Yuyutsu,

It might not be of interest to the ordinary man in the street; in fact, I'm pretty sure it is of no interest to him. And therein lies the the problem. Apathy leads to tyranny. The extraordinary abuse of power during the China virus is just the beginning.

Dear Ttbn,

Why do you call this "apathy"?
I rather use the terms of the Serenity Prayer:

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer

It is similarly clear that it is time now for the people of Hong Kong to leave, while they can.

I'll leave the Serenity Prayer to AA members. Australia needs more than prayers to save it.

"Never before has Australia, even in wartime, been governed by a grand coalition of parties and governments, underwritten by big business and with the mainstream nomedia tranquilised". (Constitutional lawyer, Professor David Flint).

Smartarse questions about what I think to pour scorn on a legitimate proposition have no place here. What needs to be thrashed out before the next crisis is: has the government acted unconstitutionally, as is suggested by a noted Constitutional lawyer, and what needs to be done to avoid further cures that are worse than the complaint. Serious investigations into the economy/freedoms curtailment inflicted by the government in its panic stricken response to the China virus are needed.

There should have been no cases of the China virus in Australia, given that we are an island. The government did not seal our borders soon enough, and when they finally did, they exacted a massive cost on the population with a 'save the lives of as many people as possible at any cost' scatter gun action. And, the very few people who died were old timers who would have died of some old age condition, months, weeks or even days later than they did. And, we can't even be sure that people who survived, reportedly diagnosed with the virus, had it in the first place - given the sorts of 'experts' we are cursed with; those 'experts' whose gross exaggerations have been swept under the carpet.

The 'national cabinet', Flint believes, was designed to create a consensus; not hard, given that there is very little difference between the Coalition and Labor.

Margaret Thatcher's definition of consensus was: "the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved". And just how well that describes the attitude of our government and our opposition these days

Ttbn,

"Panic-stricken response" ? 102 deaths, vs the US's 120,000 so far ? Well, it worked, didn't it ? Prompt action in one case, and (I'm betting) far quicker economic recovery - sloppy and incompetent response in the other case, forty 9/11s and counting, no end in sight except disaster.

Unless,of course, you're advocating that we SHOULD have had more than 100,000 deaths, just to save a few jobs for a few months ?

Thank god for this government - and for all of the State/Territory governments as well. There's more sense in the little fingers of each of those leaders than in the entire Trumpf clan and half of the idiot governors in the US.

Joe

Joe,

There is nothing to be gained by comparing us with America or Europe. We should have had zero cases; would have had if Morrison had acted earlier. And Morrison must take the blame as he is a one man band. He has stepped away from cabinet government even more than Turnbull did. Morrison is an aspiring dictator, and excusing him just because someone or some people who might be worse but have nothing to do with Australia does not excuse him. Nor does saying that he and the Coalition should be excused or voted for just because they are not 'quite as bad as Labor'.