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 :)
Does your constitution provide you any written freedoms?
No you did, you gave up the right to call out your own government for stealing your individual rights!
Explain that to your kids and grandchildren..
You were afraid, and you traded their future freedoms for the idea of safety.
You own that.
Sounds like 60%+ here.
I think Australia actually has a legit death count
We do not....
I am friendly with a managing nurse at one of Nashville top three hospitals
They are paid 14,000 per Covid death and 42,000 for Covid dialysis patients and so on from the feds who pass funds down to the states
The hospital tests every deaths for Covid and if u test positive regardless of actual cause Covid is listed to get the money
She does this for a living ...precisely
Our death rate is actually some truthseekers claim about one tenth of the total
So we are not overrun with this many deaths
Another way to tell is has our aggregated death rate and gross numbers each spiked accordingly
No they have not
It’s inflated for politics because our leftist govt like yours wishes to use Covid to bolster fedzilla power
Vax mandates and shutdowns
Americans do not respond to govt control as easy as Aussies
Not sure why honestly....your founding history would have indicated more throw off the yoke culture to me
I haven’t been there in almost 40 years....I can tell a nation that used to be hyper masculine no longer is
It’s weird to watch
When I was there men were rowdy and fought easy and women were kind of a tier down
Now women are big in power there and you guys have hipsters too and lost your guns in a big way
It’s just unnerving a bit...to witness..feel free to tell me I’m full of shit
I did well with women there then...they cussed like men but would tell me ...as a southerner ...the opposite of your southerners ...in Aussie northern Australia culture is more like southern. USA culture
Anyhow Aussie women loved I was soft and polite and non agggressive to them
Aussie men were brusque to women....this is early 80s
Sorry to ramble....I love Aussies
Our cousins around the world pretty much
I spent a lot of time in your corner of the world while I was a flight attendant. I had a lot of fun in Sydney, Melbourne and over in Auckland. I'm hoping the best for all of you!
Thanks for the thoughtful, dispassionate description of what is going on in Australia. Do you know if the Covid situation similar in New Zealand? I understand they have a lot of lockdowns. My impression is that the national government of New Zealand holds relatively more power, but I don’t know.
What they got today is rubber bullets and pepper spray among other things.
They have used those weapons today and injured protesters at other locations in Melbourne.
They have the potential to fire projectiles here but they may damage the Shrine Of Remembrance in the process.
basically the same type of crap here in the US; we have some (not many) state governors who are going full Gestapo on their citizens and other governors who are just telling “BRAINDEAD BIDEN” to shove his executive orders where the sun don’t shine.
I am a native Californian and unfortunately for me, I live in one of the GESTAPO STATES, our governor (DER FURER) keeps saying “DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO”!
Wow! Well written and highly educational. Thank you!
Thank you for this. It was an excellent read. This is the very best of reporting.
Is it true that your coppers killed a protester with a rubber bullet?
(Heard it on that livestream.)
Cops started to move, signal went down.
This is completely unreasonable and tyrannical. It does not follow the science or the history of disease outbreaks. The Australian people should not lose their liberty “for their own good.” The power-mad government will NEVER give it back.
The Australian people MUST fight this tyranny and NOT GIVE AN INCH.
There is nothing reasonable about turning people into prisoners who have committed NO CRIME.
It is wicked for a government to argue it is enforcing tyranny to keep you alive when the result is your life becoming NOT WORTH LIVING.
Humans are social. They need fellowship with family and friends and fellow worshippers to remain psychologically healthy.
They need to shop for items they need and want.
You cannot meet evil half way. It is still evil.
My father was an American Air Force pilot and I was born in Texas. My mother was a war bride from Queensland. I am a dual citizen of both the USA and Australia.
It is not us Americans who do not understand Australian tyranny. It is Australians who are foolish to comply with this wickedness. These politicians are not scientists and they are refusing to even allow a debate, by highly skilled doctors and researchers, regarding alternative treatments.
These government monsters are deliberately hiding horrendous adverse reactions to the shots.
Their crimes against humanity include false imprisonment and trying to force a single, dangerous and experimental solution upon the people when there are cheaper and more effective solutions (as in India, with Ivermectin) which are cheap, proven effective for millions and do not require turning citizens into prisoners.
It is an absolute disgrace for Australians to believe the lies of these political lunatics and allow themselves to be locked away like they are dangerous felons.
COVID-19 is only deadly if you’re the elderly or considered to be medically high risk. All of this is an overreaction because you gave up your liberty. Liberty is not free. You have to pay a price in order to keep it.
Thanks.
Is it just rumor that someone got killed with a rubber bullet yesterday?
Our flu cases and flu numbers have also been very low throughout the pandemic.
Agree!
Sort of.
People coming into the country need to do two weeks quarantine. The Northern Territory still has a quarantine station (most of the rest of the country doesn't) because it's always had to deal with 'asylum seekers'. So they are using it. That could be referred to as a camp.
I haven't looked into it in detail, so I can't rule out there aren't some other facilities somewhere else too but they are a small part of the picture.
Other states have just been using hotels and they have proven to easily leak the virus into the community. So there is talk of building similar facilities. But with typical government timelines, if they do get built, the pandemic may actually be over.
But nobody has to come into the country - in fact, it's bloody hard to get permission to come in at the moment. We have Australians stuck outside the country screaming to be allowed in who are more than happy to spend two weeks in quarantine if they can go home after that.
People who are infected in Australia, or close contacts of those infected can normally quarantine at home but there are exceptions and they are generally moved to hotels as well at the moment, but again, that's less than ideal.
Some people are suggesting large numbers of people are being rounded up for no reason and sent to camps. Nothing like that is happening - even if people are quarantined, it's normally two weeks - clear test at the end of two weeks, you go home, and most people are clear at the end of two weeks. If you're not, yes, you'll have to stay longer.
When I see all the Americans who claim your last election was stolen fighting in the streets I might be a more inclined to listen to Americans preaching about freedom.
Thanks for the info.
Coronavirus PING!
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