There probably won’t be any polls this week, with the fortnightly Essential Research and tri-weekly Newspoll having dropped last week. But there will of course be a Northern Territory election on Saturday, which is the subject of its own thread here.
Other news:
• Sue Bailey of the Launceston Examiner reports that Eric Abetz is expected to retain the top position on the Tasmanian Liberals’ Senate ticket at the next election, contrary to earlier reports that Jonathan Duniam was planning to topple him, after the two “kissed and made up”. However, the report further says that “another senior Liberal” is doing the numbers for the third candidate who will be seeking re-election, Wendy Askew, who filled the Senate vacancy created last year when her brother, David Bushby, took up a diplomatic post in the United States. Also: “It is believed Prime Minister Scott Morrison wants the pre-selection delayed until next year so as not to be a distraction during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
• Michael Koziol of the Age/Herald has a story on the willing Liberal preselection contest in Warringah, which Tony Abbott lost to independent Zali Steggall at last year’s election. Abbott loyalists are said to be advancing the claim of Sacha Grebe, a former Scott Morrison staffer and employee of lobbying firm DPG Advisory, whose principal is David Gazard, a Morrison ally and candidate for Eden-Monaro in 2010. Grebe backer and local party activist Walter Villatora is engaged in a seemingly forlorn bid to have the preselection held as soon as possible. Others said to be in the hunt are “state MP Natalie Ward, state executive member Alex Dore and Menzies Research Centre manager Tim James”.
• There has been a change in the party balance of the Senate with Rex Patrick’s resignation from the Centre Alliance to sit as an independent. The Advertiser ($) has also reported the party’s two remaining members, Stirling Griff in the Senate and Mayo MP Rebekha Sharkie, are the subject of approaches from Liberals to defect to the party, although the notion is meeting bitter resistance from conservatives.
• The results of Tasmania’s recent upper house elections have been finalised, and as expected have resulted in the election of Labor’s Bastian Seidel in the seat of Huon south of Hobart, and of Liberal candidate Jo Palmer in Rosevears. The former was achieved over independent incumbent Robert Armstrong by the comfortable margin of 7.3% at the final count (12,284 votes to 9,152), but the latter proved a close run thing, with Jo Palmer landing 260 votes clear of independent candidate Janie Finlay, 11,492 votes (50.6%) or 11,232 (49.4%).
For those who missed Maiden’s Zinger…, if Labor can’t get some traction over aged care they’re in real trouble.
If Bill is leading the charge, the signs are not good.
I was referring to the “infighting” between the parties just left of centre, which you in part alluded to, and of which you appear to have taken up the mantle of the greatest protagonist.
mundo
Sam Maiden is much better as gossip writing than political judgement. Now that she has been re-employed, she is anxious to keep her seat at Murdoch’s table.
Quarantine at the border is certainly a Commonwealth responsibility. Is isolation for public health purposes within a State the same thing as Quarantine for Constitutional purposes?
Frankly, I’m glad the Commonwealth has nothing to do with public health administration in WA. We know what we’re doing. The Commonwealth is essentially not competent. They have no intentions of ever becoming competent. An important element of our quarantine system is the regulation of entry at the border. If the Commonwealth were running this it would not exist.
BH @ #92 Sunday, August 16th, 2020 – 10:23 am
‘I’m waiting for Maiden’s editorials for news.com.au to report Labor’s media spots with the same enthusiasm her boss has for Morrison’s dodgy mob.’
Me too.
But, I refuse to accept that Labor cannot find a way around this perennial issue of mainstream media bias. I’m convinced leadership is the key.
Shorten certainly worries the daylights out of the mundane and scares the bejes out of others
Samantha Louise Maiden is an Australian political journalist. Until June 2018, she was a political reporter for Sky News Australia and was previously the political editor for a number of Sunday News Corp Australia newspapers including The Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Herald Sun and Sunday Mail. She has been based in Canberra as a political correspondent since 1998.[1]
Career[edit]
Maiden was known for breaking exclusive political stories for News Corp papers until resigning in 2016.[2] She also appears as a commentator on television news programs, including Today and Pyne & Marles [3] and is a known associate of Annabel Crabb.[4] She joined Sky News in 2017, first appearing on 30 January 2017.[5]
In 2016, Maiden said that Immigration Minister Peter Dutton had inadvertently sent a text message describing her as a “mad fucking witch” directly to her, instead of a colleague, after Maiden wrote a critical opinion piece.[6] The “witch incident” became internationally significant when Marvel’s dark hero Jessica Jones tweeted encouragement to Maiden “welcoming her to the club (of mad fucking witches)”.[7]
Maiden resigned from Sky News in June 2018.[8] She then wrote for the online newspaper The New Daily.
In April 2020 Maiden left The New Daily to return to NewsCorp as Political Editor, news.com.au.
lizzie @ #96 Sunday, August 16th, 2020 – 10:26 am
Doesn’t invalidate her comment.
If Labor, as the opposition can’t hold the government to account over the failings in aged care and the Liberals own 1997 Act what is the point of them.
mundo
People respond to personal stories, as every editor knows. Bill Shorten and Raf Epstein, with their direct anecdotes about the elderly unfed and tapping at the window would have more effect than a long dissertation about the problems of funding aged care. Heat needs to be applied to the seat of the Aged Care Minister’s pants.
Meanwhile as Qanon comes into sharper focus, saw this from Andrew Elder
Andrew Elder
@awelder
Jared Kushner is Q. Sorry not sorry for the spoiler
10:05 PM · Aug 15, 2020·Twitter for Android
1
Retweet
4
Likes
Agent 0064
@agent_0064
·
12h
Replying to
@awelder
Jared is nowhere near that smart.
Lizzie
Not just aged care minister but health minister and Scott Morrison.
This is a pandemic and it requires an overview from whole of govt.
Seems pretty clear to me:
Yet
● Dan Andrews gets blamed directly for what might be an avoidable quarantine failure in Melbourne by one of his public servants, and
● Some nameless NSW public servant gets blamed for the Ruby Princess (with the Health Minister specifically exonerated), in the week after Morrison had gone out of his way to specifically assert authority over the cruise ship returnees, presumably under quarantine, or immigration powers, or both.
Victoria says:
Sunday, August 16, 2020 at 10:21 am
Frednk
I havent watched Insiders as yet.
But did they mention that inquiry starts tmrw and anything about this?
Rex Patrick
@Senator_Patrick
·
Aug 15
There’s going to be a very significant legal fight over the #FOI status of
@ScottMorrisonMP
‘s ‘National Cabinet’. The PM has stretched cabinet confidentiality way beyond legitimate boundaries. Democratic accountability requires this be challenged #auspol
National cabinet documents might not be available to state hotel inquiry
The Morrison government intends to assert cabinet confidentiality over meetings of national cabinet, potentially denying Victoria’s hotel quarantine inquiry of documents.
theage.com.au
No they were too busy trying to defend their fixation with trying to blame D.Andrews for the hotel quarantine failures. It really was a bit pathetic.
If Federal Labor were to go after the LNP in the way that the mundos of the world would like, their 2PP would decline into the thirties. They would face the same obliteration as the WA Liberals can expect here in March next year.
But this would merely be a political consequence. Of greater importance would be the effect of politicisation of public health on the repression of the pandemic, on public co-operation, on viral transmission, the incidence of disease and mortality.
mundo is calling for the public relations equivalent of refusing to use PPE, hand-washing and social distancing. Responding to the pandemic requires forbearance, restraint, patience, discipline and mutual encouragement. It does not need political smart-arsery, rancour, dispute, contempt…or the other usual Greenist and Blueist ragging.
Frednk
Okay. I wont bother watching it then.
I’m getting more a little tired of Raf’s tweeting daily case numbers and running commentary.
It is not a cricket match Raf
Maiden’s prescription for success is disingenuous because:
● Maiden, among others of the Media Class, will be a member of the media “jury” that decides whether the government has been held to account,
.● Maiden knows that Question Time is utterly unproductive of information, and has been for some time under the Coalition.
The simplest answer is that the States asked Morrison for federal help when it came to quarantine, he refused, so they got on with it themselves.
Exactly what happened when it came to the earlier lockdowns – Scotty was still encouraging people to go to the footy, the States ignored him and went into lockdown.
Victoria it is worth a watch just to get feel for how pathetic the Australian press has become.
Shorten made a very valid point, the commonwealth is responsible for quarantine. The three working hard to weasel out of that was very illuminating.
Commonwealth power is aimed at the international/external border….
B. State and Territory Responsibilities
The National Health Security Agreement recognizes that state and territory governments have “primary responsibility for the public health response” to public health events within their own jurisdictions,21] while the Commonwealth government has “primary responsibility for international border surveillance and public health events occurring at international borders.”[22] Where there is a “Public Health Event of National Significance,” a “national health sector response will occur at the request of an affected, or potentially affected, State or Territory.”[23] Such a response will be coordinated at the national level in accordance with Commonwealth and state and territory legislation, as well as any established national plans or protocols, and each state and territory will also “undertake its own jurisdictional coordinating processes.”[24]
According to the NatHealth Arrangements,
[s]tate and territory health authorities have well established emergency management legislation, and well rehearsed and integrated emergency management arrangements.
Jurisdictional health authorities have existing command and control structures for the management of health facilities, public health units and pathology laboratory services. Additionally, in some jurisdictions ambulance services also come under the health authority response arrangements.
Each state and territory is responsible for determining its own internal coordination mechanisms to give effect to the NatHealth Arrangements, both as an affected jurisdiction in requesting national coordination and as an unaffected jurisdiction that may provide resources and assistance.[25]
https://www.loc.gov/law/help/health-emergencies/australia.php
Frednk
I’ve been ranting and raving over the past few months regarding how our MSM has been reporting this pandemic.
Of course I became risible with the pile on Victoria. It has been nothing short of criminal.
I will repeat. I will never forget it.
Anyhoo tomorrow the inquiry starts….
schedule
Topics to be examined 17 and 18 August 2020
The nature of COVID-19
Infection control
Epidemiology and contact tracing
Genomic testing
Monday 17 August 2020
Professor Lindsay Grayson
Director of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, Austin Health and Professor of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, University of Melbourne
Professor Ben Howden
Director, Microbiological Diagnostic Unit Public Health Laboratory, The Doherty Institute
Tuesday 18 August 2020
Dr Charles Alpren
Epidemiologist, Department of Health and Human Services, Victoria
Wednesday 19 August 2020
Non-hearing day
Topics to be examined 20 and 21 August 2020
The experience of being in quarantine
The experience of working in the hotel quarantine program
While such things as pandemics have been anticipated by various State/Commonwealth agreements – they do exist – the particularities of Covid-19 are new to us all.
It’s clear that States have responsibility for events that occur within their own jurisdictions.
Non
The Federal Constitution trumps a National Health Order.
It’s certainly the case that as far as the pandemic is concerned, there has been a lot of heat and very little light.
zoomster says:
Sunday, August 16, 2020 at 11:00 am
Non
The Federal Constitution trumps a National Health Order.
Yeah, but…..the Commonwealth’s quarantine power relates to the external border. It does not relate to events, processes, laws arising within the jurisdiction of the States. That is a very good thing.
Cowards take refuge in “the guidelines”, which are what you present as absolution for the Commonwealth government.
The genome indicates the new infection came across an international border, in recent times.
Seeing as Morrison and Frydenberg claim Australua-wide consequences for the quarantine breach, why didn’t they assert their undoubted Constitutional powers to prevent it?
https://www.loc.gov/law/help/health-emergencies/australia.php
The Commonwealth’s powers are limited…State powers tend not to be limited except where they conflict with expressly conferred Commonwealth powers.
The Commonwealth has no power in relation to public health matters arising within States. This is a very good thing. Were it not the case, States could not run there own hospitals or local public health regimes. These would be Commonwealth matters and would be totally fucked up…like everything touched by the Commonwealth is fucked up.
United States :
Coronavirus Cases:
5,529,789
Deaths:
172,606
– 53,523 new cases and 1,071 new deaths in the United States
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
Non
‘On a date or dates to be proclaimed by the Governor-General after the establishment of the Commonwealth the following departments of the public service in each State shall become transferred to the Commonwealth:
posts, telegraphs, and telephones;
naval and military defence;
lighthouses, lightships, beacons, and buoys;
quarantine.
But the departments of customs and of excise in each State shall become transferred to the Commonwealth on its establishment.’
The Commonwealth can exercise power where it has a Constitutionally-conferred right to do so. This is not a matter of guidelines. Nor of cowards and heroes. It’s a matter of legal authority. Mercifully, the Commonwealth have no power to regulate these matters within the jurisdictions of the States.
Rather, power is to be exercised collaboratively between the Commonwealth and the States because of the existence of agreements they have made in the past.
The derogation of powers from the States to the Commonwealth has gone far enough imo. Consider the effects of Howard’s extension of the use of the Corporations power, which has all-but eliminated the reach of State industrial tribunals. One of the consequences of this has been the steady erosion of the rights of unions and individual workers and the whittling away of employment conditions and wages.
We have a Federal system. This is intended to preserve the sovereignty of the States.
If you are very Machiavellian about this ( with bureaucrats wanting to reserve hospitals for the young you have to assume that is the correct lens), the federal government thought; States are responsible for the hospitals, if they get overrun we won’t get the blame, lets push to open the economy, the States thought, we are responsible for the hospitals, we don’t want to be overrun.
The commonwealth forget about age-care homes, all the effort they put in to undermine the states efforts to keep it under control is now coming back to bite the Commonwealth on the ass.
The effort the commonwealth put in include poor management of international borders, pressure to open independent schools and pressure to re-open state borders.
So why did Samantha Maiden leave NewsCorpse first time round?
‘On the morning of Sunday, March 20, Maiden, driving a Hyundai Sante Fe, was pulled over with a blood-alcohol reading of 0.136. This put her in the “mid range” of prescribed concentration of alcohol band. Generally, this comes with a maximum fine of $2200 and a maximum jail time of nine months, with a minimum licence disqualification period of six months.
Were Maiden to go to jail, it’d be a massive blow for the Sunday Tele, which relies on her to bring in exclusive political stories for the country’s highest-selling paper, particularly in election years. But it’s very unlikely it’ll come to that — she has no prior convictions, and very few mid-range convictions result in custodial sentences.
Police alleged to the court that Maiden failed to stop when a siren was activated shortly after 2am. Another police car then pursued Maiden, at which point she was handcuffed, arrested and taken to Goulburn police station. The case will continue in Goulburn Local Court on May 18 — Pearce rejected a request from Maiden’s lawyer to adjourn the matter to the Queanbeyan court closer to Canberra.
‘The Financial Review’s Joe Aston reports she had been attending Liberal pollster Mark Textor’s birthday party outside Canberra, along with guests like Scott Morrison and Chris Kenny.
https://www.crikey.com.au/2016/04/07/sam-maiden-could-be-going-to-the-big-house/
And when Maiden got to court, she got fined, lost her license – but no jail… from SMH reporting at the time…
‘Police caught up with the car, still travelling in the wrong lane, flashing a left-hand indicator.
Police activated warning lights and their high beam and allege the Hyundai pulled back into the correct lane, illuminating its brake lights briefly, but failed to stop. Police activated a siren, but the car continued on at 80km/h, again swerving and crossing over double lines and back.
Police ceased following the Hyundai about 1km from the town and stationed a highway patrol vehicle in Fitzroy St. The Hyundai passed the highway patrol and a second police pursuit commenced.
On entering Fitzroy St’s 50km zone, police estimate the Hyundai was travelling at 80km/h.
The Hyundai moved into the left-hand breakdown lane and, after travelling about 100m, turned right into Lamarra Place, narrowly missing a parked car, and came to a stop in the cul de sac.
Police approached the Hyundai. They removed Maiden and handcuffed her. She submitted to a breath test, which proved positive, was arrested, and taken to Goulburn Police Station.
At 3.12am, she recorded a breath analysis of 0.136g alcohol in 210L of breath. Maiden said she had been drinking champagne from 9pm until 1am, and estimated about five glasses.
Police facts also said that although there was no other traffic on the road at the time, the potential danger to all road users was extremely high.
In court today, Maiden’s solicitor handed up a Google map to show that she had driven 20km on country roads on the night. “Ms Maiden had been attending a function at Mt Wayo,” her solicitor said.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/journalist-samantha-maiden-avoids-jail-after-drinkdriving-charge-20160519-goykxw.html
z….I think the term “quarantine” in the Constitution refers to regulation at the international border. This is a valid consideration. No-one has raised it here til now. But I think it’s important. Were this not the case, WA would not be able to impose its own border restraints. Nor would NSW, SA, Tasmania, Victoria, NT, ACT or QLD. In no case has any State or territory sought to exercise powers in this respect by claiming those powers to be derived from a Commonwealth power. They have been exercising State or Territory powers, no matter what name has been given to them.
This journey into State/Federal responsibility in relation to the sequestration of individuals in various facilities in Victoria is a dead end. It is only about blame-shifting. Frankly, the public are entitled to expect a lot better.
And nothing in Sam Maiden’s boozing on with Liberal and Murdoch heavies of course bears any relation whatsoever to her badmouthing Labor on Insiders today. Obviously an even handed, independent journalist.
True, but they don’t appear to be limited in the case of quarantine.
Take the converse case: if there had been NO leak across quarantine lines, Morrison would be first to claim credit for organizing successful quarantine measures. If necessary he would have claimed that some kind of Commonwealth “invisible hand” had guided the states.
He wants to take the credit only when things go right. If they go wrong it’s always someone else’s fault.
I’m lately starting to detect that realization in the general Australian population. They know Morrison was cajoling the states into relaxing control measures too soon. They also know he’s tricky and untrustworthy. To an extent he’s receiving the benefit of the doubt, but it won’t take much to shift that back to the glory days of the Bushfire emergency.
frednk…the Commonwealth are barely competent even in the areas in which they have uncontested authority. They will never be competent. Thankfully, more locally constituted and accountable agencies exist with responsibility for most aspects of our daily lives.
lizzie @ #116 Sunday, August 16th, 2020 – 10:39 am
Deaths are a lagging indicator. He should know that.
What the Constitution says about quarantine is a moot point. The real issue is what Morrison said in the PM’s courtyard on 15 March 2020….
‘Today, I now want to move to the decisions that we have taken that were consistent with the plan that I’ve outlined to you. First of all, the National Security Committee met before the National Cabinet today and we resolved to do the following things; to help stay ahead of this curve we will impose a universal precautionary self-isolation requirement on all international arrivals to Australia, and that is effective from midnight tonight. Further, the Australian government will also ban cruise ships from foreign ports from arriving at Australian ports after an initial 30 days and that will go forward on a voluntary basis. The National Cabinet also endorsed the advice of the AHPPC today to further introduce social distancing measures. Before I moved to those, I just wanted to be clear about those travel restrictions that I’ve just announced. All people coming to Australia will be required, will be required I stress, to self isolate for 14 days. This is very important. What we’ve seen in recent, in the recent weeks is more countries having issues with the virus. And that means that the source of some of those transmissions are coming from more and more countries. Bans have been very effective to date. And what this measure will do is ensure that particularly Australians who are the majority of people coming to Australia now on these flights, when they come back to Australia, they’re self-isolation for 14 days will do an effective job in flattening this curve as we go forward. Similarly, the arrangements for cruise ships will have the same effect in specific cases where we have Australians on cruise ships. Then there will be some bespoke arrangements that we put in place directly under the command of the Australian Border Force to ensure that the relevant protections are put in place. We’re seeking to assist Australians to come home by ensuring that the flights continue to run, but when they come home, they’ll be spending another 14 days in self isolation. And so I’ve covered also the issue of the cruises. ‘
https://www.pm.gov.au/media/transcript-press-conference
As a matter of public importance I think that 2 issues need to be addressed by the high court ( or whichever body determines issues of constitutional importance)
The first, who is responsible for what at our international border. My take is the Commonwealth is responsible for determining if people are granted egress to our country and states are responsible for the health issues that arise from this.
This means the commonwealth should have determined if the people and freight were safe to land. Once this determination is made it is then for the states to manage the health effects. In effect this means border force should have determined if the passengers and crew were infected and then allowed the state to determine the health response ie quarantine.
The Ruby Princess enquiry said the regulations had been followed, but are the regulations in line with the constitution and do states have the right once a ship is declared infectious to refuse to allow them to land. I understood airports and ports were commonwealth land so what recourse do the states have in regards to costs when the commonwealth says I’m dumping a couple of hundred sick people on your health system.
The second issue relates to the in confidence status of the national cabinet. Does including state premiers invalidate the confidentiality because they are not members of the federal government. Is the question of confidentiality an issue of custom or is it imbedded in the constitution. Cabinet confidentiality was breached in relation to the Pink Batts royal commission, however this was after the event.
I think both these issues need to be resolved
It’s absolutely true that the Commonwealth really failed at the very outset to prevent the virus from being brought into the country. This was a serious failure.
But this does not mean the Commonwealth has the authority to, for example, run social distancing, personal hygiene, school attendance, public events and isolation policies in any State. The programs run by the States are not international. They are locally designed sequestration for public health purposes. The States are not running Quarantine Stations that have been built and organised by the Commonwealth…such as existed in the Good Old Days.
Non
The question is, when the state based effort to control international borders fails, can the commonwealth walk away saying, not me, not me, not me. The continuation says they are responsible for international borders. The states got involved because of the commonwealth’s complete failure.
BH,
It’s KK, not KKK. 😆
sprocket_ says:
Sunday, August 16, 2020 at 11:32 am
What the Constitution says about quarantine is a moot point. The real issue is what Morrison said in the PM’s courtyard on 15 March 2020….
A lot of water has passed under that bridge since 15 March.
I see The Donald is already starting to distance himself (and no doubt looking for a suitable bus to throw him under) from DeJoy. What a surprise.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2020/08/15/trump-biden-live-updates/#link-VQL7LRCDSFCC3NEEMGE5OZNHMQ
Frednk, I noticed they countered Shorten’s pointing out the quarantine was a federal responsibility by saying health was a state responsibility. It made me think, what is quarantine for? The only reason for quarantine is infection control!
Someone linked friendlyjordies character assessment of Morrison. I’ve now watched it.
An excellent and accurate dissection of Morrison.
https://mobile.twitter.com/friendlyjordies/status/1294062353223282688
assantdj,
Airports and ports have been sold off, or given ’99 Year Leases’ (same thing effectively).