The campaigns for Queensland’s local government elections and Currumbin and Bundamaba state by-elections next Saturday are proceeding in the most trying of circumstances. My guides to the by-elections can be found on the sidebar; I’ll find something to say about the Brisbane City Council elections, which I have thus far neglected entirely, later this week. Updates:
• The Electoral Commission of Queensland relates that 560,000 postal vote applications have been received for the statewide local government elections, which compares with 260,680 postal votes cast at the previous elections in 2016. However, not all applications will result in completed votes being returned – the conversion rate in Queensland at last year’s federal election was 86.0%. There have also been more than 500,000 pre-poll votes, exceeding the 435,828 cast in 2016 with a week left to go. To those understandably reluctant to turn out on so-called polling day next Saturday, the commission has been expanding opening hours at pre-poll booths. All of which will make the results that come in on Saturday night particularly hard to follow.
• A ban has been imposed on the dissemination of how-to-vote cards and canvassing for votes at polling booths. Booth supervisors may allow the material to be displayed at the booths “in a manner deemed appropriate”.
Elsewhere:
• An international poll by Ipsos on attitudes to coronavirus finds 34% of Australians strongly agree, and 35% somewhat agree, with closing borders until the virus “is proved to be contained”, which is about average among the twelve nations surveyed. The survey has been conducted over four waves going back to early February, in which time the number of respondents identifying a very high or high threat to them personally has risen from around 10% to 23%. However, Australians recorded among the highest response in favour of the proposition that the media was exaggerating about the virus, which actually increased over the past fortnight from the high forties to 58%. A notable outlier in respect of all questions is Italy, where only 29% now say the media is exaggerating the threat, slumping from around 80%.
• Tasmanian Attorney-General Elise Archer announced this week that May 2 elections for the Legislative Council seats of Huon and Rosevears are “safe to proceed”, with “significant measures being put in place to maintain public safety”.
• A Roy Morgan SMS poll of 974 respondents asked whether respondents trusted or distrusted a list of current and former politicians that included Jacinda Ardern, but was apparently otherwise entirely Australian. All we are given at this stage is a top ten list of the best net performers, which is headed by Jacinda Ardern and otherwise notable for not including a single male conservative. However, this is all pretty useless without hard numbers, which will apparently be forthcoming “in coming days”.
Good attack on Roberts by Albanese.
The use of a zinger too!!
“Roberts is suffering an incompetence attack”
bc says:
Monday, March 23, 2020 at 3:45 pm
I think we use the term held together by fencing wire.
——————————————
Or baling twine.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/mar/23/incompetence-attack-mygov-website-did-not-crash-because-of-ddos-cyber-assault-as-stuart-robert-claimed
Previously unnoticed detail of that Roy Morgan SMS poll: the four business leaders with the worst net trust scores were Rupert Murdoch, Clive Palmer, Gina Rinehart and Gerry Harvey.
http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/8343-most-trusted-distrusted-business-leaders-march-2020-202003211118
This morning I received the link below from my niece who lives in France and teaches viola da gamba and cello at Angers Conservatorium. She and several of her colleagues, while each is in individual locked down isolation combined to put together a small segment of Handel’s ‘Royal Fireworks Suite’.
I tried to upload the actual You Tube clip, but lack the necessary skills, so perhaps some of you might be able to access it, anyway. If not, no worries….
https://youtu.be/ikdgFRm136s
Boerwar
What and let you miss out on all that ANZACery and a prayin’ ?
[‘On the list were such unexpected candidates as haloperidol, used to treat schizophrenia, and metformin, taken by people with type 2 diabetes.’]
A couple of meds that may assist in those infected with C-19. Metformin has been on the market since the ’50s and is quite effective in managing type 2 diabetes; it’s also said to have anti-cancer properties:
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/in-study-of-coronavirus-genes-scientists-shortlist-69-drugs-that-might-stop-it-20200323-p54d2x.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5772929/
WB
Gerry Harvey is in a league all of his own.
Boerwar says: Monday, March 23, 2020 at 3:46 pm.
“Will Morrison sack him for this?”
Stupid Roberts?
Scotty from Marketing sack another pentecostalist and maattee and fellow LNP crook? What a horrifying thought!
It like they are ignoring the evidence and CHOOSING to do nothing.
This from less than 12 months ago.
https://www.smh.com.au/technology/mygov-website-down-preventing-australians-from-completing-tax-returns-20190712-p526kx.html
I read an interesting article this morning about Trump that is just as valid here, the premise is that Trump has followed the exact same GOP science denying playbook for Coronavirus as for Climate Change, Cigarettes, Asbestos etc except instead of this taking years to come to a head, it’s taken only a few weeks and therefore his incompetence is displayed writ large for everyone to see.
lizzie says:
Monday, March 23, 2020 at 4:03 pm
The museum houses a permanent exhibition of original artwork, books, photographs, film and other media. It will also run special exhibits, the first of which is called “Heath Robinson at War” and contains 60 original artworks, books, Christmas cards made for the different sections of the military, and letters from the troops to Robinson thanking him for the work. The museum writes: “In each World War, Heath Robinson demonstrated his ability to counter, by the application of gentle satire and absurdity, both the pompous German propaganda and the fear and depression engendered by the horrors of war.” It goes on to quote the man himself, thus: “I believe that our sense of humour played a greater part than we were always aware of in saving us from despair during those days of trial.”
Robinson’s work is steeped in that humour. His name was included in the dictionary from 1912 as a synonym for absurd, ingenious and over-complicated makeshift devices, like the ones he spent his life designing.
———————————————————–
The American counterpart was Rube Goldberg
We used ‘held together with baling twine’
‘poroti says:
Monday, March 23, 2020 at 4:41 pm
Boerwar
What and let you miss out on all that ANZACery and a prayin’ ?’
It would be good for New Zealand. Plus he comes with a free bridge.
Aah, I see the link is working.
Enjoy the music for a brief 1.38 minutes in the commotion of today.
EDIT: No NBN type connection problems in France.
Our olden dairy farm would have fallen to pieces if all the plain wire and baling twine was taken out at the same time.
I go to Harvey Norman for one reason only, that’s to check if their prices are better than Goodguys, Officeworks or JB HiFi, if they are I’ll take a photo and then go to Goodguys, Officeworks or JB HiFi to actually purchase.
That’s a conscious decision as I refuse to contribute so much as a penny to Gerry Harvey, in the same way I won’t subscribe or pay for any content that leads back to Murdoch.
One sixth of the ACT’s burgeoning tally of C19 cases came off that fucking cruise ship.
Close the borders!
Boerwar
Australia will no doubt be moving to impose the same sort of restrictions NZ will have from Wed. It will be lol to compare and contrast between that announcement from Scrott and that by Ardern.
——————————————
“I do not underestimate what I am asking New Zealanders to do. It is huge. And I know it will feel daunting.”
Without these measures, up to tens of thousands of people could die, according to medical modelling considered by Cabinet today.
“The worst case scenario is simply intolerable,” she said.
It would be the greatest loss of life to a single event in New Zealand’s history.
“I hope that you are all with me on that decision,” the Prime Minister said today
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/23/kiwis-go-home-new-zealand-to-go-into-month-long-lockdown-to-fight-coronavirus
The end is nigh!
“ Two Western Australian brewers have joined forces to produce hand sanitiser to help fight the spread of the coronavirus.
SPINIFEX Brewing Co and Limestone Coast Brewing have joined forces to produce World Health Organisation grade sanitiser using about 80 per cent ethanol.”
Bennelong Lurker @ #1701 Monday, March 23rd, 2020 – 4:40 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikdgFRm136s
GASP! I got to the myGov log in screen and then it fell over.
Thanks, KayJay.
guytaur @ #1706 Monday, March 23rd, 2020 – 3:40 pm
Thanks guytaur.
Just on this one topic things are being glossed over. So MyGov could support 6,000 at once, but what was the limit last week? If it was less than 55,000, then why was it still so low last week? What usage patterns has MyGov experienced in the past? Why was it upgraded to 55,000? Who made the decision? On what grounds? When? …
–MIAMB
Kronomex @ #1724 Monday, March 23rd, 2020 – 4:50 pm
Oh no! You’ve taken down the whole system!
The Australian government is suffering from a Distributed Denial of Reality attack.
“How about we swap Adern for Morrison?
We’ll chuck Robert in for free.”
Surely that would violate the terms of the Anzus treaty?
Regarding Dio’s earlier comment on the Ruby Princess, with 39 positive cases already detected and let into the country, at first I thought he greatest risk of Covid19 spreading was Australian citizens not taking the warnings seriously enough and acting against them. So far the greatest number of Covid19 cases spread in Australia has been by the Australian government not taking its own rules seriously and acting against them.
Boerwar @ #1718 Monday, March 23rd, 2020 – 3:45 pm
Lucky for you the NBN didn’t need it back then.
I watched Jacqui Lambie interviewed by Karvelas. I got the feeling that she’s being kept in close touch (aka groomed) by Cormann in a way that makes her feel part of ‘the government’. She admires Josh Frydenberg for all his hard work. She still won’t contemplate increasing ‘Newstart’ after (when) the crisis is over.
Boerwar
No genuine farmer would throw away baling twine!! My mother mended one of my fences with it about ten years ago, to stop her dog getting out.
Held together with lacky bands.
My Dad was a pretty good bush mechanic and I can remember a few occasions where a piece of machinery was temporarily repaired with a piece of wire.
I am lucky that I have no current need to have dealings with Centrelink. I have dealt with them in the past, on behalf of my late father, but that was in kinder times.
I haven’t managed to get through all of today’s posts yet but thought some people might be able to give some advice.
Daughter works for a takeaway business and fang because she was apprehensive about going to work because her partner is high risk due to coronary disease. She feels the locals in the regional town she lives in aren’t really concerned and therefore not changing their behaviour because ther are no known cases in the town.
We talked about practising social distancing, increasing hygiene practices uand using gloves when handling money.
Now the problem a customer was leaning over the counter, she told me she could smell what he had for breakfast, she said she jovially said “I think we need to work on this social distancing idea” he just stared at her. When he left the boss told her it was not for her to tell customers how to behave.
What are people’s thoughts, she doesn’t want to go back to work and also doesn’t think the owner is following the number of people per square metre. What do I tell her.
Bennelong Lurker
Lovely to see in these drear days . Thanks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikdgFRm136s
Boerwar
The saying in NZ was there is nothing a that can’t be fixed by bailing twine and no.8 fencing wire.
Well however badly the management of Covid19 and the Scomo stimulus is going, right wing pundits will point out that investors are still better off now than under Labor. At least, they used to say that.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-23/coronavirus-shutdown-see-australian-shares-plunge/12080418
”…the four business leaders with the worst net trust scores were Rupert Murdoch, Clive Palmer, Gina Rinehart and Gerry Harvey.”
The Axis of Evil.
If ’axes’ can only have three members, then Gerry can be an Associate Member.
“Will you tie it up with wire
Just to keep the show on the road
Hey True Blue”
Snippet of lyrics from “Hey True Blue”, wrt the current discussion.
a
Me? I would be urging her to get out while the getting is good.
As a memento of the Era of Plain Bendy Wire, I have a bit that I pulled into a loop, knotted at the ends, and which was used to hold a gate shut.
Bennelong,
Thanks so much for that musical interlude! Truly joyous and uplifting.
Any other links to that group would be appreciated.
The sad thing is that even if those queuing had been able to reach a Centrelink counter, there is no money immediately available. I don’t think they realise that.
Nothing quite gets the juices flowing like small government.
Kronomex
Does that mean we should call you Mr Malicious Cyber Attack now ?
Boerwar
That’s my front gate latch to hold it open right now!
poroti @ #590 Monday, March 23rd, 2020 – 5:09 pm
This is not recent – I had big trouble getting in last Monday.
‘poroti says:
Monday, March 23, 2020 at 5:09 pm
Kronomex
GASP! I got to the myGov log in screen and then it fell over.
Does that mean we should call you Mr Malicious Cyber Attack now ?’
‘Rolex.’