“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” W. B. Yeats classic poem could hardly have summarised the behaviour of Australia’s politicians during the covid pandemic. The worst — “Dictator Dan” Andrews, Mark “Sneakers” McGowan, and Annastacia “Pluckachook” Palaszczuk — have seized the dire opportunities of covid and run amok with them.
As for the best… well, “best” is a very long stretch, let’s just settle on “least worst”: NSW premier Dominic Perrottet has been the only political leader who has anything like kept his head. While it was his predecessor, Gladys Berejiklian, who first took the sting out of the pandemic panic by calling an end to the ludicrous daily press conferences, Perrottet at least took relatively sensible measures such as ending restrictions and advocating “living with” what has now become just another seasonal bug.
But even Perrottet can’t bring himself to come out and say the obvious: nearly everything the public health bureaucracy has said and done during the pandemic has been completely bass-ackward. Case in point: “modelling”.
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet says the state has performed better than expected following the release of new hospitalisation and ICU modelling, which shows the state is tracking better than the “best case scenario”.
“We released modelling last week in relation to the health system here in NSW,” Mr Perrottet said. “Today we are releasing where we are tracking against that modelling and while the health system is under pressure, we are currently tracking better than the best case scenario we released last week.”
Which those of us less burdened with “expertise” might conclude means that the models are junk.
We might also say the same about restrictions which are strangling business and leaving supermarket shelves bare. At least, there, Perrottet is doing something halfway sensible.
Changes to the definition of close contacts for critical workers — agreed to at Thursday’s national cabinet — are a welcome development, Mr Perrottet said, adding that the revised status will relieve pressure across the state’s struggling supply chains.
He said the exemption changes will impact critical workers in health, emergency services, law enforcement, justice and correctional services, energy resources, water, waste management, food, beverage and other critical goods.
But is that really “living with the virus”?
Here’s a thought: scrap the whole mass-testing obsession and only make people isolate if they’re actually sick. Y’know, as we do for every other disease we “live with”.
We might also be forgiven for thinking that the rush to mass-vaccinate has been a complete bust. Instead, even Perrottet is doubling down on what already hasn’t worked.
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has confirmed more than 40 per cent of the state’s eligible population has now received a booster shot.
Clearly jealous that he doesn’t have an unpopular tennis player to throw in the stocks in order to distract public attention from the governing class’s concatenation of failures, Perrottet is whipping another of the media elite’s favourite Goldsteins.
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet says he is “completely shocked” by footage of hundreds of parishoners dancing and singing at a Hillsong summer camp and will ask NSW Health to investigate the event.
What?! Dancing? Singing? How dare they! As many young folks trying to have a bit of a clandestine knees-up have found, there’ll be no merriment in the Kingdom of Rona, thank you very much. Call out the guards!
After speaking with Health Minister Brad Hazzard, Mr Perrottet said the summer camp “wasn’t in the spirit of the rules”, adding that a fine could be imposed following an investigation of the three-day event.
The Australian
Spirit, shmirit. As long as you can quibble and fudge over the exact letter of the rules, you don’t have to worry about the “spirit” of them.
Just ask Siouxsie Wiles.