forego some of their freedoms and invest them in such groups.
6) Groups (including states) have no more powers to act than the sum of the powers that were [freely] invested in them by their members.

In conclusion:

1) Nothing grants a group (including states) a right to defend those who never asked for its protection. However, when full knowledge is unavailable, it is alright for a group to protect others whom it diligently and honestly believes that on the balance of probabilities would have sought its protection if they could be heard.

And similarly:

2) Nothing grants a group (including states) a right to limit people's freedoms without their authorisation. However, when full knowledge is unavailable, it is alright for a group to limit the freedom of others whom it diligently and honestly believes that on the balance of probabilities would have authorised it to do so if they could be heard.

[continued...]

[...continued]

How do these general principles apply in the specific case of this article:

It is illegitimate for government to unconditionally order all people not to dance.

However, a government may reasonably order that people either:

1) Do not attend weddings where dancing occurs; or
2) Immediately after dancing in a wedding (or participating in a wedding where dancing occurs), return home directly and remain there for 14 days ; or
3) After dancing in a wedding, remain only (if at all) in the company of like-minded people who also accept this limitation, until properly isolating for 14 days sometime in future.

Along with that, those who intentionally take options (2) or (3), may not even consider calling a public ambulance if they become ill (until they isolated for 14 days with no symptoms).

Now just because an order is legitimate does not imply that it should necessarily be issued - whether and when such orders ought to be issued and how far apart (if any) must dancers be in that case, should be subject to the democratic process where it is discussed in principle and documented well before a pandemic starts.

Yuyutsu

I’ve read through your post three times now, and can find nothing deeper in consideration of COVID than a tadpole pond.

it seems obvious to me, you live a life of insulation and separation from real community pain, which has been exacerbated by COVID restrictions.
Things like losing a job leading to inability to pay the rent, so out you must go, for example.

While our thieving little Gladys gets off scott free with thieving $30m from NSW treasury for her boyfriends pleasure, she continues to parade around making the lives of NSW residents less tolerable with COVID restrictions.

What is desperately missing is some old fashioned honesty with the entirety of Government at all levels. After all, there are people in our communities living in desperation looking for accommodation; the basic necessities of life.
Where I live, this is a stark daily reality.

These homeless are not back packers. Where is the honesty?
What proportion of this population are on the street because of COVID, needs an honest answer.
Gladys idea of ticking off $2k fines for illegal overnight camping, in face of the fact she is an outright thief in a high place, is to me, intolerable!

Dan

Dan. There's affordable housing in some of the regions!

Just not the infrastructure and transport options to make them available to the cohort you speak to.

Service industries everywhere and the here today and gone tomorrow jobs and alleged growth they support are just so vulnerable to economic downturns!

Governments need to understand that their traditional role is to step in and make stuff happen as opposed to cozying up to cronies/lining their own pockets?

And need to build regional industries, affordable energy, water supply, infrastructure and RAPID transport hubs!

Government needs to revert to its core responsibilities, not to sell all not nailed down and outsource core responsibilities? Just to support an idiotic idealogy and purile party politics?

And needs to think 40-50 years forward, with a well thought through regional plan and plan to finally decentralise! If we can't give folk jobs? then we at least need to give them hope and dreams to hold onto in times like these!

AND WITH THAT, A REASON TO BELONG AND COOPERATE FOR A COMMON GOOD!

WORDS MATTER AS DOES HONESTY AND INHERENT INTEGRITY!
Alan B.

AlanB

The primary action in waiting, is to restore interest rates to around ten percent.
That will cool the housing market, and add value to the currency.
Investors then can capitalise on money in the bank instead of the catastrophe housing is.

The most divided I’ve ever seen this country, is its current state where the government itself has manipulated the housing market through near zero interest rates, that add as a side effect, the ever divided losing class.

What is happening is values of fixed assets ( housing) is sky rocketing, as the pandered investor class, (which includes our corrupt politicians in on the game), are the new welfare recipients. The new bludging class!
If you need for an accurate description of what is a bludger, it’s property owners currently. They are squeezing the life blood out of this country.

Add to the above bludgers, foreign investors, invited in as a deliberate Government strategy to fuel property market bush fires, and the perfect storm is upon us.

The solution for Byron Bay homeless, is to fence in car parks for overnight campers.
There will be a charge of course, and a data base of the homeless car registrations.
One could easily speculate about the latter innovation.

Al, when rents go up, up they go everywhere. There is a tsunami of rising rents running in front of people forced from once affordable housing.
For many people there is little alternative to living in cars. Welcome to Australia, American style!

Dan

The fact that people need to be ordered for their own safety is a sign of the state of affairs !

Of course we could simply recognise that Trump had it right way back, & start treating Covid 19 with Hydroxychloroquine, Quercetin, Budesonide, or Ivermectin. We could do some real trials to find the most effective early intervention, but not much money in that is there.

Dan I don't know if you have ever owned any property, but from your posts I doubt it.

So just to give you an idea;
My rates are, ... $3600 PA
My insurance, ... $2800 PA, this is higher for rental properties.
My maintenance, . $4200 PA, [average established over 29 years]

So if I were to rent my house out, I would need over $200 a week, just to cover my costs. Thus it costs me $203 a week to live in my own home.

To get even a 1% return on an $850,000 investment I would need another $163 a week. So I would need a minimum of $363 a week if I owned the property free & clear. If I had a mortgage it could easily be costing me another $300 a week in interest payments, even at today's rates.

Land lords should not be expected to be philanthropist, & are entitled to some return on their investment, after all they might like eating as much as the tenants.

While I agree with you that rents have become ridiculously high, so too have the costs of supplying rental property.

Incidentally you are wrong. Tenants under Covid laws are not kicked out. The land lord must simply absorb the cost of supplying the accommodation free of payment, & borrow the money to do so, if they don't have other cash flow to cover the cost.

In my opinion, you would have to have rocks in your head to become a land lord of residential property.