The West Australian has a poll today from Painted Dog Research showing 34% out of 837 respondents from the state favour secession for Western Australia. However, the utility of this finding is limited by the report’s failure to offer any insight as to how many of the other 66% were actively opposed and how many uncommitted, if indeed the latter was provided as an option. The poll also finds “close to three-quarters” think the federal government has put the needs of the eastern states ahead of Western Australia during the pandemic. I wouldn’t normally consider such a poll front page news, but it’s past time for a new general discussion thread, so here it is.
There is also the following:
• Since Tuesday’s post from Adrian Beaumont on the extraordinary finding of a Reid Research poll of voting intention in New Zealand, the other regular pollster in the country, Colmar Brunton, has produced a somewhat more modest result: Labour 53%, National 32%, Greens 5%, ACT New Zealand 4.8% and New Zealand First 2%. It also finds Jacinda Ardern with a 54-20 lead over the new National leader, Judith Collins, as preferred prime minister. There’s an interesting discussion on polling in the country, the record of which is apparently very good, on Radio New Zealand’s The Detail program.
• As noted in my popular dedicated post on the subject, elections will be held today for two seats in Tasmania’s Legislative Council. One of these at least, for the Launceston region seat of Rosevears, includes both Liberal and Labor candidates, and might be seen as some sort of barometer for the state’s new-ish Premier, Peter Gutwein, who has been recording exceptionally strong poll ratings amid the COVID-19 crisis. Live coverage of the count will, as ever, commence here at 6pm.
Internet is fine in Makassar, but we don’t have the NBN. 🙂
[‘Justice Department secretary Michael Coutts-Trotter’s story is a rare account of rehabilitation and absolution in Australian public life, a journey he lays bare in a podcast released today.’]
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/michael-coutts-trotter-s-journey-from-drug-smuggler-to-head-of-the-justice-system-20200730-p55h4d.html
I’m in Western Australia, I have Internet and no virus.
The police have just charged one of the truck company managers in the case of the Melbourne truck crash killing four police officers. The case is sub judice and I will make no comment on the guilt or innocence of anyone. That being said, I am pleased to see that investigators have not simply thrown the book at the driver, but have looked at the company behind the truck, and the chain of responsibility for the condition of the driver and/or vehicle, whichever is applicable.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-01/manslaughter-charge-over-truck-crash-that-killed-four-police/12515560
In a spate of fatal truck crashes on the Adelaide SE freeway a few years ago there were faults in drive training, fatigue and/or truck maintenance in every case. Since the Transport department prosecuted one manager and clamped down on driver training and truck inspections there have been no further such crashes.
Just starts watching insiders and Savva stated that the Victorian Health Department was substandard ( or words to that effect) This is not the first time this has been claimed but does anyone know any specifics.
NBNCo is public in name only.
Assantdj, Katherine Murphy alluded to that too in her latest article…
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/aug/01/daniel-andrews-and-scott-morrison-are-locked-in-an-argentinian-tango-on-coronavirus-but-their-grip-is-starting-to-slip
So much for early reports.
Being in health in Qld, I am curious to know too. We already knew Victoria did health differently. I am sure we will know more soon enough.
NE Qld
I keep hearing and reading the comments but no one to my knowledge has fleshed them out with details except a passing comment about NSW health having a regional focus. In my opinion the small size of Victoria means a regional focus is not as important.
Just wondering if this is just a seeding of misinformation to feed into a Vic government is bad narrative.
I doubt whether the antics of Palmer and his mate Morrison over borders will cause a wipe out of LNP seat in WA however, to win 2,3 more come the election would be helpful…Voters have short memories however……………………
I don’t know the details but I heard that Vic relies more on public-private partnerships, which may be what they are referring to.
Luckily we have 120 gig of data between three mobiles (2×50, 1×20) so 4G hotspotting is a common practice here. Hotspot speed, at 50mbs is actually double our local NBN speed.
Still not lightning fast but more than adequate to run several media devices at excellent image quality.
Having said that, fuck Turnbull and his crappy NBN.
NSW Health is a hub and spoke approach. Broken up into a number of Health areas which are semi-autonomous but report back to the central HQ.
I will say that Gladys Berejiklian tried to get the Public Private Hospital ball rolling but it has been an abject failure.
Qld is fully devolved into a number of health services each governed by a Board.
And one of the first Cruise Ship companies to begin cruises again…is dealing with a COVID-19 outbreak on board the ship.
I’ll just leave that one there.
Assantdj @ #562 Sunday, August 2nd, 2020 – 11:25 am
I reckon closing regional borders is why we were able to prevent the spread of infection in WA. Plus state border closure and forced quarantine for infected people.
In a sense that is true. Unfortunately the Rudd Government legislated NBN Co to be a government-owned entity that must pursue a commercial rate of return. This is an entirely irrelevant and unnecessary requirement that defeats the whole point of having a public entity. NBN Co should be pursuing public purposes only. It shouldn’t need to operate like a commercial firm. It is financially backed by the currency issuer. It will never go insolvent (unless the government foolishly chooses to allow it to go insolvent).
Provide everybody in Australia with reliable high-speed Internet access in a way that is ecologically sustainable and socially equitable. That should be the only goal of NBN Co.
I was dismayed to see that several of the disgraced “Workforce & Culture” executives involved at various stages in HI’s workplace case ended up at the new Northern Beaches PPP disaster occupying similar positions (and stuffing them up, too).
Their chief skills appear to be:
● Advanced monstering of employees,
● Inability to spell, construct a sentence, or read,
● Near complete ignorance of their own department’s policies,
● Lack of shame or conscience related to any of the above.
Assantdj
Once Covid19 is out it is very hard to contain – even Germany and France had trouble with it. The aged care homes are not Vic Health’s fault. But both the use of private security and the failure to monitor and test them regularly were big mistakes.
It’s always all about bushfire bill.
The truth is the quality of bureaucracy has been found wanting at levels but generally has been excellent , federal and state. The same partisans who were critical of the nsw libs are the ones rushing to exonerate dan andrews.
Still you would think recovery from recession should work in Labors favour.
Yay! The Interwebbys are back! 😀
Does anyone think there is any state premier not doing his or her best?
I don’t.
Cat
“ And one of the first Cruise Ship companies to begin cruises again…is dealing with a COVID-19 outbreak on board the ship.”
Hardly surprising. The cruise ship industry was dealt with in a transport webinar I saw a few weeks ago. The industry has set itself up to be virtually legally untouchable in every country it operates in except tax-haven home ports where the government is desperate for their jobs. None of this has changed or been re-regulated. If it starts up again countries like Australia will be left holding the body bags again. There were more than 20 Dutton Princess type scenarios around the world in April to June.
Even when Covid19 is beaten this industry should not be permitted to restart until the legal loopholes are fixed and duty of care is met. It is a competitor to domestic tourism that pays no taxes here. Why should we permit it to trade here? Encourage people to holiday at Australian beaches instead and pay locals.
BK:
I think they’re all doing their best. Some are just doing better than others.
Confessions
I screwed up the question – it should have been –
Does anyone think there is any state premier not doing his or her best?
Barney: “So much for early reports.”
I think you’ll find that the Guardian article you’ve linked to was reporting yesterday’s numbers. Andrews will be announcing today’s numbers around about now.
BK @ #576 Sunday, August 2nd, 2020 – 2:26 pm
I would love to see my letterbox filled with detailed information and maybe some masks and sanitiser. The disinformation arseholes could be publicly named abd shamed and the platforms involved on notice. What I have seen on TV from the premiers has been apparently sincere and informed by I presume trusted medical and other advice.
I offer the Premiers three and one half stars.
Trump’s going to ban TikTok.
Like that will help his election.
Great idea, Soc!
BK: “Does anyone think there is any state premier not doing his or her best?”
In terms of their individual efforts, they’re all doing really well as far as I can see.
But something does seem to have gone seriously wrong in Victoria. As I’ve suggested before, I think the real problems were at the bureaucratic level There are some suggestions that turf wars between agencies were part of the problem: if so it’s totally inexcusable and should lead to the instant curtailment of a number of bureaucratic careers.
And, if it is true that the current wave of the virus can be traced back to the quarantine hotels, there must also have been problems with the way in which the contracts with the security firms were drawn up and managed. And possibly some inadequacies in the contact tracing processes. And Andrews has admitted that he has had trouble with enforcing home quarantining, and it seems to me quite possible that there’s also something gone wrong with the local enforcement process (as apparently there was at the hotels).
Andrews has to take some responsibility for whatever stuff-ups there might have been: and I trust he will do so after the inquiry reports its findings. The idea that he could possibly get away with trying to blame it all on the Feds, with a bit of added “whaddabout dem” in relation to the Ruby Princess, is a delusion in the minds of some posters on PB. Andrews certainly isn’t so silly as to attempt something like that, although he has done a bit of lashing out at the public, which isn’t a great idea either IMO.
Victoria records 671 new cases, seven deaths as state enters stage four restrictions
Premier Daniel Andrews has declared a state of disaster in Victoria, with a curfew imposed from 8pm tonight and supermarket trips restricted to one person per household.
(SMH)
Zerlo: “Trump’s going to ban TikTok.
Like that will help his election.”
It probably won’t hurt him much either: as far as I can work out, the biggest users of TikTok are teenage girls.
He might even win some votes from their parents.
BK:
I did wonder if that’s what you meant!
meher baba
Actually tiktok is used widely on Youtuber’s, and lot of other people use it.
It appears Victorians are ignoring their Premier and his dictats.
Bucephalus
Piss off with your dictator dan bullshit.
Managing a crisis successfully is dependant on the team you have.
The premiers should be able to delegate different parts of the response to different areas of government to manage. If the team they are leading has weaknesses then it will impact on the overall success of the endeavour. The federal government team need to make sure that the areas for which it has responsibility do not undermine or negatively affect the state response.
It is obvious that the team tasked with setting up and managing hotel quarantine in Victoria failed. This was the start point of the community spread, what is more important now is, have they plugged that leak and why has the community transmission continued to intensify.
Some reports indicate that different hospitals in Vic have different interpretations of the rules around the type of masks worn. Is this because of differences of management structures within Vic health or are the standards too ambiguous.
Anaesthetists are also unhappy that fit testing is not happening with masks and I understand this is different in other states.
What is now apparent is that some hospital employees are becoming infected in their workplaces and this is not community spread. Is it happening in Victoria because of the large number of cases, is the workforce tired and thus mistakes are more likely to happen. Is this an issue that needs to be investigated before NSW reaches the type of hospital capacity Vic currently has.
The federal government had responsibility for borders and aged care, their team should have been working proactively to prevent the virus from escaping into both the country and the aged care homes. Like the premiers they need to take responsibility for their departments and not use a crisis in their management as an excuse to blame someone else.
What role, if any, did the back seat drivers play in changing the publics mood from one of compliance to one of deliberate non compliance. What role did no income have in the decisions people made to continue working.
The virus doesn’t care what state it is in, in fact it doesn’t care what country it is in. It just wants to infect people. The team leading each state need to manage their own issues and the commonwealth is meant to manage the wider response. Unity on all fronts is required, notionally it has been, but cracks are now turning into chasms.
The federal government needs to come up with a viable pandemic payment for people with no support. The standards for health equipment provision and use should be across Australia, not subject to interpretation. The medias role is to stop casting blame and highlighting disagreements and work on educating and informing people of facts not supposition and innuendo.
meher baba @ #586 Sunday, August 2nd, 2020 – 12:47 pm
As underscored by the Lincoln Project :lol
https://www.instagram.com/p/CDWc-sQAKBh/
Zerlo: “Actually tiktok is used widely on Youtuber’s, and lot of other people use it.”
I’m sure, but presumably there are readily-available alternative platforms for posting similar stuff, including mainstream YouTube. Banning it will annoy devotees, but I doubt it would prompt a significant voter backlash.
165 mllion americans use Tiktok.
meher baba says:
Sunday, August 2, 2020 at 2:44 pm
“BK: “Does anyone think there is any state premier not doing his or her best?””
Does that include Andrews not going before the Judicial Inquiry and not opening Cabinet Minutes and all Cabinet Notes, information and all Cabinet Ministers to the Inquiry?
Vic has announced 671 new coronavirus cases in the state and seven deaths.
Daniel Andrews has declared a “state of disaster” in addition to the state of emergency:
First of all, from 6:00pm tonight, I am declaring a ‘state of disaster’ across Victoria. This will be in addition to the state of emergency that’s operated throughout. This means that police and others have additional powers.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has announced a curfew for Metropolitan Melbourne, too:
The third area of change for metropolitan Melbourne is under the state of disaster provisions from8:00pm tonight, a curfew will be implemented. There will be a curfew across metropolitan Melbourne from 8:00pm this evening and run from 8:00pm to each and every day. And the only reason to be out of your home between the hours of 8:00pm and 5:00am is to get care, to give care, or to go to and from work or be at work.
There will be additional limits to the four reasons to leave home. You will no longer be able to leave home and go any further away from your home than a 5km radius. You will not be able to be at any point more than 5km away from your home for the purposes of shopping for what you need. Only one person will be able to go shopping once per day and they will need to secure the goods and services that are what you need within a 5km radius. In terms of exercise, recreational activity is now no longer allowed. You will be able to have one hour of exercise, no further than 5km from your home.
Long overdue move by the Vic government.
I hope all those that pushed to open up early are real proud of themselves.
Buc
Best if you stopped making a fool of yourself.
so much for barneys’ reading comprehension.
Tough but necessary decisions by the Victorian Premier.
Zerlo Can you share some of your Tiktok material ?
I think we should review it.