The author really doth protest too much and tries to have a bet each way with Phelps.

He further opines: "If there is no penalty for failure, then the majority of bureaucrats will become indifferent to either success or failure, and it becomes just the process and the mates that count."

This wasn't a failure by any stretch of the imagination of a non-partisan person at least.

That thousands of Australian lives were saved by the actions taken by our leaders is irrefutable, by there are a few trying.

Victorians appreciated the efforts of our premier and elected him with an increased majority.

The 'after the fact' pontificators really need to give it a rest.

Thanks for the article Graham. This post (in 2 parts) is from Dr TF aka Megatherium.

You are brave talking with authoritative knowledge around this evolving epidemic. Acquisition of knowledge is fast by comparison with previous eras. But please note that scientific progress is slow compared to expectations of most commentators and punters. This is exemplified by the Nature Review where quantitative evidence is sparse (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-022-00846-2). We still don't know how many long Covid as defined at 3, 6, 12 , 18 months nor can we compare quantitatively with long Flu (CFS) etc..

Context is everything.
Aseem Malhotra is impressively articulate but I find a lot of what he says is out of context with the stages of the evolving epidemic. It is true for a stage but not another..

The (altered) mRNA vaccines were great in reducing hospitalisation and mortality. Malhotra addresses the harm that these vaccines cause. Depending on the moment of how frightened they were, this was usually unacknowledged by Public Health Officers or politicians. (Jeanette Young's acknowledgement of harm with Astra Zeneca, was sadly completely out of context with the stage of the virus

Let me illustrate with examples in the context of the real world.

If the likelihood of serious infection is huge (say 95%) and the mortality is huge (say 10% which was initially feared with Sars-2) and the risk of myocarditis from a fully effective vaccine is say 1%, then 100% vaccination of 1000 people will prevent 95 deaths and the vaccine will cause 10 acute myocarditis. (The real infection will also cause myocarditis in some people). In this scenario, Big pharma, politicians, CHOs will have done good by preventing a real lot of deaths for only 10 persons with acute myocarditis. (NB: I was one of the 10 and so avoided a second mRNA vaccine).

In the same scenario where the likelihood of mortality is say 1% as it is for the age group < 60, then 100% vaccination of 1000 people will at best prevent 10 deaths and cause 10 myocarditis. Most of the deaths will be in elderly and most of the myocarditis will be in young adults. I.e., this underpins the argument for not vaccinating young people if the vaccines do not also reduce spread. I am happy with this argument and I am sure you are too. (The calculation will vary with the age structure of the population and the quality level of a health system, and the %spread reduction)

Where the likelihood of serious infection is low (say 5%), then in the 1000 people example there will be only 5 deaths over all age groups prevented and still 10 myocarditis from the vaccine. Our CHOs and medical profession are I believe unnecessarily divided over this with Nick Coatsworth and Peter Collignon in one camp and the Burnet Institute, Norman Swan and Brett Sutton in the other.

Then there are added complexities with respect to preventing long Covid etc etc.
What really irks is that our taxpayer funded ABC almost exclusively presents the second camp's viewpoint, which we would argue is largely irrelevant to the current stage of the epidemic. You correctly infer that the ABC diminishes our democracy by their partisan stupidity

It's the 50% component of stupidity in COVID that did so much harm that COVID actually became more dangerous than it would have been had the "experts" not been so hasty in expressing and, enforcing their ignorance !
I'd make them look for another job where they can't do so much harm in future !
It's bad enough to allow the Peter Principle to continue in bureaucracy but in health as well ?

Thanks Graham Young for the article. Kudos.

Strange to see the ex-head of the AMA losing their stuff when a crisis occurs- isn't that the point of having a leader. Reminds me of a saying "government leadership is a group of people often notably un-governed".

Covid centres in the middle of the city rather than at the airport. Many still can't work because of lock downs despite claims- under the auspices of HR commissariat- bigotry- extreme Labor left governs for their supporters not for the nation- many claim a labour shortage yet stop able bodied from working- these people should be able claim for lost wages and advancement from the responsible state governments- ruining peoples lives- causing inflation. It's rare that you see a government that thinks of inflation as good and employment as evil- both Friedman and Keynes would spew them out.

It looks like interest rates will increase more this year- last year going up 0.5% for 4 months and 0.25% otherwise- about 4% increase. I suggest with extreme restraint- that the idiot governments get as many people back into the workforce as they can to avoid economic stagflation worse than after the Vietnam War- by cutting red tape- such as Covid injections.

This will increase the supply of labour and reduce costs and reduce inflation- benefiting Australia's economy.

We still have to pay off the massive debt from all the people "working for Centrelink" during Corona.

During the so called Corona crisis there was also the "hidden economic disaster".

Communism doesn't work. Communists decry misery on one hand while creating it with the other.