If Scott Morrison can stand up to Xi Xinping, surely he can stand up to Daniel Andrews, Mark McGowan and Annastacia Palaszczuk? In fact, given that the first two are more-or-less puppets of the CCP, gormless little Mini-Xi’s, it should be even easier for Morrison to find the set of balls that he seems only able to find on the international stage.
Perhaps I’m being too harsh: Morrison is, after all, a politician. A prime minister who has to contend with a federation that has, by an accident of history, suddenly delivered unprecedented power to a gaggle of state premiers.
Scott Morrison has asked state premiers who are considering undermining the national plan at what point does the country move forward if not at 70-80 percent vaccination threshold, as he declares “this cannot go on forever”.
If the premiers have any say in it, it will. And, unfortunately, thanks to Australia’s federation, they do.
When it comes to public health, and emergency services, the Commonwealth really has very little power. Unfortunately, the China virus has allowed premiers to leverage both roles and grant themselves extraordinary “emergency” powers.
With WA Premier Mark McGowan and Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk reserving their right to implement hard border closures, the Prime Minister said there would be those seeking to “undermine the national plan” and those seeking to “undermine confidence”
“It is always darkest before the dawn. And I think these lockdowns are a demonstration that dawn is not far away. And we are working towards that,” Mr Morrison told a press conference on Monday morning[…]
Mr Morrison wouldn’t commit to cutting off federal funding for renegade states who go against the national roadmap, but has warned “lets see what happens”.
The Prime Minister said the country would “stay in the cave forever” if states didn’t commit to moving forward at the agreed upon vaccination thresholds, which he added wasn’t a “sustainable solution”.
“I think the voice of Australians on this will be very critical. Let’s see what happens,” Mr Morrison said.
The Australian
“The voice of Australians” — and there it is. The scourge of modern politics: opinion polls.
Thanks to a media-political propaganda campaign that would make Goebbels blush, many Australians are absolutely terrified by Covid. Even the Delta variant, with a fatality rate hardly more than seasonal flu. A great many of them have learned to love their chains.
Fear of the China virus swept WA’s Mark McGowan and Queensland’s Annastacia Palaszczuk to thumping election wins last year. Daniel Andrews has — so far — rolled out lockdowns and the first ever curfews in Melbourne’s history relatively unscathed. That may be changing, though, as growing protests and slipping poll numbers hint that Melbourne’s sixth lockdown may have worn public patience to breaking point.
But, still, Scotty from Marketing will be keeping a close eye on poll numbers, with an election due late next year.
So, we get flashes of uncommon good sense: Morrison states, correctly, that it’s time to give up the hysterical counting of case numbers and only report what actually matters — deaths.
But that’s not what the premiers want, at all. If they give up counting daily case numbers, they won’t have any scary numbers to screech from their daily propaganda pulpits. If, as is happening, days, even weeks go by with premiers only able to state, “Well, no-one died with Covid today”, the rationale for lockdowns is going to wear very thin.
So, they’ll keep up the hysteria and fear-mongering for as long as they can. And as long as Australians keep listening to the fear-mongering, Scotty from Marketing is going to meekly go along.
Leadership would be standing up to the Covid dictators. “We have nothing to fear but fear itself” — that’s leadership.
“Stay home” is the creed of dictators and cowards — and that’s what we have, when opinion polling and propaganda pull the political strings.
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