Three entirely unrelated bits of information that don’t involve the Eden-Monaro by-election, for which another dedicated post is assuredly not far away (the most recent, and its attendant discussion thread, is here):
• This week’s Essential Research poll looks at indigenous issues and gender equality, finding broadly liberal viewpoints prevailing in each case. On the former count, most agreed that indigenous Australians and Pacific islanders had been “forced to work in Australia in conditions that amounted to slavery”, but 42% agreed that “many of the new cases of Covid-19 in Victoria have been from people who attended the Black Lives Matter protest” compared with 37% who believed it to be false. On gender equality, majorities somehow managed to agree both that there was “still a long way to go” and that it had “already been mostly achieved”, though a lot more emphatically in the former case. Respondents were also asked who got paid too much (bankers and lawyers) and too little (nurses and teachers).
• Tom Richardson of InDaily reports on an imminent package of electoral reform in South Australia, which may include the introduction of optional preferential voting. Labor leader Peter Malinauskas has accused Premier Steven Marshall of a move to “rig the next election”, and invoked the bogey of “the polarisation of our democracy in the way we have seen in the United States”. Malinauskas’s real concern is more likely to do with Greens preferences, the system having raised no such concerns for the Labor governments that introduced them in New South Wales and Queensland, back when its main impact was to weaken intra-Coalition preference flows in three-cornerned contests. The Greens have also declared their opposition, which would leave its upper house fate in the hands of the three survivors of the Nick Xenophon disturbance. The government’s reforms may also include crackdowns on corflutes (which seem to be particularly popular in South Australia) and dissemination of how-to-vote cards at polling booths.
• Justin Hendry of IT News reports the Australian Electoral Commission is looking into a full rollout of the electronic certified list system for marking off voters, which operated at around 10% of polling places at last year’s election. This replaces the more familiar method of paper lists marked off by pencil, which offer no guarantee the prospective voter has not already voted somewhere else beyond the requisite verbal assurance. As such, it can genuinely help prevent multiple voting, unlike a lot of other supposed electoral reforms that are invoked in its name. However, it may also constitute a point of vulnerability to nefarious actors.
This may sound bitchy, but it is how I feel.
Within 24 hours of the lockdown a group of residents translated health info into 10 languages, some written and some audio. Good on them, but why did they wait for the lockdown if they live in the towers, why not do it earlier and get it distributed.
This afternoon I’m reading about various groups who all want their particular issue dealt with, as a priority. I get this issue has affected thousands of people, I get they are some very disadvantaged groups but the government has a massive job on its hands and no amount of staff could deal with all these issues at once.
During every disaster we hear from large organisations about the extra work made by generous people donating goods. People need to dial back the negativity, see if there is something positive they can bring to this issue and let the government get on with it.
I pity Dan Andrews and all the hard working Victorian workers who must be feeling very unappreciated at the moment.
The main people who should be questioned and should be considering resigning
1-Prime Minister in bullying the state/territories to open their borders , Morrison had no reason other than playing politics for the borders to open.
2- Federal chief/deputy medical officers- There was no medical evidence provided that it was safe for the borders to be open , instead the chief /deputy medical officers play partisan politics
————————————————————————
inquiries into the media’s corrupt behaviour
Riddle me this.
– Testing rate is about 30x what it was
– Detected community transmission is about 10x what it was
– If community transmission detection approach were the same (which it isn’t), then one might conclude community transmission rate is 1/3 what it was…
– However, early community transmission detection approach was by residuals (failure to trace leaves community transmission as residual) whereas current community transmission detection approach is by routine testing (sampling)
– If anything, the residual approach for a given number of tests should have have a lower detection rate that a routine testing (sampling) for the same number of tests. E.g. it might be have as effective
– This would imply that if the early phase community transmission is of the same nature as current community transmission, then the current actual community transmission is about 1/6 what it was in early phase
– If this is not the case, then it implies that early phase infections labelled community transmission are in no way similar to current phase infections labelled community transmission, and all comparisons of the early phase classe to the current phase class are invalid
The question I want Morrison to answer is when did he know there was a pandemic.
Why didn’t he shut the borders immediately
Why was Australia unprepared with PPE
Why didn’t he make available income for people in insecure work if they needed to quarantine
Does,he take any responsibility for downplaying the dangers of reopening when the health advice did not support that contention.
I doubt I will get answers to any of those questions.
Guardian:
Russia has reported 6,368 new coronavirus cases, taking its nationwide total infections to 694,230.
The country’s coronavirus crisis response centre said 198 people had also died from the virus in the last 24 hours, bringing the death tally to 10,494.
It added that 463,880 people had recovered from the virus.
Thousands of mink in Netherlands mink farms are being killed because of Virus infections and known instances of mink-to-human transmissions.
Assantdj
Reporting on what the residents of the towers were and are saying both good and bad is important.
That’s got to do with learning what to do.
It’s the partisan bickering when it happens to be a Greens MP doing the reporting that’s tedious.
A lot of planning could have happened before hand. By a lot of people.
The complaint reported of systemic neglect by governments of both parties being seen again in the response is well worth noting.
It’s something Albo has talked about though of course he would argue Labor has been better than the LNP. It’s certainly true on the funding part even today by the Andrews government.
That doesn’t change that the vulnerable people in society get demonised and left behind systemically. Now people are listening because the spotlight has been on them. They don’t like what they are hearing.
This is then turned into accusations of political partisanship.
I expect not much is going to improve for those in public housing because of this partisan bickering.
It will improve because the virus has exposed the weakness in our society of that systemic neglect and demonisation of those in public housing. To the degree politicians have taken to using social housing instead.
Do people understand this is a tiny virus that is neither alive nor dead? It has no brain or conscience. It eats neither Kosher nor Halal meat. It doesn’t give a fuck about civil rights, police intimidation (real or perceived), opinion polls, who’s premier, whether the border’s open or closed or anything else.
The rest is hype and tribalism.
Bucephalus
When Darwin was bombed there was a Royal Commission.
The blame lay with the Japs (who dropped the bombs) and that was never seriously in dispute.
Instead of focusing on apportioning blame, the inquiry sought to learn how to do better – it was conducted by a judicial officer because it was thought that such a person would be good at conducting inquiries, as a result of having some experience in the area.
Drain the swamp race 4 Ballarat.
Gravy.
Bushfire Bill says:
Tuesday, July 7, 2020 at 6:28 pm
Do people understand this is a tiny virus that is neither alive nor dead? It has no brain or conscience. It eats neither Kosher nor Halal meat. It doesn’t give a fuck about civil rights, police intimidation (real or perceived), opinion polls, who’s premier, whether the border’s open or closed or anything else.
The rest is hype and tribalism.
___________________-
Think about your triggers, you know your about to have a rage episode.
If people haven’t worked it out., Morrison is on leave.
probably took a week off to co-incide with the School Holidays.
The only interesting aspect is he is too afraid to tell anyone.
Personaly, don’t really care
What I love about conservative supporters, is that that really love the blame game…..Let’s find a “guilty party” and hound them…….Slipper, Thompson (can never remember the spelling), Gillard (‘Ditch the Bitch – really classy stuff) now Andrews………they just can’t help themselves……………………….The Murdoch press got in wrong with Rush and it cost them plenty – However, it is in the DNA of the conservative side…some kind of inherent self-belief in superiority. No wonder this lot toy with Fascism…..
Bushfire:
General Flynn knows where you live and is on his way to take you to Gitmo!
Lars Von Trier @ #3511 Tuesday, July 7th, 2020 – 6:32 pm
Do you have anything political to contribute to the blog. Or, is it all personal smear all the time!
Oh, so Morrison is on leave…………….Yet another holiday?……..Hawaii?…..No, don’t think so. So where is Wally?
latest Gallup Poll has Trump at 38%.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/trump-gallup-job-approval-poll_n_5f03a58ec5b6db596745cc10?ncid=other_twitter_cooo9wqtham&utm_campaign=share_twitter
Lol GG as hall monitor.
Thats funny coming from someone with your even tempered sweet nature.
The virus mutates about every two weeks. It evolves. It gets more infectious. The surviving strains become more infectious. Slightly less deadly as natural selection occurs and evolution sends the virus towards being like the flu.
The problem being until the virus mutates out of the deadly stage or a vaccine is developed we have to have social distancing avoiding gathering with people especially inside.
We may even have to redesign residential tower blocks for high density residential as well as offices
Bushfire:
More seriously, thinking about the problem as “a tiny virus” is in my view not helpful for analysis. Instead needs to think about the epidemic, which includes the virus, the disease it causes, the reaction of people (even General Flynn’s Posse) to these and the dynamic response of the epidemic to this reaction. The last does in fact encompass some of the things you mention, for example if people choose to close borders it would seem the epidemic is diminished.
Bushfire Bill says:
Tuesday, July 7, 2020 at 6:28 pm
Do people understand this is a tiny virus that is neither alive nor dead? It has no brain or conscience. It eats neither Kosher nor Halal meat. It doesn’t give a fuck about civil rights, police intimidation (real or perceived), opinion polls, who’s premier, whether the border’s open or closed or anything else.
________
Maybe it was the virus who hired nightclub bouncers to control quarantine in Melbourne.
Tricot @ #3516 Tuesday, July 7th, 2020 – 6:37 pm
Regardless of your invective, Morrison is entitled to leave and he has a young family. Good on him for putting them first on school holidays.
Lars Von Trier @ #3518 Tuesday, July 7th, 2020 – 6:40 pm
I’ll be as sweet to you as you deserve.
You know it never works out well for you if you piss me off!
Logically those who complain about Mr Morrison’s actions whilst on duty should wish him to be on leave as much as possible, so as to minimize the undesired actions
How the virus got from quarantined hotels to Housing Commission towers: security guards working at both locations:
But security company owners and guards working in the industry, who asked not to be named for fear of jeopardising future work, said subcontractors working for MSS Security may have worked at quarantine hotels and at towers now locked down in North Melbourne and Flemington.
A guard employed at several different quarantine hotels has described how security staff were regularly shifted between sites and sometimes only informed by SMS message the night before.
The guard said some subcontractors had treated safety protocols with contempt.
“They’d joke about it and say, ‘We’ll all get coronavirus together.’ A nurse from The Alfred [hospital] tried to tell them how to properly use the masks, but most of them hardly paid attention. It was a mess,” the guard said.
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/security-firm-had-guards-at-hotels-and-locked-down-housing-estates-20200706-p559jm.html
wait wat!
Scomo is on leave. Who’s acting!
Albo step up! this is your chance. Melbourne is ….coughing? feeling flu-y and Scottys back in a hawaian shirt.
God it’d be a good moment for the leader of the opposition to cement home the idea that when the going gets tough the prime minister gets going on leave, far away from the problem so it doesn’t challenge is world view.
nath @ #3518 Tuesday, July 7th, 2020 – 6:42 pm
All responsibility on them for not socially distancing.
What is wrong with Morrison that he will not ‘admit’ to taking leave with his family
How sick is that?
michael halliday777
@michaelhallida4
· 4h
Replying to @JoshBBornstein
Goldilocks Tim Smith.
Quarantine is too hard!
Quarantine is too soft!!
Whinging is just right …
Who had ministerial responsibility for enforcing the quarantine in Melbourne? Surely that was Mikakos?
Greensborough Growler
It’s amazing he still have support.
“guytaursays:
Tuesday, July 7, 2020 at 6:40 pm
The virus mutates about every two weeks”
Got a reference for that. If you’re meaning substantive mutations, I’ve not seen anything that suggests that rate is anything like that for this virus.
Same thing re pink batts – dodgy workers not doing the right thing – put blame on someone else.
Where’s the personal responsibility ???
That’s the problem these day – people doing the wrong thing always blame someone else.
Lars Von Trier
The virus doesn’t have idelogy, boarders, age, it doesn’t give a shit about that.
It doesn’t give a shit about you either.
Blobbit
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/podcasts/the-daily/coronavirus-science-indoor-infection.html
Lars Von Trier says:
Tuesday, July 7, 2020 at 6:50 pm
Who had ministerial responsibility for enforcing the quarantine in Melbourne? Surely that was Mikakos?
_________
She claims she had no responsibility. The Chief Health Officer claims he had no responsibility. The Premier says he doesn’t know and he’ll find out when the inquiry is handed down. Six months time perhaps or later? The tender process was waived for the security companies we know that much.
The question has to be asked was the Victorian Labor Government more concerned about getting Somyurek and not so concerned about Covid?
“Assantdjsays:
Tuesday, July 7, 2020 at 6:12 pm
This may sound bitchy, but it is how I feel.
Within 24 hours of the lockdown a group of residents translated health info into 10 languages, some written and some audio. Good on them, but why did they wait for the lockdown if they live in the towers, why not do it earlier and get it distributed.”
What the? That’s like critising people for not having enough toilet paper because they should have known another lockdown was coming.
Actually, it’s worse than that, but I can’t think of an analogy that’s as ridiculous.
If anything the government should have had translations ready to go, if they knew there was a chance that their lockdown planning indicated this might be needed.
If the Libs had snagged EM Smuggo’s face would be plastered across our screens, school holidays or not.
Lars Von Trier says:
Tuesday, July 7, 2020 at 6:54 pm
The question has to be asked was the Victorian Labor Government more concerned about getting Somyurek and not so concerned about Covid?
______________
good point. Perhaps Andrews was basking in all the good PR about him resulting from his pressers over the bushfires and the early COVID days. He does do a good presser. Shame about actually protecting Victorians from a fucking pandemic by hiring goons.
mh
Yep. Trump school of FAIL denial.
The Drum now condemning the CEO of AMP for taking his “mature” aged secretary along to functions to make sure he’s not accused of molesting young women over drinks. He takes them as witnesses, if required.
He is condemned for implicitly suggesting that women manufacture complaints against powerful men.
He is also condemned for taking minders along to make sure he keeps his hands to himself (a completely arse-up misunderstanding of what he was talking about).
Poor bastard is guilty no matter what he does, or why he does it.
Did it occur to ANYONE on The Drum that there might be normal males out here in the real world, even managers and CEOs, who are NOT paedophiles, rapists, drunken lechers, hopeless gropers, homophobics, bashers, leeches, leerers and/or life members in the International Brotherhood of Old White Males hell bent on the subjugation and humiliation of women, little boys, little girls or small furry animals?
Perhaps it’s even possible that Dan Andrew’s just wants to stop a major outbreak of coronavirus, rather than bash Jews, Gentiles, Muslims, blacks, browns or yellows, low income workers or Victorians whose postcode ends in an even number?
This stupid program has been constantly referring to Twitter, Facebook, Tick Tock, what’s viral, #hashtags and all the rest of the “social media platforms” that slow thinkers believe are more real than Reality.
Go outside and smell the roses, Drummies. There’s a whole, wide, wonderful World out there, full of actual reality to appreciate.
nath says:
Tuesday, July 7, 2020 at 6:54 pm
Lars Von Trier says:
Tuesday, July 7, 2020 at 6:50 pm
Who had ministerial responsibility for enforcing the quarantine in Melbourne? Surely that was Mikakos?
_________
She claims she had no responsibility. The Chief Health Officer claims he had no responsibility. The Premier says he doesn’t know and he’ll find out when the inquiry is handed down. Six months time perhaps or later? The tender process was waived for the security companies we know that much.
————
Actually its the federal government responsibility for not extending the bio security
The Biosecurity (Human Biosecurity Emergency) (Human Coronavirus with Pandemic Potential) Declaration 2020 was made under section 475 of the Biosecurity Act 2015 (Cth). The declaration states:
Human coronavirus with pandemic potential is an infectious disease:
(a) that has entered Australian territory; and
(b) that is fatal in some cases; and
(c) that there was no vaccine against, or antiviral treatment for, immediately before the commencement of this
instrument; and
(d) that is posing a severe and immediate threat to human health on a nationally significant scale.
The declaration is in force from 18 March 2020 for three months; in the Biosecurity Act this is called the ‘human biosecurity emergency period’.
Under what circumstances is a human biosecurity emergency declared?
Relevant powers under the Biosecurity Act can be engaged for use in relation to ‘listed human diseases’. The Minister for Health may advise the Governor-General to declare a human biosecurity emergency if satisfied that:
a listed human disease is posing a severe and immediate threat, or is causing harm, to human health on a nationally significant scale (paragraph 475(1)(a)) and
the declaration is necessary to prevent or control the entry of the listed human disease into Australia or the emergence, establishment or spread of the listed human disease in Australia (paragraph 475(1)(b)).
Centrelink debts have been collected based on income-averaging for ’20 to 30 years’, minister reveals
Stuart Robert suggests the government can’t refund debts before 2015 because it doesn’t know who is owed money
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jul/07/centrelink-debts-have-been-collected-based-on-income-averaging-for-20-to-30-years-minister-reveals
“Robert also said that governments have calculated debts “partially or solely” based on income averaging for 20 to 30 years and done so “on some mass” since 2007, including an estimated 16.6% of debts in 2009 and 24.4% in 2011.
Asked why the government isn’t refunding these debts, Robert replied that the sample tests it has run in those two years are “the only data sets we have in terms of where we sit”.
Robert claimed that computing systems introduced from 2015 to automate income-averaging meant the government “knows who every single one of those individuals are” but “prior to that there was no computing system that existed”.
The comments confirm Guardian Australia’s reporting that the commonwealth has potential liability for debts before 2015.
At a later doorstop, Robert told Guardian Australia at least 4,000 debts a year were calculated with averaged income data from 2007 onwards.”
frednk
Ah, the memories!
Ye Ole shit farm..
One only need follow their nose from Werribee to Avalon.
zoidlord – love your passion. Keep it up!
Guytaur – like I said, substantive mutations.
From the transcription
“The question is are any of those mutations important. And most of them aren’t”
The way you wrote your original post implied that the mutations occurring every two weeks are making the virus more infectious.
Thanks Pegasus. I suspected that Shorten had a hand in robodebt. That seems to be the case now.
Blobbit
No that’s your reading. I did not write every two weeks there are substantive mutations.
‘They change the rules’: confusion reigns for frightened and stressed Melbourne public housing residents
The lockdown regime has reportedly been changing day to day, and tower to tower, causing concerns about food deliveries
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jul/07/they-change-the-rules-confusion-reigns-for-frightened-and-stressed-melbourne-public-housing-residents
“Residents of the Flemington public housing estate subject to hard lockdown in Melbourne finally received food and supplies from about 5pm Monday night but say they are still depending on community volunteers for many practical needs.
Before Monday night, food delivery had been patchy and disorganised. Residents say their main support has come from volunteer and community groups, including the Australian Muslim Social Services Agency, based in North Melbourne, and Sikh Volunteers Australia.
:::
Each tower appeared to have a different approach to food deliveries. Some residents reported being allowed to order Uber Eats, while others could receive no packages at all.
:::
Other residents reported that their main sources of information were from their local members of parliament and social media.
:::
The Guardian understands a protocol for deliveries by community members is being developed on Tuesday.”