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Posted on 09/21/2021 8:47:31 PM PDT by naturalman1975
I posted this as a mail to somebody who asked me what was going on here - and they suggested I post it here as well. This is just one person's view - others might well differ, certainly on some details. I've slightly modified it from the mail.
I've been here on FR about 17 years at this point. I've spent much of my life living in Australia, coming back to Victoria whenever I could - my time in the Royal Australian Navy took me all over the world and the country with postings in different states of Australia and some overseas as well. But this is the perspective of a long term Aussie and Victorian.
There's a lot of stuff going on here related to COVID. It’s a bit complicated.
First thing - it’s not the Australian government doing a lot of the things people are concerned about. That seems to be causing a lot of confusion overseas - our Federal Government, though certainly not perfect, had opposed most of the extreme reactions here by state governments - but under the Australian Constitution, matters of ‘public health’ are almost entirely in the hands of state governments, not the Federal government. The Federal government has very little ability to intervene in any matter involving public health. Likewise, while the Constitution prevents the Federal government from closing state borders, it doesn’t stop the state governments from closing their own borders.
Remember that - it's not Australia's Federal government which is broadly speaking conservative, lead by Prime Minister Scott Morrison who is doing this. Constitutionally all he can try and do is get the state governments to agree to a national plan, but they have all the power and quite a few of them are from the opposite side of politics. The Federal government does not 'outrank' the state governments - the states were almost sovereign before they decided to unify as a single country and they wrote a constitution that kept a lot of the power for themselves. And some of the Premiers are probably loving being able to be the ones really in charge of the whole country right now. It's not that the Federal government is powerless - but it only has power in its domains. It negotiates international treaties, it controls our defence force, it has primary control of most of the national budget.
But critically it doesn't have control of 'public health'. The states do.
What this means is that is happening in Australia has been very state specific.
I live in Victoria, which is the state with the biggest problems. We have a hard left socialist state Premier called Daniel Andrews and he’s the one making nearly all the decisions here. And he’s totally paranoid, on top of being an authoritarian. We’ve been locked down on and off for considerably over half of the last year and we’re likely to remain locked down for at least another six weeks before we even get close to back to normal. That’s down to his paranoia. You can’t leave your home except for certain specified reasons, there’s a curfew at night when you can’t leave at all (well, there are still a very small number of reasons), you can’t travel more than a short distance from your home even if you are allowed out. Most businesses are closed.
NSW which has a conservative government has also recently, over the last couple of months also imposed heavy restrictions (which go too far in my view) but they have only done it in the face of the worst COVID outbreak Australia has had and they are trying to get things back to normal as fast as possible - unlike Victoria. It’s a very different situation there - like I say, I think they’ve gone too far, but it’s nothing like Victoria.
The other states have occasionally had very short lockdowns that have actually succeeded each time in getting COVID numbers in that state back to zero. Personally I don’t think that’s unreasonable. They also close their borders to NSW and Victoria - which again, as we have nearly all the COVID in the country I don’t actually think is unreasonable.
There have been some protests against this, but not as many as some people seem to think there should have been. The main reason for that is - well, honestly, it’s hard to argue with the fact that we have been protected from COVID. We’ve only had just over 1000 deaths from COVID during this entire pandemic - people don’t want to throw that away by going to large scale protests that will lead to greater infection. The trouble is, in Victoria, especially we haven’t got a middle ground - some restrictions might have been reasonable but the degree is ridiculous but very few people think we shouldn’t have any restrictions at all. Most people would be happy to wear masks and social distance, and avoid large crowds.
In the last couple of days we have had large protests in Melbourne but they aren’t quite what some people seem to think - this is not a general uprising against the restrictions. As I said earlier, most industry in Victoria has been largely shut down for the last year and a half, but there was one big exception to that - the construction industry was allowed to continue, mostly because Daniel Andrews, a socialist Labor Premier, derives a lot of his political power from union support - so he was keeping them happy, while not caring about anybody else. In recent weeks though, construction sites have been the source of most new infections in this state, so finally he started putting restriction on them - some, I think were reasonable (no gathering inside in crowded rooms to have lunch), but he also mandated vaccines for them. And that triggered their first protest (where they actually attacked their union leaders rather than the government). He then ordered the construction industry be shut down for two weeks - and that’s lead to them starting widespread protests over the last two days. There are some other people with other concerns joining them but mostly this is a bunch of socialist trade unionists who are angry that the socialist state government is no longer giving them special treatment.
The media hasn't helped - most of it is left wing and supports Daniel Andrews because of that (though that might shift a bit now the unions are angry) and nor has social media - a lot of nonsense is being spread. Australia is not under martial law. We are not forcibly vaccinating school children. There aren’t police hitsquads chasing people down and sticking needles with vaccines into people - all claims I’ve seen repeated (possibly in good faith by people who believed them) on FR in recent weeks. When things get exaggerated or lies or told, it actually becomes harder for us to focus on the real problems here.
But there are real problems. Some state governments are going way too far at times, the Federal government is constitutionally limited in stopping them. State police forces are being asked to enforce a lot of dumb laws with massive fines and now we have more and more protests, some police decisions do seem heavy handed - but not all.
We really didn’t need an earthquake on top of it :)
The pattern since this thing began is that lockdowns, etc., only postpone the inevitable. So unless you're willing to lockdown indefinitely...it's coming.
Best thing to do may have been what was suggested by some at the outset. Isolate the elderly/most vulnerable, but let it run through the rest of the population to provide the strongest possible protection against re-infections and variants. Instead, "flattening the curve" seems to have extended this things shelf life, and given it more opportunity to develop more dangerous variants.
You really think shutting down for 2 weeks would have stopped it? It would have only delayed it.
I know how you feel about the earthquake. We had one at the end of March 2020, in the middle of chaos and the unknown. It was not nice.
I want a copy of the Australian constitution
But the 1,000+ Covid-assigned deaths are for the whole country. Currently almost all your 1,186 Covid-assigned deaths have been in Victoria (836 out of 6.7 million) and NSW (314 out of 8.2 million), meaning virtually a zero Crude Morality Rate (if calculation is correct). And as far as relative population density is concerned:
Compared with the population density of other countries such as that of the United States, which is 35.71 persons per square kilometre, Australia has only 3 persons/km2. It also has a lower density than Canada’s 4 persons /km2,
Demographia cited Melbourne as geographically Australia’s largest urban area, at 2,453 km2, and is known to be the 32nd largest city in the world. According to Demographia’s list, out of the 1,040 cities surveyed, Melbourne’s population density of an estimated 1,500 people/ km2 is ranked 955th.
The same Demographia-sponsored survey listed Sydney as 43rd in terms of urban footprint size (2,037 km2). Whilst it recognises that Sydney is Australia’s most populous city at approximately 1,900 people/ km2, like Melbourne, it also belongs in the bottom list as it ranked 936th in population density.
Dr. Michael Grosvenor of the University of Queensland, an urban planning expert, believes that some demographers are using inaccurate measures on the Australian population density. ...The Australian urban planner said that if the measure considers the residents of Potts Point, Chippendale, and Ultimo, which are inner-city suburbs located east of Sydney and are about two to three kilometres from the city’s central business district (CBD), then population density would rise to above 15,000 people/ km2. Another inner suburb of Sydney is Parramatta, which can be considered as densely populated with 4,800 people/ km2. - https://www.spacer.com.au/blog/population-density-how-does-australia-compare-to-the-rest-of-the-world
However, using that tactic one could compare certain areas of NYC with the above.
Thanks for the information.
All the equivocations...I noticed that.
Someone skilled in writing propaganda.
You have a sharp eye, flaglady!
Keep a camera on Daniel Andrews at all times. I bet he does not follow the rules he sets for everyone else. You know he does not. Reveal when he breaks his own rules.
You obviously possess a different breed of politician than exists in the rest of the known world.
Feb. 2020 was too late. When did it start to get bad in Wuhan? Was it in January? The time to shut down was probably Christmas 2019. But no one knew what it was at the time.
Get back to me when you can get on a plane and fly to England, and have no doubt that you'll be allowed to return home whenever you want to.
ML/NJ
One of those safeguards is that, ultimately, it's not a politician in charge - states have Governors appointed by the Queen. Australia itself has a Governor-General appointed by the Queen. These aren't politicians (well, occasionally they are - there's nothing to stop a politician).
The current Governor of Victoria is Linda Nassau - she's a former Judge. The Governor-General of Australia is General David Hurley, former Chief of the Australian Defence Force. These are people who have dedicated their lives specifically to serving the constitution of Australia. And ultimately they have the power - a state Governor have sacked a Premier and their entire government who has gone too far. The Governor-General has sacked a Prime Minister and their entire government who has gone too far. These reserve powers can only be exercised under pretty extreme situations - we're not there yet, unfortunately. It could get worse before it gets better. But in the end, the power is not with the politicians.
Hell, if it gets bad enough (although this would cause seismic waves across the constitutional law of sixteen different countries), the Queen herself could act.
This is the ultimate balance of our system. It's rarely necessary because the politicians know it can happen and back down before it reaches that stage.
Correct - most of the deaths have been in the places with high population density.
But most Australians live in the places with high population density. It's ridiculous to consider Australia low population density in terms of dealing with disease. That isn't what we do and don't do it because it's stupid.
Hi.
Thanks for your perspective.
May I suggest y’all contact Queen Elizabeth?
Imho, she’s a pretty smart Lady, and has the standing to get everyone on board that will stop this nonsense.
5.56mm
Absolutely - Australia's constitution was deliberately designed to be mostly based on the British Westminster system, but used the United States Constitution to fill in some gaps, and to improve a few areas. The most obvious (if simplistic) example of this is the fact that Australia has a Parliament (Westminster) but the Chamber of that Parliament are a House of Representatives where elected politicians represent relatively small areas of somewhat equal size (nowhere near exactly), and a Senate where every state has an equal number of Senators.
This type of fusion pervades the whole constitution.
All six Australian states (still called colonies back then) had become self governing during the 19th century on virtually all matters except defence and foreign relations. All six had constitutions. They chose to federate but they only chose to give up some of their self government to the new Federal government they were creating - the bits they thought would be better handled on a larger scale. They kept everything else to themselves.
This is a really thoughtful helpful post. But let’s not minimize the fact that police have beaten protestors, jailed people who broke curfew, etc. not to mention that freedom of movement both within and outside the country has essentially been banned.
One wonders if the populace would have willingly accepted these horrors if their weapons had not been seized a couple of decades ago.
As the weapons weren’t seized, the obvious answer to that is it didn’t make any difference.
The ‘mass confiscation of guns’ in Australia is another American myth. A minority of firearms were purchased by the government. The number ‘confiscated’ was tiny and most of those people were convicted criminals.
" Correct - most of the deaths have been in the places with high population density."
Those 0 Crude Morality Rates are for the areas Melbourne and Sydney are in.I would need the actual Covid-assigned deaths for each city to do a comparison, but I am tired now.
"But most Australians live in the places with high population density. It's ridiculous to consider Australia low population density in terms of dealing with disease. That isn't what we do and don't do it because it's stupid."
But as cited, "Melbourne’s population density of an estimated 1,500 people/ km2 is ranked 955th. Sydney is Australia’s most populous city at approximately 1,900 people/ km2, like Melbourne, it also belongs in the bottom list as it ranked 936th in population density." And getting to specific areas of cities works for all.
Yes, COVID mortality has been very low in Australia.
The thing is, how much of that is due to the restrictions?
The argument that “The death rate is so low you didn’t need to do anything to keep the death rate low” would be rather circular and fallacious.
I personally believe the restrictions have gone way too far - but we cannot just say that we would have had a low death rate if nothing had been done. Because that isn’t what happened.
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