It is also unconstitutional, but politicians don’t worry about such old fashioned nonsense these days. Besides, they can say, ‘Well, no. We can’t make you take any medication, but we can stop you from doing certain things if you don’t”. Dictator Dan has said that certain workers will not be able to work after 15th. October unless they are vaccinated. LBGT airlines won’t fly you anywhere if you are not vaccinated.

Although I am vaccinated, I agree that vaccinate-or-else is another attack on our freedoms arising from the OPPORTUNITY of Covid. Covid is an opportunity to attack freedoms on a grand scale. Just ask Prince Charles.

I am happy that I’m vaccinated, and because I am vaccinated, I don’t have to worry about those people who are not. If I did have to worry about them, their would be no point in my vaccination.

Both government-capable parties have behaved abominably during Covid. But it looks as though we will have a couple of different options at the next election.

Good article Graham. Thankyou.

Sorry, Graham. But I disagree. We've had mandatory vaccinations for centuries. And with that facility have defeated smallpox, polio, tuberculosis, tetanus and whooping cough. Just to name a few!

Imagine those with HIV aids, exercising your alleged rights? When in the context of viruses that can kill! No such rights exist!

Moreover, freedom of speech and expression also has limits! Nobody has a right to scream fire, fire in a crowded theatre, or knowingly misrepresent the truth, or defame with mistruth!

And the reason I believe we need Federal ICAC and the limitation on the protection of parliament for folk who Lie for political outcomes etc.

The was a time when those in public office were held to the highest standards of political integrity! Nowadays, our parliaments seem to allow those with the least personal integrity to succeed?

And need to be cleaned out as taxpayer employees/public servants! Or members of this or that political party! Whose membership is now too small to represent any other than special vested interest! Or, outcomes for sale?
Alan B.

NOBODIES rights are worth more than someone elses life!
You may, or may not, choose to be vaccinated but you must also be prepared to wear the consequences. Which could be your own demise.
Even that supreme idiot trump is vaccinated.

James Falk, in an article headed 'Our political ecosystem is full of collaborationist whores'. calls what is happening "The Great Covid Oppression". Politicians and their parasites are people who "talk about political principle and act without it".

Left and Right, through silence and inaction, have supported "unjustified oppression". "police brutality" and the destruction of freedoms and civil liberties.

This is a vexing question. The Fair Work Commission ruling was 2 to 1 against, yet the dissenting view is holding sway across the political spectrum.

I have had to be vaccinated to hold a job (Hepatitis B Vaccine whilst working as CSL Blood Products).

I have run clinical trials. I agree with you in principle, however, I think your characterisation of the current vaccines as "on trial, therefore experimental, therefore a breach of human rights" doesn't take into account the nuances of the situation, the consent processes that have been undertaken (compare your last flu vax with the amount of time someone spent explaining the covid vax) nor the now vast amounts of data supporting safety (I would estimate 50 where you have estimated 500, but we will have to see, but all new drugs go through this period of uncertainty).

I think NSW's plan is the correct one. If I understand it correctly, there is a small amount of time (weeks) between mild opening to vaccinated at 70% and back to an open society at 80%. Some businesses will choose to impose on their staff (as CSL did to me back in the early 90's) and some will see an opportunity not to. Some consumers will demand they not face unvaccinated staff and some will boycott businesses who impose mandates.

If Morgan's has it right with their disobedience index (70/30), allowing the market to take control will probably work out for everyone.

New despotism has emerged as one of the biggest threats to democracy, freedom and human rights in Australia under Covid. There is no excuse for this.

Good argument Graham. I don't agree with conscription, but i would've volunteered for Vietnam had i been old enough, because my family suffered and some died under communism. I've had my 2 shots of AZ, but i don't support compulsory vaccination. I do believe that governments and employers have a responsibility to citizens and employees to mitigate threats to health and safety, whether biological or otherwise. I think the only way to respect everyone's individual freedom of choice is to give everyone working everyday face to face with public, i.e. retail sales + services including health, the choice to get vaccinated or choose alternative employment. OHS regs about personal protective equipment, seat belts, helmets are routinely accepted, even though they're nothing to do with public safety. That's infringement of individual freedom, widely accepted on economic, not ethical grounds.

If we open state boarders, depending on current vaccines to keep infection at bay, just watch the infection of both vaccinated & unvaccinated skyrocket. There is so much evidence around the world that this is so, that it is undeniable.

We all of know the Harry potter character, Lord Voldemort, "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" so to avoid being scrubbed I won't name Iv###ctin by name, but we all know that a couple of Indian provinces stopped the pandemic dead by issuing it to all citizens who had near contact with infected folk.

If we open international boarders as Morrison plans, just watch the infection rate then. Morrison & co will have to make these antivirals available then, although just watch them try to force the new, read "patented & expensive", antivirals, rather the old proven version.

This might be the chance for a party that favors the bulk of folk to arise. We could actually swim out of the swamp yet.

Dear GrahamY,

Firstly are you able to point me to where you have in the past come out passionately against the No Jab no Play rules for Childcare enrolment or the Immunisation requirements which have in the past applied for eligibility for Family Tax Benefit Part A (FTB-A) and Child Care Subsidy (CCS)?

You did fail to mention that the dissenting Justice also found:

“[57] It seems to me that if a direction in fact had been given by the respondent to the applicant to have a flu shot, any such direction would not only have been lawful it would have effectively reflected what in fact was the law as it applied in 2020 concerning employees working within NSW residential aged care facilities (subject to the exemptions within the PHOs); as a corollary, any such direction would not only have been lawful, but also reasonable.”

Which is a bit at odds with his Covid stance the main basis of which seems to be that no one should be forced to take an experimental vaccine. But Astrazeneca for instance has passed that phase and was given provisional approval in February this year.

Further the Justice quotes from the AHPPC:

[153] A statement on COVID vaccination requirements for aged care workers it issued on 4 June 2021 29 commences with the following:
“AHPPC does not recommend compulsory COVID-19 vaccines for aged care workers” (emphasis added)

However that recommendation has now changed.

“AHPPC recommends mandatory vaccinations for all workers in health care settings as a condition of work. Further, AHPPC recommends the first dose of a TGA approved COVID-19 vaccine by 30 October 2021 and a second dose by 15 December 2021. “

All that being said under normal circumstances outside a health setting, particularly aged care, I do not support vaccines being a condition of employment.

However I do accept that during a health emergency State Governments should be able to make a determination as to a vaccine requirement in some sectors for the duration of said emergency. After that the requirement should be removed.

>Mandating or coercing COVID vaccination is one of the most important civil liberties issues of my lifetime

MMmmm... vaccinations are mandatory for kids goign to school, did you complain then ?

Of course its a civil liberties issue but then so is driving on the LHS of the road, what if I want to drive in the right. will you articulate an argument to protect that right or just laugh it off ?

IMO the single biggest impingements of human rights is the need for a passport, where's the arguments agsint that or you want to keep the "riff raff" out ? much like the arguments those use for compulsory vaccination.

Civil liberty loss is a slippery slope, the compulsory vaccination movement needed to start years ago, first the came for the children, but I didn't care because I wasn't a child...

you know they can't justify it if they use safety, paedophiles or terrorism as justification, any reference to any of those is a red flag.

Graham. In my cursory analysis of the pros and cons presented here, I'm finding
[a] too much nebulous muscular individualism.
[b] a glib but indefensible reliance on dissenting and minority opinion.
[c] a partisan interpretation of word-meanings when hyperbole in national/global emergency is taken as an opportunity to accept said hyperbole as gospel under all circumstances, especially when the panic merchants, doom-sayers and agendum-pushers have been marginalised with their ratbag followers. The hype remains as if set in concrete
[d] The consequences of [a] means the strutting muscle-bound ego of the human righter has reduced his/her compassion, fellowship and plain neighbourliness, they are in limbo for the duration.

Humankind evolved as a social species and it is as a social species we have prospered to the pinnacle of a highly diverse food-chain....in a cosmic blink of an eye. Not as rugged individualists though, but as the latter we could utterly disappear in less time before the onslaught of a really awful virus. And too many experts who should know are warning this will happen without better attitudes and significant foresight in preparation.

It seems to me that stamping one's feet to draw attention to one's human rights in the face of a mild human catastrophe will look even sillier when the awful virus comes among us.

In my opinion based on the information of many experts (who have been censored, silenced), why inoculate the global population for a virus which has a high recovery rate. Protect the elderly and those with co-morbodities and let others go back to work and back to education. The inoculation does not prevent one from getting the virus, nor prevent its transmission. Look at Israel where most hospitalisations are from the double vaxxed.

I’ll park the articles question for a minute, while we explore the reason for the disparate spread of the virus between the Western suburbs and the Eastern suburbs of Sydney.

The reason for this disparity is truly a human rights issue: Unaffordable housing, income inequality and a desperate need to continue in servile work through the COVID crisis and lock downs.

In the Wealthy Eastern Suburbs, life was portrayed in its unequal starkness with media reporting unchanged daily events of leisure and ease, highlighted by crowds flocking to Bondi Beach.

No hovering helicopters at 1am enforcing curfews, no military presence on their streets,
No police roadblocks ringing the perimeters of lockdowns, no severe entry restrictions to local hospitals,
cafes brimming with happy patrons, sunning on crowded footpaths.
Special privileges afforded the wealthy to travel to regional areas to view and buy real estate, and promote the fastest growing real estate bubble on the Eastern seaboard in history. (Prices have doubled in my area in fifteen months: A house on the beach valued at $750k then, and now valued above two million).

These are genuine human rights issues which have caused incalculable damage through stark inequalities in housing affordability and disproportionate rents to income, and an unfair need to continue travelling and working during a pandemic.

Back to the question that doesn’t in my opinion warrant an answer, due to its relevant insignificance by comparison to the disproportionate suffering lockdowns have caused to sections of our communities completely outside the care factor of our grubby political class.
Yes, vaccination should be compulsory for everybody irrespective of whether living in isolated comfort or crowded into the poorer Western Suburbs of Sydney for example.
In my view it’s a community obligation.

Dan

My opinion on compulsory vaccination rates balances upon two competing concepts. Whereas I would normally agree that governments in free, democratic societies should not compel citizens to undergo medical procedures against their will, this is not the position the populations of democratic countries have accepted in the past, when entire populations have been endangered by highly infectious diseases, and the carriers of these diseases. The US example of "Typhoid Mary" is a case in point, where a female typhoid carrier was effectively imprisoned for many years for being a 'carrier" of Typhoid, even though she had committed no crime, other than infecting many people which had led to their deaths.

So too, I lived thorough a time where it was compulsory for every member of the Australian population to undergo TB testing and (I think) compulsory treatment if found to have TB, in order to eradicate this horrible disease from the entire population. In addition, I remember being vaccinated against polio at school and if my memory serves me well, that too was compulsory. Australia and all of the modern world went from thousands of permanently crippled children every year, to countries which today are polio free.

I have no time for anti vaccers, and I had always thought of them as an insignificant minority of kooks. But I have to admit that with this present pandemic, a significant minority, probably 10 to 15 percent of people are vehemently against vaccination. When a significant minority are vehemently against a government policy so much that they will brave arrest, police beatings, capsicum spray, and rubber bullets, then perhaps our governments should alow them to give themselves a Darwin Award.

The problem with that though, is that they will unnecessarily clog our hospital system thereby denying those who have been vaccinated the chance to get life saving treatment in hospital. It seems to me that the best way handle this situation is for anti vaccers to accept, that if they do get so sick that they need hospitalisation, they will be triaged to the back of the queue.

.

Dear Graham,

.

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” That is the most familiar version of the golden rule, highlighting its helpful and proactive gold standard. Its corollary, the so-called “silver rule,” focuses on restraint and non-harm: “do nothing to others you would not have done to you.”

There is a certain legalism in the way the “do not” corollary follows its proactive “do unto” partner.

The golden rule and its corollary are often, unavoidably, incompatible with what some consider to be the legitimate exercise of their individual freedoms.

In such cases, it is the role and duty of democratically elected governments to arbitrate the conflicting individual freedoms in the best interests of all.

Mandatory vaccination against Covid 19 is one such case.

At the time of writing, we are all free to decide if we wish to be vaccinated or not. As of today, 4 October 2021, 56.9% of people 16 and over are double-vaccinated and 79.6% have had at least one dose.

This would seem to indicate that a large majority of Australians are in favour of vaccination.

There also seems to be ample evidence now that vaccination offers reasonably effective protection against the virus. And it not only protects each vaccinated individual, but also reduces the risk of vaccinated individuals passing the virus on to many other people : members of the family, friends, and the community at large.

Hence the relevance of the corollary of the golden rule, the so-called “silver rule” : “do nothing to others you would not have done to you.”. In other words : “if you become infected, do not pass the deadly Covid 19 virus on to them as well”.

Some Australians do, of course, place a higher value on their own individual freedoms than on the individual freedoms of others, and decide against vaccination.

As I see it, in that case, it is the responsibility of the state and federal governments to arbitrate between the two conflicting individual freedoms – in the best interests of all.

.

As someone who grew up during the time when smallpox was being eradicated by vaccination, when the discoverers of polio vaccines were hailed as great heroes, when we as schoolkids lined up for our BCG shots against tuberculosis and as parents gratefully participated in routine vaccination of our offspring against killer diseases, I guess I have lost all antagonism to the idea of enforced vaccinations. So the only part of Graham's case that got me thinking was the claim that this Covid vaccine is "experimental", part of a "clinical trial". Perhaps that's true technically but I’ve decided it's nit-picking in the context of the fairly successful global vaccination of billions. As a breach it's at the bottom end of the spectrum. And it pales into insignificance against the other ghastly attacks to which we are subjected daily by our dictatorial state premiers and their "advisors" – trying to terrify us into obedience, patting us on the head when we're good, etc. The after effects of this infantilising treatment will last electorally for decades.

Whether intentional or not, anyone that is not vaccinated is a health risk to everyone else. While the unvaccinated should not be locked out of everything, some activities carry far more risks than others and for these activities, either the unvaccinated are excluded or required to don sufficient PPE to reduce the risk to acceptable levels.

This is classic balance between two often competing freedoms, freedom of and freedom from.

The imposition of higher taxes to ensure universal health coverage is an example. Less freedom to direct your money where you want vs the freedom from Australians having to sell their houses to pay for medical bills.

The ethic of social responsibility against a hyper individualism can be seen reflected in the vaccination rates between England with its robust public health coverage and the US, one of the few western countries without.

England – 90% first dose 82% second dose

USA - 66% first dose 57% second dose

Australia unsurprisingly sits between the two but there is no doubt we are gradually moving to the American model, especially when we see articles like Graham's foisted with American style language around freedoms rather than responsibilities. I submit this would be a far cry from the language used even by a Menzies of old.

Australia – 79.6% first dose 56.9% second dose

The economic rationalist speak which I first heard in political discussions 30 years ago has really infested the right in this country. Our move away from more British sensibilities and values saddens me.

While it is true that there is a dedicated minority who oppose mandatory vaccinations and might overturn government vote-chasing policy, it is also true that there is a dedicated minority who favour compulsory vaccination and will try to keep policy settings as they are. These people have all the power levers to ensure that the dissenters are kept in check – the media, the police, the courts and of course the power-hungry segments within the various governments.

It is amazing how far we’ve come in two years. I used to wonder at how the populace in 1930s Germany would fall into line around the Nazis, how Russians wept at the death of Stalin or how mass hysteria overran China during the cultural revolution. There must have been something different about those cultures, I thought, and tried to find it.

But now we see that we are just like them. Vast numbers of us encourage the government to take us to safety by taking freedom from us and cheer when they do so. Then, with the new highly questionable laws in place we admonish others to just fall into line for the sake of the community.

Rubber bullets fired into peaceful crowds. Police orders used to censor protest coverage. Playgrounds disfigured to stop masked kids using them. Families separated across state or even local government boarders. Yet vast numbers buy into the suppression. Why? Because they have been conditioned to seeing it all as necessary to save them from an unseen foe.

It may be, as GY thinks, that innate Australian larrikinism will rear up and overturn government orders by simply ignoring them. But I have my doubts. Enough people are sufficiently terrified by the media/government/health-bureaucracy claims that they will demand that the orders be followed. A few businesses singled out by the jihadists with the willing help of the police for failure to ban the unclean, will be sufficient to force the rest into compliance.

We used to pride ourselves on the hard-won freedoms that made us special in the world. But we’ve given them up with nary a whimper.

Dear mhaze,

Well that is a complete rewriting of history.

It was the Nazis who came and caused the rioting in the streets, who saw normal law and order dismantled, who incited, cajoled and threatened. The Victorian Proud Boys are attending all the protests assaulting police and stirring up as much trouble as they can. This is right out of the Nazi playbook.

The messaging of this “Work, Freedom, and Bread” Nazi poster from the 30s wouldn't look out of place in some of the protests in Melbourne.
http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-work-freedom-and-bread!-nazi-party-election-poster-ca-1931-50031089.html

And it doesn't take much imaginations to see evil Jewish businessmen from that time being replaced by evil Pharma now.

As I stated earlier we are moving away from those notions of social responsibility to individual freedom themes which are challenging our British origins.

I have a close relative in Vicpol and he assures me rubber bullets are not being used at the protests. He also attended the BLM protests and is very struck at the difference between the two. The violence characterising the recent protests was something he was not expecting. He had a female member standing next to him on the Westgate who was felled by a rock and he has had to dodge batteries and baked bean cans being propelled toward he and fellow officers.

Just look at what GrahamY used in his article, it was a case of a woman suing because her claimed exemption from the flu vaccine was denied, not the compulsory vaccination regime itself. Yet somehow it leads the case against mandatory Covid vaccinations for the health industry, something which was already in place for the flu.

That is what 2 years have done in this State, not in a small part because of the Murdoch press. We use to pride ourselves in how we came together, often quite selflessly, to help tackle disasters like the bushfires which took lives. We seem to be quickly losing that. Thankfully most Australians still see things in those terms and know that by getting vaccinated they are helping to serve their community and keep others safer.

Police not firing on the crowd....

http://twitter.com/i/status/1440571893388484612

Nazis on the streets of Melbourne:

http://xyz.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/D74A0077-F8A1-43F9-B270-58B1A114739F.jpeg

"Well that is a complete rewriting of history."

Sometimes its very obvious that you write the reply without bothering to read the post.

First, I thank the author for acknowledging that there is no atrocity worse than conscription.

There are actions that are right and moral and other actions that are wrong and immoral, but what the hell is "human rights"?

Good deeds do not become wrong just because someone in Helsinki, Nuremburg or Siracusa said so, nor do bad deeds become right because someone there said that they were acceptable.

It is wrong to interfere with someone else's body without their permission - and this goes both ways: wrong to force a vaccine on another, and wrong to go into other people's space without their consent while carrying (or potentially carrying) a dangerous virus¹.

So while nobody should ever be forced to get vaccinated, it is quite OK in principle to instruct those who are not vaccinated to stay out of public space and/or to refuse them employment or education².

---*---

Dear SteeleRedux,

«Australia unsurprisingly sits between the two but there is no doubt we are gradually moving to the American model»

This is only a temporary coincidence. The situation is Australia is unique and different to both:

Here in Australia, people, with very few exceptions, WANT to be vaccinated, because we are good, responsible and caring people, not because government orders so, offering carrots and threatening with sticks.

What happened here is that for a long time government denied us the freedom to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Now that we are (more-or-less) no longer prevented from getting vaccinations, we are in the process of catching up and will probably end up way higher than England.

For some, there is however the reactive tendency to avoid being vaccinated due only to the insult of being ordered by government to do so.

---
¹ actually, it is wrong to go into other people's space without their consent, period, but that's a different topic

² actually, there is anyway nothing wrong about refusing to provide employment or education, on whatever grounds, since one ought not be obliged to provide such services to others in the first place

Dear Mhaze,

«But now we see that we are just like them. Vast numbers of us encourage the government to take us to safety by taking freedom from us and cheer when they do so.»

Is it not legitimate for people to seek safety?
Is it not legitimate for people to defend themselves by keeping away others who might infect them?

The tragedy is that we have been so disarmed, for so long, that we are left with no other way to defend ourselves other than by pleading government to do so on our behalf (not that it matters - government will do whatever they want anyway, for their own interests, they never listen to our pleadings).
So sad - I wish there was no government, but this wouldn't mean that we, the people who live on this land, wouldn't take similar protective measures ourselves.

.

It seems to me that the objective of democracy is justice and that the role and duty of a democratically elected government is to do everything it can to enable society to attain that objective.

By justice, in this context, I mean equal rights and equitable opportunities for all. Among the rights are individual freedoms. Theoretically, everybody has the right to their individual freedoms – but, naturally, in the social context, individual freedoms are often compounded with those of others or in complete opposition with them.

While, as a rule, it is the role of democratic government to ensure the protection of individual rights, in some circumstances, the full, unrestrained respect of the rights of every single individual could have negative effects for society as a whole, and result in a form of anarchy.

When such a situation arises, without falling into an excess of authoritarianism, it would simply be good common sense for the government to arbitrate in favour of whatever represents the common good.

For the past two years, we have been at war with an invisible enemy that ruthlessly and indiscriminately attacks our civil population and there is no end in sight. We struggle to survive and turn to the state for protection. What can it do ? What does it do ?

It provides us with vaccines that were miraculously produced and approved in record time but which some people reject through lack of confidence. The state insists that the vaccines are sufficiently safe and our most effective means of protection against the deadly virus. Proof of vaccination has become a necessary requisite for access to many of our normal daily activities, resulting in social discrimination.

The war against the virus continues to rage. Mandatory vaccination may be the next step, perhaps our last resort – while waiting for the miracle to come.

After all, conscription or mandatory military service was introduced in Australia in 1942, when all men aged 18–35, and single men aged 35–45 fought in the Second World War. Here we go again. This time it"s the virus.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXvG0SMP7tw&ab_channel=LeonardCohenVEVO

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Dear Banjo Paterson,

«It provides us with vaccines that were miraculously produced and approved in record time»

What?? ?? ??

Are you saying that vaccines were developed and produced by states?

COVID Vaccines were developed by scientists in laboratories and produced by commercial companies.

The states, actually, are the bad people who restrict and deny us these miraculous vaccines. Until recently we could not get them at all and the state still dictate where, when, which, how many and how we can get them. They do not let us produce or import our own vaccines, nor even to leave the country in order to be vaccinated elsewhere.

You say "approved"? But who ever asked them to approve my vaccines? I should be the only one to approve or otherwise what comes into my own body!

«For the past two years, we have been at war with an invisible enemy that ruthlessly and indiscriminately attacks our civil population and there is no end in sight.»

To be precise, the enemy indiscriminately attacks both civil and uncivil human populations.

Indeed, for the past two years, we have been at war with an invisible enemy - and they, the state, were in fact on its side!

.

Dear Yuyutsu,

.

You ask :

1. « Are you saying that vaccines were developed and produced by states? »
.

That was certainly not my intention, Yuyutsu. Our federal government purchases them for the Australian population from various overseas producers and other sources. The government has invested over $8 billion so far in the national COVID-19 vaccine rollout. It has also invested over $350 million in vaccine research and development.
.

2. « You say "approved"? But whoever asked them to approve my vaccines? I should be the only one to approve or otherwise what comes into my own body! »

Please correct me if I am wrong, Yuyutsu, but I don’t think you have any vaccines. The state has them and distributes them for administration to the public. But before purchasing any vaccines, the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) is responsible for assessing them before they can be used in Australia. A vaccine is only approved if its benefits are much greater than its risks.

As I indicated in my previous post, it is the duty of our state and federal governments to protect the Australian population. However, at present, we are all free to decide not to be vaccinated if we so wish.

But, as I also indicated, we are at war with this invisible enemy, and the federal government could possibly decide, sometime in the future, to render vaccination mandatory – just as it rendered military service mandatory in World War II – as a last resort if it considered the circumstances warranted such a drastic decision.

We don’t have a lot of options. For the time being, the government respects our individual freedoms. The virus does not.

If you are not already vaccinated, Yuyutsu, I sincerely hope that you and the other members of your family who are eligible do decide to be vaccinated. In my opinion, it’s not worth taking the risk of serious illness, terrible suffering, and possibly even death.

Here is a link to the federal government’s website on Covid 19 vaccine purchases and approval procedures :

http://www.tga.gov.au/covid-19-vaccine-approval-process

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Dear Banjo Paterson,

I am saddened to see you too speaking like a robot, regurgitating the regime's official line.

Given that, I obviously wouldn't tell you if I managed to obtain COVID vaccines on the black market, for surely then you would dob me in and have police come to my door, arrest me and confiscate my vaccines.

Government is the enemy of the people of the land, so is the virus, both are predators, but the latter will eventually disappear while the former seems to be more perennial.

.

Dear Yuyutsu,

.

You wrote :

« I am saddened to see you too speaking like a robot, regurgitating the regime's official line »
.

At the latest count, there were about 230 million people worldwide infected by the Covid-19 pandemic and about 5 million deaths. Every country is concerned, except for a few small island states.

It’s not surprising that there is a certain similitude in the analysis and prevention of the problem by the health experts throughout the world, both on a national level and globally by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

I do not pretend to be an expert on such matters, Yuyutsu, and it’s not in my habits to parrot anybody’s opinion or any “regime’s official line” as you suggest.

I do my best to get to the facts, follow the evolution of the matter and consult as many contradictory expert opinions as possible, before forming my own opinion.
.

« … I obviously wouldn't tell you if I managed to obtain COVID vaccines on the black market, for surely then you would dob me in and have police come to my door, arrest me and confiscate my vaccines »
.

I’m sorry you have such a poor opinion of me, Yuyutsu but please be assured that I can’t see why I should act in the way you imagine.
.

« Government is the enemy of the people of the land … »
.

That’s a very grave and sweeping statement, Yuyutsu. If you have any grievances about a particular government, I suggest you take the matter up with your local parliamentary representative. You can also write directly to the Prime Minister.

Government in Australia is democratically elected by the people. Local and State elections are held every 4 years except in Western Australia and Tasmania where they are held every 2 years. Federal elections are held every 3 years.

If any Australian government proved to be the “enemy of the people" as you suggest – but which I seriously doubt – the people could vote it out of office at the following election.

.