Courtesy of The Australian, the first Newspoll in three weeks is consistent with the last in suggesting the coronavirus surge in approval for Scott Morrison in translating into only a modest dividend on voting intention, on which the two parties are now tied after the Coalition opened up a 51-49 lead last time. On the primary vote, the Coalition is down a point to 41%, Labor up two to 36%, the Greens down one to 12% and One Nation down one to 4%. Despite that, Scott Morrison has gained further on his huge approval rating boost in the last poll, up seven to 68% — a level not seen since Kevin Rudd reached 70% in late 2008 — while his disapproval rating is down seven to 28%. Anthony Albanese is respectively steady at 45% and down two to 34% (I assume — the report says 36%, but this would be unchanged on last time), and Morrison’s lead as preferred prime minister is now 56-28, out from 53-29. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Saturday from a sample of 1519.
a) Its a bit too early to know if the National Cabinet is “on the money”
b) To the extent that we do eliminate the virus in this country it will be more to do with the state Chief Health Officers (and hardworking health staff) and very little to do with the vacuous, sycophantic CMO.
DM
Ta, it would appear to be a battle of official definitions,there does appear to be difference in various organisations. The ‘bolded’ sentence is what he has said from the start as being a hoped for aim by the end of Stage 4 .
…………………………………………………………………………
However, he pointed out that elimination never meant zero – “but it does mean we know where our cases are coming from”.
He said that the Government’s goal has been elimination, not eradication – whereby the virus is completely stamped out in New Zealand.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12327755
The Guardian
The source code for the tracing app (as much as the security agencies will allow to be released) will be available within two weeks.
“So you still have to do all of that surveillance, testing, and have all the response capabilities ready if you release measures”
So why isn’t our CMO talking about all these measures? Hint: an app doesn’t cut it.
C@t
If you reported to your doctor that you had a few of the Covid-19 symptoms, according to what I heard Murphy say today, he should definitely have sent you for testing, whatever his private opinion was.
On the matter of rumours raised on Social media, I think it’s excellent that they can be aired in order to be dismissed by the experts here.
And as to Victoria moving to level 4 lockdown, Andrews said there would be no decision for a fortnight, depending on the outcome of the testing.
Crikey
I guess I must be a Sinophobe.
* Every time I go down to Sydney I head straight for Chinatown for my meal.
* My favourite new judge on Masterchef is the Asian lady, Melissa Leong. Now, admittedly, she is not 100% Chinese, she appears to have a Vietnamese heritage, so maybe that qualifies as making me a Sinophobe? Hmm?
* My favourite contestants on Masterchef are Reynold and Brendan, who certainly have Asian heritage. And no, that certainly is not a case of, ‘some of my friends are Chinese/Asian’, in order to make myself seem down with those races and as a cover for my Sinophobia. It’s just not true.
* Most of the food I cook myself is Asian or Mediterranean. Maybe that’s just because I yearn for the Colonial days of being an oppressor of the Chinese?
Or, maybe, just maybe, I’m just not prepared to let China’s geopolitical strategic aims go unremarked and, instead, feel as if I have to swallow their propaganda whole, kowtow to them and be an Australian quisling?
Government ordered to pay $200k in Tamil family case
https://www.theage.com.au/national/government-ordered-to-pay-200k-in-tamil-family-case-20200427-p54nk4.html
lizzie @ #455 Monday, April 27th, 2020 – 3:47 pm
Well, he didn’t. So I guess I’ll just have to take myself off to the local hospital instead.
Poroti
I expect that most agencies are being pragmatic about the definition. Basically they want to be comfortable that they can trace contacts of any new cases and manage new hospital admissions.
Stephen Duckett described it as effective elimination a few weeks ago:
‘Given this, state and territory governments should maintain harsh lockdown restrictions until new cases are effectively down to zero or close to it. Practically, this could be defined by a threshold of daily new cases below five (on average) for five days. At this point, the government’s contact tracing systems would be able to contain outbreaks. Broad testing and monitoring would continue, with new cases quickly identified and their contacts quarantined.’
Optus hit with class action over alleged customer privacy breaches
https://www.theage.com.au/national/optus-sued-over-alleged-customer-privacy-breaches-20200427-p54nim.html
shellbell: “If act and intent were the only matters brought into account in sentencing, the personal circumstances including privations of those forced into a life of crime would count for nothing.
That would not be a good outcome for indigenous defendants. Plus pleas of guilty would dry up in a hurry.”
When I wrote the words “act and intent”, I thought about also writing “and other factors with a bearing on culpability”, but mistakenly thought that I had implied this.
Yes, of course I think life history and other factors should be taken into account to a certain extent. (Although I note a trend away from this in really serious cases: eg, the Eurydice Dixon and Aiia Maasarwe cases, where there were definitely life history factors for both defendants that could have been taken into account (in one case a serious disability, and in the other a very traumatic upbringing as an Aborigine). But, presumably the sentencing judges decided that the crimes were so horrific that severe punishments should nevertheless be applied. A view that I personally applaud.)
But I still don’t entirely see the relevance of “remorse”: particularly if the defendant didn’t turn themselves into the police so their remorse is entirely a post-arrest phenomenon. Yes, I understand it is intrinsic to a plea of guilty, but and that plea in itself should attract a discount on the length of a sentence. But, as I understand it (and please correct me if I’m wrong), an expression of remorse can lead to an additional discount on top of a plea of guilty – or even sometimes after a case in which someone who pleaded not guilty is found guilty – and that doesn’t seem right to me. In some ways I have more respect for a criminal who says “I thought I could get away with it, and I accept that what I did was entirely my responsibility, and I’m willing to cop what’s coming to me” than one that says “I did it and I’m sorry, but it really wasn’t my fault, society made me the way I am.” To my way of thinking, the latter type of criminal is more likely to offend again than the former.
DM
From everything Bloomfield has been saying over the last month this is the definition he has been working on. Now all we have to do is decide the word it defines 🙂
Lizzie,
I agree.
It seems one has to agree with every dot-point the Communist Party of China issues, or you hate every person on Earth of any Chinese descent. Thinks have got ridiculous around here, lately.
It is like the days when no-one could question the Catholic Pope.
She was actually born and raised in the Sydneys southern suburbs and her parents are Singaporean.
CC
[So why isn’t our CMO talking about all these measures? Hint: an app doesn’t cut it.]
From the Guardian report, he is, but he is part of a body which works with the state and territory CMOs who are ably discharging this function in any event.
The Murphy “does not give a fuck about anything but the app” theory is just another baseless smear.
Pegasus
“Government ordered to pay $200k in Tamil family case”
So by “government” we mean “taxpayers”? This $200K should come out of Dutton’s pocket.
Lizzie,
I will look at downloading the apps when the gov’t passes legislation to safeguard the data. If Morrison cannot recall parliament to do that, (or tries to do it with obnoxious IPA legislation attached) then why should I trust the bastard?
And the kids should not go back to school before Morrison opens up Parliament again, ditto ending lock-downs. I am staying locked in until that happens, I do not care what gets opened up. I will not be spending any money on coffee or haircuts or random shopping centre visits etc.
Morrison, lead by example you damned coward.
PuffyTMD @ #466 Monday, April 27th, 2020 – 4:03 pm
What’s ridiculous is certain posters focus only on China’s misdeeds while they’re mute on others’.
poroti are you quoting from here?
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/su48a7.htm
Rex Douglas says: Monday, April 27, 2020 at 4:05 pm
She was actually born and raised in the Sydneys southern suburbs and her parents are Singaporean.
*********************************************************
In her own words :
” All I really knew about my cultural identity prior to taking the DNA test, is that my grandparents on both sides were originally from China, removed by about a generation or two on each side. My mother, from Sichuan Provence and my father from Canton. ”
“Imagine my surprise to find out that I’m 92% ethnically Chinese, with the remaining 7ish% broader East Asian (this includes Japan, Indonesia and the general Straits region)…and about 1% Native American.”
https://www.tasteofharmony.org.au/melissa-leong-learning-cultural-heritage/
“And the kids should not go back to school before Morrison opens up Parliament again”
A better test is “when it is safe to do so, not only for the kids but for society as a whole” and I have no confidence in the words of the Australian Chief Medical Officer on this issue. He’s compromised, badly.
poroti: “Perhaps you could spend more time slagging off your own state’s performance and policies ? How many 100% times higher death rate than Aus or NZ is it ?”
The Tasmanian Government has done a pretty job in general: very clear and consistent communication from the politicians and health officials and the hospitals were very well prepared for the flood of ICU cases that never actually arrived. Perhaps the government could have done more testing (our rates are pretty low), but my sources tell me that – beyond the N-W – people simply aren’t coming forward for tests because they don’t have any symptoms.
Premier Guttwein has instituted his own scheme to provide financial assistance to temporary residents and (although he’s
a Liberal) when he was asked if he agreed with Frydenberg’s comments that, if they don’t have jobs or money, these people are free to leave Australia, he replied “that statement doesn’t work for me.”
On the other hand, the N-W outbreak has to some extent undone all the other good work, although it’s difficult to fault the Government’s subsequent response.
If failings on the part of the Government are seen to be responsible for the outbreak, then I’ll be critical. However, unlike the PM and Murphy, both of whom made public statements (apparently based on rumours) about what caused the outbreak, which they were then forced to withdraw, I’m going to wait for the results of the inquiry into what went wrong.
Bushfire Bill:
The government (State) gets misleading information and on the basis of that misleading information makes bad decisions that cause harm to the economy, health or both.
For example:
– the government delays or rescinds the relaxation of a restriction because the App misinforms it about the effect due to weighting failures; this results in unnecessary economic harm
– the government inappropriately relaxes a restriction or fails to rescind it because the App misinforms it about the effect due to a sampling/coverage failures; this results in unnecessary harm to health
– unless the government restricts itself to one policy change at a time (with a gap of two weeks+) the bad data is made worse by synchronous confounders (two+ policy changes rolled out concurrently) and it quite possible to end up with both unnecessary economic harm and unnecessary harm to health simultaneously. Furthermore once it is detected that something has gone wrong, the bad data can misinform as to the likely cause, leading to the wrong restrictions being reimposed. This extends and thus exacerbates the harm to health
– if the government restricts itself to relaxing one restriction at a time (with a gap of two weeks+) so as to avoid confounders, the result is economic harm due to a slower than necessary economic recovery
– Individuals rely on the App to keep them COVID19Safe, and hence delay presenting to their GP when they have symptoms simply because the App has not not sent them a contact warning, leading them to conclude that it can’t be COVID19. This results in harm to those individuals’ health, even their death
Note that none of these cases involve mis-use, malicious actors, nefarious conduct or anything of that nature. It is purely that the data are bad.
The App is turning into a cargo cult, all sorts of people with no understanding of how it works and hence the nature of the problem (collecting good data, not bullshit about privacy) have opinions for which there is no real justification.
I am guessing Pete Evans won’t be appearing as a guest judge on MasterChef with his biocharger.
SA and WA both zero today
meyer baba
I not sure if remorse is taken into account, but I have read where lack of remorse is cited in harsh sentencing.
But what is real remorse is hard to decide. There is a gender bias where women, like Lindy Chamberlain, who do not conform to expectations of a grieving woman, (copious displays of emotion), due to shock or just an unwillingness to show emotion in public, are perceived as not remorseful whereas a male is allowed to ‘contain’ his emotions, as long as he does not show arrogance or callousness to the victim’s family without censure. As such females can be found guilty or get longer sentences due to showing no emotions.
RD: “What’s ridiculous is certain posters focus only on China’s misdeeds while they’re mute on others’.”
My goodness yes! On the one hand, you have the enormity of issues such as inappropriate complexity of the Jobkeeper scheme or the decision to allow people off the Ruby Princess.
On the other, you have the Chinese Government’s continuing treatment of Tibetans, Uighurs and the residents of Hong Kong, and their menacing behaviour towards Taiwan and all countries around the South China Sea, etc, etc. Just a few minor misdemeanours really. Walk on, nothing to see here.
phoenixRED @ #473 Monday, April 27th, 2020 – 4:12 pm
https://aussiecelebs.com.au/melissa-leong/
EGT
Your concerns there seem to be about the government using the data from the app and then making wrong decisions. A couple of points.
Firstly, the data the app gathers will only be available to health care workers who are charged with tracing contacts. I’ve not seen whether there is provision for aggregated/statistical data to even be released at all.
Secondly, there will be so little real data from the app that it won’t/can’t reasonably be used to inform decision making at all. The app doesn’t test people. All it does is find (a few of) the contacts of people who have already been diagnosed positive to covid19. Under any scenario (except extreme failure) that group of people who have been diagnosed positive to covid19 will be very small (and hopefully zero).
So.. not much danger for that kind of misuse. There just won’t be enough information to inform any decision making. Only mass testing can do that.
Also, the biggest danger, by far, with the app is that the app is being used as a smokescreen – as a crutch – for easing restrictions that should not be eased. Its there to hoodwink the public into thinking things are safe. When in fact the things that actually need to be done (mass testing, mask wearing, blanket testing of certain groups and other work) may not have been done, or done sufficiently.
I can just see Scomo standing at the podium going “well folks, the app has gotten 30 percent takeup.. that’s great! Now that we’re all safe, you’re all going back to work”. And then he can brush aside questions from the media about all the other measures that might actually do something useful but which he hasn’t yet implemented.
This is what you can expect from this person.
Rex
“What’s ridiculous is certain posters focus only on China’s misdeeds while they’re mute on others’.”
Well, that is not me. The damned Brits with the atrocious fox-hunting should be soundly flogged for it. And do not get me started on bull-fights or the mongrel, callous fvckwits in Australia who run illicit dog-fighting rings.
Oh, and I cheer every time some USA dropkick gets killed by the animals they shoot with modern can’t-miss weapons. One of the best was the guy who got trampled by an elephant, and another who got eaten by lions. There is nothing like a good ‘hunter’ becoming the hunted, and killed, story to cheer my day.
And that is just on animal welfare…
meher baba @ #480 Monday, April 27th, 2020 – 4:21 pm
And US/Australia’s treatment of it’s first peoples or the menacing of it’s neighbouring asylum seekers fleeing their war torn areas we helped to establish.
Maybe, just maybe, some of the trains of thought choo chooing around in peoples heads should be kept there.
Pegasus says:
Monday, April 27, 2020 at 3:38 pm
PB is always a far more interesting place to visit when posters such as MB and m b post. They add diversity of opinion, always expressed well whether you agree or not, a diversity that needs to be encouraged at all times.
Nonsense is nonsense no matter if it is posted by the mad right or mad left, but i can see why you appreciate it.
Sir Henry Parkes @ #412 Monday, April 27th, 2020 – 3:12 pm
Because he’s a one hit wonder who is believing his publicist’s ego-stroking. His publicist being himself.
seapooch @ #485 Monday, April 27th, 2020 – 4:31 pm
Oh dear.
It constantly amazes me that people just cannot subsume their authoritarian tendencies when commenting on an open, uncensored, well-moderated blog.
frednk @ #486 Monday, April 27th, 2020 – 4:32 pm
Then we have lightweight centrists who just float in the breeze with no direction…
C@tmomma says:
Monday, April 27, 2020 at 3:54 pm
I guess I must be a Sinophobe.
Or, maybe, just maybe, I’m just not prepared to let China’s geopolitical strategic aims go unremarked and, instead, feel as if I have to swallow their propaganda whole, kowtow to them and be an Australian quisling?
….tottering from the merely bemused to the plain-as-day Trumpy….
This started as a logical query about whether the pandemic originated in a wet market or came to infect the human population by some other route. The epidemiologists don’t think this is a concluded matter. I think they’re right. For one thing, there is a documented example of bat-to-human transmission of a SARS-like Corona virus occurring in remote, inland, mountainous China in 2015. The report documented benign transmission and was published in 2018. It further described a possible vector from the serological study group to, of all places, Wuhan. Presumably the virus identified in 2015 is still in circulation in the human population in some form or other.
This all well-predates the first cases of pneumonia which apparently occurred at around the same time in Wuhan, Qom and Lombardy in late 2019, cases which the sequencing shows must have come from human-to-human transmission. It’s also consistent with frequent anecdotal reports of people experiencing mild respiratory symptoms that are similar to COVID19 and yet testing negative to the specific virus. This is about the pandemic and its characteristics. It’s not about geopolitical arse-hattery.
Bemusedly, c@t would rather ventilate her ignorance than to think about these things with less malice.
Confessions:
Using the universal quantifier symbol ∀ (for all):
∀X. Republicans are no longer the party of X unless it suits their political prerogatives.
Pegasus @ #444 Monday, April 27th, 2020 – 3:38 pm
Good to see I’m not the only one that misses Meguire Bob.
meher baba @ #364 Monday, April 27th, 2020 – 2:32 pm
We are in NSW, not Victoria, but we have lost our livelihood – in conjunction with the bushfires, we look like losing an entire year’s worth of income.
But I support the lockdowns – their success so far has clearly been quite phenomenal. In fact, I think we should have gone harder – had we done so, we would probably already be lifting the restrictions. As it is, because we didn’t go soon enough, I think it is too early to lift them yet, and we will regret it if we do.
“Newspoll: 50-50″…
… and we haven’t started ScuMo’s python squeeze yet…. just wait for it!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/27/confusing-and-stressful-the-debate-around-children-and-coronavirus-as-australian-schools-reopen
The Guardian has been first class in its coronavirus coverage.
Rex Douglas
Come now, they hold a deeply held belief in what the focus groups say.
Player…. my income has been entirely obliterated by the pandemic….not just for this year but likely for 2021 too. Whether with or without lockdown, the whole thing has gone. All things considered, I think I’m now stuffed. It’s irretrievable.
Comrade Xi has questions for Australia.
.
China questions whether Peter Dutton originated in a lab
https://chaser.com.au/national/china-questions-whether-peter-dutton-originated-in-a-lab/
Continually Insufferable
Without being specific what area was your work involved with ?