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 :)
Australia has about 44 alleged “covid” deaths per million. that is the most important stat to keep in mind.
Australia is pursuing a “zero covid” policy. why?
it is not a left/right thing. major parties are equally insane as regards covid.
all MSM is pretty much covid 24/7. get vaxxed is their constant message.
it is as if Australia is not allowed to declare the pandemic is over until some future date which will be decided elsewhere, so no-one ever talks of deaths; “cases” or “infections” and vaccines dominate the discourse.
natural immunity is NEVER mentioned.
therapeutics are NEVER mentioned. it is basically forbidden to mention ivermectin.
the police have long treated “climate” protesters who disrupt traffic for hours on end or damage property near the Federal Parliament building or coal facilities with kid gloves.
their treatment of anyone who dissents on masks or lockdowns is hostile by comparison.
sadly, a majority of Australians have rationalised it all, so the situation is unlikely to improve anytime soon.
What makes you think the pandemic is going to end?
How can it end?
At the moment very limited - it changes over time but we're still under pretty heavy restrictions - not the worst, they are slowly relaxing. Last time we didn't have any restrictions on movement in the state was about seven weeks ago.
In Melbourne, you can only leave home for certain reasons and if you do can only travel 10 kilometres without a special reason (it was 5 kilometres last week).
Most of the rest of the state is now unrestricted (but they were until this week) with exceptions for a few regional cities that have outbreaks.
Do they restrict movement between metro Melbourne and areas outside of the metro area?
Yes.
Do they lock down the entire state or just the region with new cases?
They've done both at different times. But if Melbourne gets locked down, it's always all of Melbourne - I'm 50 kilometres from most of the cases (I'm in south east Melbourne, they are more north and west, and we're treated as one block - some people are 100 kilometres from the infected regions but are technically in Melbourne when they really shouldn't be - their area only became classified as Melbourne at the start of this pandemic and exactly why is really not clear.)
Alberta, Canada has 2972 doctors, nurses and health workers that signed a letter that, effectively, called their government liars.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And yet as of yesterday, the new guvmint mandate is that all restaurants and other businesses are required to ask for proof of immunization or a negative COVID-19 test result in the preceding 72 hours.... no ticky, no laundry.
Hard to believe the people of Alberta caved on this....I would have thought these people would have gone full Australian as opposed to just rolling over.
Thank you! I always appreciate the real story without the media’s filters and spin all over it.
Stay well.
Australia isn't pursuing a zero covid policy. Some states are, and to an extent they force that on the rest of the country.
it is not a left/right thing.
Yes, it is. The Labor states and Labor Premiers are the ones causing all the problems. The coalition Premiers and the Prime Minister are much more reasonable.
The rest of what you say has some truth to it, but it's a lot more complicated than I have time to go into right now, I'm afraid.
Because pandemics always end.
I’m like ....same as you
We just do t accept govt interference at that level normally outside of WWII type circumstance
it is a bio-weapon from china and it escaped before they figured out how to release it. now it’s a flu. you can’t control a flu. it will flu you. the original sars was controlled. china sent this sucker everywhere on purpose. They sent contagious so called managers to inspect a pig processing plant in south Dakota to make sure it got everywhere.
At the moment - and this could change if a new strain of the virus appears or something else goes seriously wrong - Australia will be back to normal sometime next year in terms of the risk of disease.
Various things could stop that happening. But at the moment, that’s how it is trending.
When people stop dying of this disease at a much rate higher than seasonal flu, that’s pretty much what it means to end here.
Other countries may have different standards.
And splice the main brace.
Reading this article, the writer has given up their freedom in exchange for only 1000 deaths.
Re-read that...you gave up your freedom.
Game over!
Freedom is priceless.
Not lethal on its on?
Really
I know four folks under 50 no comorbidities who died
Healthy people
And they tried all the anecdotes touted here
I’m ultra high risk....I took plaquenil etc
It was nothing ....36 hours of phhelgm
Not so for the four dead I know
Started slow ....built steam ....nothing worked
Dead in 12-30 days...
Attacked of course lungs but also can spread to liver and kidneys
I thought it was a nothing burger a year ago...
Not anymore
That’s the rub
If it didn’t kil a few healthy folks nobody would care
I’ve given up nothing.
I fought for freedom.
I’d do it again if I thought the situation warranted it.
At the moment I don’t think it does.
This is my country. I know how it works. I know it will come through this.
Thank you for that post. Nice to see local and well reasoned reports from the land down under.
Seeing the media be it left or right has a bit of sensationalism always. It sells.
Most are thinking here aus is a bellwether of what may happen here and are quite concerned about y’all.
Despite your reporting I still have those concerns.
Good job. I hated to see all the work you put into my Freepmail, only be seen by me. :)
I don’t think we had a media induced one like this though. Everyone in power is literally lieing or don’t know they are wrong.
“The actual number is currently 1,178 - America per capita has lost 44 times more people than Australia.”
You’re far too trusting of the gov’t. All those numbers are cooked. Research the flat-lining of flu cases in 20-21. Research the up-cycling of the PCR test - to hypersensitive levels. Research dying with Covid vs. of Covid. Look at the current low level of hospital bed use in the US on the CDC site.
It’s a bad virus, but only slightly worse than past flu seasons.
The same tactics could have been used in any recent flu season. Just show the dying flu victims in hospitals (90,000 in the US in 2018), pump the fear porn, prohibit effective trratment, and voila, a pandemic. Let’s lock’er down and vaccinate everyone.
Thanks...you said “US is about 679,000 people” (covid deaths)
Well...THAT’S where it gets tricky...US had basically NO flu deaths, and the payments for covid hospitalization are incentivizing medical industry...and killing people. My 94 yr old mother in law died in Oct 2020. They said she had Covid....yeah, right. She had several other problems.... At .005% wonder what your flu and other deaths have been. Locker down for .005% seems outrageous. Not one of us gets out of here alive.
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