Three things:
• The Victorian parliament has passed contentious legislation to change the process by which boundaries are drawn for local government elections, the effect of which will be an end to proportional representation in many councils and a return to single-member wards. This was passed through the upper house with the support of both major parties, and fairly obviously targets the Greens, whose local government footprint expanded considerably in 2016. The legislation is covered in greater detail by Ben Raue at The Tally Room. Relatedly, The Age reports Labor plans to endorse candidates across metropolitan councils at the elections in October, after doing so in only three councils in 2016. The Liberals in Victoria have never endorsed candidates.
• The closure of nominations for Queensland’s March 28 by-election for Bundamba on Tuesday revealed a field of four candidates representing the Labor, the LNP, the Greens in One Nation, just as there will be in Currumbin on the same day. You can read all about it in my election guides for the two seats, which are linked to on the sidebar.
• For those who have forgotten what a Labor election win looks like, Malcolm Farnsworth has posted four hours of ABC election night coverage from 1983 in two parts, here and here. The broadcast predates results at polling booth level and indicative two-party preference counts, which would have to wait until the 1990s, and without which it was difficult for analysts to read the breeze from partial counts in any but the most homogenous seats.
I seem to have missed it during all the waffle this morning, but when will Scott and Josh be bringing the tablets down from the mountain to save us all. Is it today?
Follow up question to the items about Sydney the drug capital.
Can one have ones items of choice delivered to the front door (no signing) and if so could Coleworths be planning an expansion into this booming market ❓ One delivery per minute would be a bit of a rush I guess but the attempts would weed (pun) out the leaners on the job.
RI @ #1550 Tuesday, March 10th, 2020 – 10:59 am
Indeed. It is almost as hilarious as Labor’s.
Morrison exhorts big businesses to “Pay your suppliers, not just ON time, but AHEAD of time.”
Is he serious?
During the GFC I was project managing the Victorian division of a big Woolworths national construction contract that the firm I worked for had won.
My sub-contractors on the tools – who were paid by Woolies direct – continually complained to me that Woolies strung out payments to them, culminating in a formal requirement that all invoices be marked “120 days”.
I told them to stick to “30 days”, which was the contractual period we had negotiated on their behalf. At least that way they had a chance of getting their money earlier.
Got called into the GM’s office and was hauled over the coals. He told me to butt out. “What Woolies wants, Woolies gets,” he said.
So, as to Morrison’s brainstorm: no chance at all.
What worries me is whether he – in charge of the lousiest paying, most parsimonious government in history – actually believes all that “Pulling together”, “Be patriotic”, “Show your generosity” crap he goes on with in public.
RHW
Also why does the ID expert from ANU wear a tie (I thought you guys banned clinicians from wearing the bug soaked rags) and what has happened to Peter “Hollywood” Collignon?
Bushfire
You can stop worrying over his words. They’re as shallow as his morals. It’s all for show.
rhWombat
Sorry, point taken and apologies to Tedros. He did not lie his way into office.
I am sure there are good people in the WHO, but they do seem to have dragged their feet extraordinarily this time over pronouncing a pandemic. Perhaps they thought they could avoid an economic panic, but with world stock markets crashing already that horse has bolted. Meanwhile nobody is feeling very reassured.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/bega-mp-andrew-constance-says-he-will-quit-politics-after-bushfire-recovery-20200310-p548ir.html
Italy in complete lockdown but according to the WHO it’s not a pandemic.
Another fascinating biographical snippet in the life of BB. I hope someone is collecting these vignettes so that they can be published one day.
Socrates
They are probably gun shy after getting the shit kicked out of them a few years back after their warnings about SARS (?) . .
Lizzie@ 10.59 a.m.
No, Scummo is still waiting for Charlton Heston to come back down from the mountain. So don’t hold your breath.
They say it’s got something to do with WHO getting a substantial amount of their funding from China.
I can see the Chinese claiming that only their system of government could stop the virus from spreading, and that the rest of the world better get on with copying them.
I know, I know….
lol. You need to re-read the intro to this thread.
Similarly, Ben Raue, Kevin Bonham, and Antony Green have criticised the anti-democratic legislation supported by the political duopoly. The legislation goes against the recommendations of the Victorian Electoral Commission.
When Labor and Coalition/Liberals can not win under more democratic voting systems that produce results more representative of the voters expressed wishes , they will huddle together and plot how they can best serve their mutual self-interest to preserve the status quo aka business as usual.
As for reducing diversity in representation, reducing the number of women and minorities elected, well, who cares.
The political duopoly in lock step with the Murdoch media, how very transparent.
Labor and the Coalition desperate to reclaim areas at the grassroots level before the next state election.
By foul means.
It is Labor and the Coalition who have a sense of entitlement and will do whatever it takes to retain power.
Labor cutting off its nose to spite its face.
Kronomex
These Scomo-stimulated visions of ‘good government’ are very disturbing. So far he’s called on his ability to foretell the future, his certainty that businesses will put patriotism before profit (or even survival), and his confidence in our ability to work together in a crisis with the blessing of the little Hunt.
lizzie @ #1565 Tuesday, March 10th, 2020 – 8:23 am
It was all revealed to him by doG.
I can’t be believe how small the stimulus package is going to be. They are talking about $10 billion which is only the size of the first Rudd stimulus package (October 08) which was bonus payments to people on payments. However, the first Rudd package was not large enough that is why they went with the second package (Pink bats, School halls and $900 tax refunds etc) which was $50 billion.
The economy in 2020 is much bigger than 2008 (about 60% bigger).
PFAS soil stockpiles sitting in Melbourne’s inner-west
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/pfas-soil-stockpiles-sitting-in-melbourne-s-inner-west-20200309-p5488p.html
Peg….yada yada yada….making the Libkin compete on even terms is an excellent idea. I applaud it. The split-o-crats have it 2 easy. They can go jump.
‘I’m scared’: Fight against PFAS soil from West Gate hits soccer pitch
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/i-m-scared-fight-against-pfas-soil-from-west-gate-hits-soccer-pitch-20200309-p548cg.html
A number of journos, such as Virginia Trioli in this excellent contribution
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-07/we-are-missing-a-strong-repeat-message-about-coronavirus/12032476
have commented on the contradictory messaging that is coming out about coronavirus from Federal and State Governments, not to mention some individual experts (self-appointed or otherwise).
After watching the NSW and WA ministers yesterday struggling to explain exactly how bad it all was and what the public should do, I was thinking that it would be best if all politicians made a pact to get off the podium and leave the public statements to the chief medical officers and other experts.
However, this morning the Victoria Chief Health Officer made a public comment that he, and “most of the rest of us”, had a 50-50 chance of contacting the virus and that a peak of the virus in Australian in May was a “reasonable bet”. I’ve checked out the radio interview and – unlike the SMAGE (which had him saying that all Victorians had a 50/50 chance of contracting the virus by May) – I believe I have quoted him accurately.
However, it’s still an extraordinary suggestion, requiring a rate of community spread in Victoria way beyond even what has happened in Wuhan.
The public deserves to receive clear and consistent messaging about the level of risk, exactly what the government is doing to combat it, the appropriate precautions individuals can take, etc. Federal and State Governments should get together and identify a single point of communication on these matters to the whole population: and I think the best possible answer would be Brendan Murphy, the Federal Chief Medical Officer.
Even Italy seems to have found a single spokesman at last. If they can do it, we certainly can.
B.S. Fairman says: at 11:27 am.
But, but, if they make it any larger what will it leave for them to rort and steal?
Socrates: “I am sure there are good people in the WHO, but they do seem to have dragged their feet extraordinarily this time over pronouncing a pandemic. ”
Whether or not the illness is officially identified as a pandemic is a bit of a red herring really. Unfortunately, the global media has taken up the word pandemic and is using it as if it is a synonym of “Armageddon”, eg terms such as “pandemic threat”.
I can understand the WHO not wanting to fuel this sort of thing. I think the WHO has been putting out a very good message along the lines of the appropriate response to coronavirus being
1. treat the currently sick in isolation
2. identify other people who are carrying it and who have mild or no symptoms and also isolate them
3. track down everyone who has had close contact with those in categories 1 and 2 and test them and, while waiting for the results, isolate them as well
Unlike some Australian authorities and non-authorities, the WHO is not issuing statements such as “it’s too late to stop community spread and it’s now inevitable”.
BTW, I think there is a misconception about what “community spread” actually means. As one WHO official pointed out, it doesn’t mean that the disease is out there “hiding in bushes”. It simply means that someone who has the disease somewhere (here or abroad) has now spread it to one or more people in Australia: something that happened for the first time a few days ago now.
Comments such as “the infected person didn’t travel overseas and no local contact has been identified, so it is clearly a sign of community spread” is a nonsense. It’s a case of community spread all right, but there was definitely an individual someone somewhere from whom the person contracted the disease: they just haven’t been identified yet.
For once Hartcher was right: it’s pride on Morrison’s part.
They have been bagging the Labor GFC response for so long, saying it was wasteful, unnecessary, profligate etc., that they can’t backtrack now.
Remember all that “tin sheds”, “school halls”, “sending cheques to dead people”, “Pink Batts industrial manslaughter” blather? It’s become part of the folklore so much that all you have to say, even today, to end almost any economic argument is, “Yeah… Just like Pink Batts”. Everyone has a giggle and the conversation changes subject.
Tradies still shake their heads in bewilderment at how concrete slabs were set down too thick, or they know a bloke who didn’t get paid by some big construction prime contractor, or such-and-such a school only needed a cyclone wire fence, not a colorbond steel one. These same tradies were only working outside the BER system because their competitors had work inside it.
The economy struggled on, in fact did so well that many of these blokes reckon there WAS no GFC, hence the money was blown for nothing. These are bedrock beliefs among Lib supporters.
“Player Onesays:
Tuesday, March 10, 2020 at 11:01 am
Indeed. It is almost as hilarious as Labor’s.”
Not to argue the rights or wrongs of the issue, but Vic Labor are in a sense entitled. They won the election.
That’s why winning is the first thing to do. Without that, a party is irrelevant.
meher baba @ #1571 Tuesday, March 10th, 2020 – 11:34 am
I agree with the rest of your post, but why do you find this suggestion surprising? It is not as if we can use the type of lock-down that China used so successfully, so naturally our rate of community spread will be far higher.
There are number of new measures taken if the WHO declares a pandemic, including funding released for a vaccine. They aren’t doing their job at a time when they really should be doing it.
I agree on the mixed messages we are getting although some are due to there being a wide range of opinions on what to do. Personally, I don’t trust a single source to get it right all the time.
Blobbit @ #1575 Tuesday, March 10th, 2020 – 11:44 am
I agree that Labor doesn’t seem to want to win as much as their opponents do, and needs to learn to go harder, but I disagree that winning entitles you to rig the system against your opponents **
** I am assuming that this is what you are referring to?
I know. They can’t do the stimulus package until they work out how to direct it to marginal electorates only….. That is possibly how the fumble the bushfire relief…. the fires were in the wrong electorates.
Bushfire Bill @ #1568 Tuesday, March 10th, 2020 – 10:19 am
China’s contribution is roughly 10% of the WHO’s annual funding. That makes them the second biggest contributor after the USA, which pays roughly double that amount. Japan is third, at around 8%.
If we’re doing funding conspiracies, I go for the lack of a pandemic declaration being first because the USA provides the most funds and is being led by Trump, who takes every opportunity he gets to downplay the impact of the virus.
ar
And China has acted as if it’s a pandemic. It’s not like they lay back and let it wash over them. And they didn’t give up. Australia has actually given up.
From the last WHO sit rep:
59,170,000 people in Hubei province
67,743 confirmed infections including 36 (none outside Wuhan) in the last 24 hours
Seems closer to 1:1,000 than 1:2
Of course this does not take into account
1.those infected who were not tested/treated
2. The numbers in Wuhan as distinct from the province
3. The reliability of China reporting
Player One: “It is not as if we can use the type of lock-down that China used so successfully, so naturally our rate of community spread will be far higher.”
Yes, but a 50-50 chance of “most of us” getting it? (And, to be fair, it’s possible that by “us”, he was thinking of doctors: although it didn’t come out that way.)
Italy has comprehensively demonstrated that they are unable to control the spread of the virus in the way China did, but it has so far reached only .015% of the population.
meher baba @ #1583 Tuesday, March 10th, 2020 – 12:07 pm
Yet …
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/11/coronavirus-expert-warns-infection-could-reach-60-of-worlds-population
Diogenes: “I agree on the mixed messages we are getting although some are due to there being a wide range of opinions on what to do. Personally, I don’t trust a single source to get it right all the time.”
I understand that there is a bit of a debate going on within Australian governments, with one side of the argument favouring the rapid imposition of draconian approaches a la China (and now, it would seem, Italy), and the other side believing that such practices would not be acceptable to the Australian population and therefore can’t be pursued.
I think the Italian and Iranian experiences have demonstrated the value of approaches less concerned with stopping the virus from spreading and more concerned with the attitudes and feelings of the population in general and, to some extent, important people in positions of power.
Apropos of that: has the government yet moved to control arrivals from Italy as they have done with Iran, South Korea and China?
Player One
“Yet …
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/11/coronavirus-expert-warns-infection-could-reach-60-of-worlds-population”
Another instance of one of those individual so-called experts whose contribution to the debate does nothing other than to spread alarm and panic.
It seems to me (and remember I know nozzing about it) that there is confusion over which is most important: preventing the spread of the virus, testing possible sufferers, or treating the ill.
This would affect the amount of money thrown at each problem – or not.
Vile little man.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/mar/10/none-of-your-business-scott-cam-defends-345000-salary-as-national-careers-ambassador
KayJay @ #1552 Tuesday, March 10th, 2020 – 11:00 am
So you heard the story some enterprising drug lord put out into the media to drum up business? That Cocaine can cure C-19? 😆
meher baba @ #1586 Tuesday, March 10th, 2020 – 12:15 pm
“So-called” expert? …
Sounds like a real expert to me.
Oakeshott Country: “Of course this does not take into account
1.those infected who were not tested/treated
2. The numbers in Wuhan as distinct from the province
3. The reliability of China reporting”
I’m probably totally naive, but I’m trusting that the WHO wouldn’t go so far as to spread unreliable information from China. A WHO team has visited Hubei and has reported that the approach there is working and the rate of new cases is falling dramatically. I’m really kind of hoping that’s true, because the alternative doesn’t bear much thinking about.
BTW, all the numbers I’ve seen lately claim to be from the whole of Hubei rather than just Wuhan. But the Chinese officials reported a couple of days ago that the only new cases in Hubei are now limited to Wuhan.
a r @ #1580 Tuesday, March 10th, 2020 – 11:59 am
In every likelihood, both. It’s how they roll. The benefits of Neo Con power politics. Which China has taken too like a Peking Duck to water.
“Remember all that “tin sheds”, “school halls”, “sending cheques to dead people”, “Pink Batts industrial manslaughter” blather? It’s become part of the folklore so much that all you have to say, even today, to end almost any economic argument is, “Yeah… Just like Pink Batts”. Everyone has a giggle and the conversation changes subject.
Tradies still shake their heads in bewilderment at how concrete slabs were set down too thick, or they know a bloke who didn’t get paid by some big construction prime contractor, or such-and-such a school only needed a cyclone wire fence, not a colorbond steel one. These same tradies were only working outside the BER system because their competitors had work inside it.
The economy struggled on, in fact did so well that many of these blokes reckon there WAS no GFC, hence the money was blown for nothing. These are bedrock beliefs among Lib supporters.”
Its not just Lib supporters. I think the views on all of the above from Joe Punter is along the same lines ie “waste”,”shambles” “disastrous”. Shows you the impact the LNP media cheer squad, multiple enquiries rehashing the same turf and the echo chamber have on people’s perceptions. Even a couple of Labor stalwarts, one a union official, during a political discussion came out with the same guff.
I think the AMA is laying on a bit thick here. Doctor stressed out because Health Minster was critical of doctor seeing 70 patents while infected with corona virus. I don’t think so.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/10/this-is-a-mess-put-on-your-mask-diary-from-the-frontline-of-the-coronavirus-health-crisis
But as a union you have to admire the AMA
Vile little man.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/mar/10/none-of-your-business-scott-cam-defends-345000-salary-as-national-careers-ambassador
_____
I wouldn’t know the “celebrity” from a bar of soap!
Oakeshott Country @ #3427 Tuesday, March 10th, 2020 – 11:02 am
Sanjaya was my registrar once, and is a bright and competent IDP. He’s a published author who followed Peter C. through the media training necessary to thrive in the Canberra culture medium. He’s more comfortable under lights than Tania Sorrell (my old boss and mentor). The tie is a media convention – albeit covered by a gown. He still has to gel his hands before he touches it – they demonstrated that on bow-tie wearing gynaecologists.
Any word of an official Labor response to the Morrison presser this morning? Nothing yet in the guardian / ninefax / abc or news.com.au that I can see.
That presser was a complete waste of time, nothing but motherhood statements, blaming Labor (smirko just can’t help himself) and ridiculous appeals to nationalism instead of anything concrete.
I think Labor needs to get on the front foot cementing the idea that the coalition has no idea what to do in a crisis, point out the manifest failures of their bushfire response to date, and that any ‘action’ or plan from smirko will just be marketing and spin.
I think we’re definitely in for some bad times, and Labor and the greens need to ensure that the coalition owns it entirely
Player One: “Sounds like a real expert to me.”
And he’s making such unarguable statements such as that, if the disease can’t somehow be stopped, it’s going to spread to a high proportion of the world’s population. And, of course, that 60 per cent of the world’s population is an “awfully big number.”
I wonder why he didn’t include other nuggets such as “if someone contracts coronavirus, they will either recover or die.”
Thank goodness for experts.
I agree that Sydney should be quarantined …
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-10/coronavirus-spreads-in-nsw-doctor-calls-for-sydney-quarantine/12040128
About 50 years should do it. We need to be sure.
Are all the Covid-19 cases reported so far in Australia located in the state capitals (with perhaps a few on the Gold Coast)? I haven’t seen any reports yet of any cases in regional areas.
Bushfire Bill’s idea of an app sounds like a good idea. Since the government has given up on any containment measures and is blithely allowing mass gatherings around the country to go ahead, not to mention an apparent unpreparedness except advising us all to wash our hands, perhaps those of us at risk (I fit into four categories) should take responsibility for our own “quarantine” where we can. An idea of the actual spread so far would assist in this.