By TBS Newsbot
Dominic Perrottet promising to fine anyone who fails to register their positive RAT is more than draconian; it’s delusional.
Faced with spiralling COVID cases, long lines at testing facilities and a health system on the brink, NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet enshrined the era of “personal responsibility” whereupon it was up to the people of his state to do the right thing and get tested. This was predicated on citizens being able to find rapid antigen tests that haven’t been ordered and not catch COVID, despite everything remaining open. To help track these new cases, QR codes would be discontinued, and masks would no longer be mandatory.
Today, the goalposts have shifted further, as Perrottet has announced a $1,000 fine for those who haven’t registered their positive test since January 1. It’s beyond farcical for two reasons, as Perrottet is punishing people for a situation he created, and the state has openly admitted that they have no idea how they’re going to police it.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, NSW’s health department was in talks with the Crown Solicitor’s Office to figure out how to legally enforce logging rapid tests.
“There has been much discussion regarding the possibility of mandatory enforcement and the health lawyers are consulting with Crown Solicitor’s to look at what may be possible… at the end of the day, it’s an obligation on all of us to make sure that we log in to the Service NSW app, particularly as it will give a clear picture of how the virus is moving through the community,” Hazzard told SMH
This, mind you, is the same app that we were told that we no longer need to use. Those still doing the right thing (against the official advice) will know that their check-in history is littered with close contacts, making the new plan to stop the virus already obsolete.
What’s more, we’ve seen this behaviour before.
In May 2021, one man’s thirst for the right barbecue returned Sydney to the embrace of COVID restrictions. For those who missed the story, one Sydney man in his 50s travelled to numerous barbecue outlets over the weekend, a voyage of more than 100 kilometres and more than seven stops.
As Kevin Nguyen of the ABC noted at the time, “The man’s nine other close contacts have returned negative swabs, but NSW Health remains concerned about a swathe of venues around Sydney the cases have visited while infectious. It’s prompted Premier Gladys Berejiklian to tighten social distancing restrictions.”
A month earlier, Gladys Berejiklian announced that citizens would no longer have the right to assemble with more than one person outside, besides their immediate family.
The NSW Police Force were empowered to ensure compliance with the two-person rule, under threat of a $1,000 infringement notice. And that was just one of the string of other recently enforced regulations designed to save our lives, as well as criminalise them.
At the time, Berejiklian also handed over the full reins of the COVID-19 pandemic response to NSW police commissioner Mick Fuller.
“A sensible escalation”
“We know there are some new laws that will come in line tonight in relation to two people being out together – that’s sensible,” the NSW police commissioner told reporters at the time. “We don’t want to have to enforce these laws.” Indeed, the transfer of power came soon after Berejiklian closed down state parliament – one day following the PM’s closure of federal parliament.
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According to the Sydney Morning Herald, NSW’s health department was in talks with the Crown Solicitor’s Office to figure out how to legally enforce logging rapid tests.
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Soon thereafter, Health Minister Brad Hazzard passed a number of public health orders with new “laws” involving social distancing and quarantining. Issued under the Public Health Act 2010 (NSW), if these orders are breached a person is liable to up to 6 months prison time and/or a fine of $11,000.
According to the official lettering, “The object of this Order is to give certain Ministerial directions to deal with the public health risk of COVID-19 and its possible consequences. In particular, this Order directs that a person must not, without reasonable excuse, leave the person’s place of residence. Examples of a reasonable excuse include leaving for reasons involving: obtaining food or other goods and services, or travelling for the purposes of work or education if the person cannot do it at home, or exercise, or medical or caring reasons.”
Last year, the NSW Police Force announced that it would have thousands of extra police on the streets enforcing COVID laws, in an attempt, as NSW police minister David Elliot put it, “to kill this virus before it kills us.”
Indeed.
This article was originally published on The Big Smoke.
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I was astounded to hear him deliver his presentation yesterday including his punitive stance on mandatory reporting of a positive result from a test you have to acquire and pay for yourself. Never mind he is a Thatcherite, if personal responsibility is the go then he should be taking a heap of that for the mess he has created.
I might be a bit thick at times, but how are they going to police this?
Perrottet is a very typical Young Liberal – full of confidence and ideology and incapable of actual planning and forethought, How or why you do something isn’t past of the brief when you grow up railing against the nanny state and taxes and dole bludgers, worshipping The Economy, and trusting private enterprise to deliver the best outcomes for people other than their shareholders. Personal responsibility cry those bankrolled by wealthy parents. And never underestimate the networking value of private schools and religion and the implied morality (though how they still pull that one off astonishes me).
Indeed, delusional describes the boy premier quite well. “I am very proud of the fact that I have a strong Christian faith”, he said, on the day of his ascension to the top job; conveniently overlooking the plethora of references in the bible about the sin of pride.
Similarly steadfast in his fixed views would be his professed admiration for the likes of Tony Abbott, John Howard & Donald Trump, along with Catholic Popes… all well-known advocates for progressive emancipation and enlightenment of humankind, err.. no, I don’t think so.
And on the home front, six kiddies and another on the way… and while it might seem churlish to criticise the mad rooter’s propensity for knocking out a bub year by year from his undoubtedly suffering missus’s overworked body, it does raise the question of his awareness of issues ecological, omnicidal and life-threatening per the GW crisis and its impending consequences for all life forms, including, obviously, the quality of life for kiddies as they mature into adulthood over the next twenty to thirty years and beyond.
I’m not religious, not by a long shot, but I’m inclined to utter, sub voce, ‘sweet Jesus, give me strength in the face of these idiots now at the helm of our public institutions’.
Speaking of religion…..
The Sydney Anglican submission also defended the bill’s controversial statement of belief clause, arguing people should be able to express genuinely held religious beliefs, even if offensive to others including those in the congregation.
Examples it cited included: “menstruating women are unclean”, “homosexuality is a sin”, “disability is caused by the devil”, “every child should have a mother and a father who are married”, “god made only men and women” and “HIV is a punishment from God”.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jan/13/attorney-general-defends-religious-schools-right-to-sack-teachers-for-views-on-sexuality
And we give these guys money to educate our children???
If there is a good side to Morrison & Perrottet’s ‘let it rip’ strategy, it is to demonstrate the disconnect between the LNP and reality.
We are not going to get a Caesar, a Pericles, even a Gladstone or Disraeli, as our strong and prudent leader, but having a mediaeval misfit, a slow learner, a regressive primitive, a dogma, superstition, ritual, ceremony and faith fraud is disgusting, unreasonable. Pope Perrotet the First and Worst is not worth a pot of pee, as he is incapable of comprehending need, duty, research, planning, advice, honesty. We are betrayed by conservative donor driven dickskulls to ignore clear sense…
Phil. We do, however, have a Neville Chamberlain. ☹️
My dear Michael, Morrison and Perrotet are not even a doomed rat’s desiccated dicky compared to the bold practicality and placid realisation of Neville C. Neville had been “quite a good housing minister”, and was aware of long term British unpreparedness.
I almost spat my mouthful of iced coffee out from laughing when I saw the following. Next step, sue the virus? Not apologising for making light of what is now such a little thing.
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/us-man-claims-his-penis-has-shrunk-due-to-rare-covid-side-effect/news-story/4bb179721b4c4fe85888fbb36f6248a5
Phil: I am glad to see you defend Neville C. No doubt he supported the Churchillian notion that ‘jaw jaw is better that war, war’ . But people only remember him waving that bit of paper around and declaring ‘peace in our time’ I suspect he didn’t believe Hitler’s undertakings. Before he resigned as PM, he had ordered 24(?) squadrons of Spitfires, and moved Churchill “the fleet is at sea’ Churchill back as First Sea Lord. Seems like a bit of preparation to me.
Once again, absolutely EVERYTHING the totally incompetent, smug, arrogant and absolutely corrupt bible-thumping hypocrites and Hillsong Cultists that line the appalling cabinet of the LNP, cannot get ANYTHING right! History has shown that EVERYTHING they touch turns to sh*t in record time INCLUDING the fact that the LNP are the WORST financial mismanagers in living memory!. The fact that these totally useless, smirking, self-entitled political psychopaths in the WORST government in living memory have stuffed up their dog’s breakfast mismanagement of Covid, are EPIC FAILURES in the fast, fair and equitable disbursement of vaccines should be no surprise! Now we see that the mind-numbing idiot, the unelected Perrotet is now so unspeakably stupid in thinking that he will get away with charging taxpayers RAT testing during one of the worst pandemics this country has seen in decades! People will NOT pay for it which means that Covid will just keep spreading. The breathtaking numbers of Covid-sufferers in NSW PROVES just how much the LNP (at NSW State and federal levels) lack any level of foresight and basic common sense! Once again, the prosperity driven grubs in the LNP can ALWAYS be relied on to ONLY think of money, money, money and place PROFIT way ahead of PEOPLE! No compassion, no foresight, no insight, no common sense, no credibility, not one ounce of integrity and NO CLUE!
The rigidly conservative, misogynistic, homophobic Perrottet will, we hope, forever remain as UNELECTED SWILL in the NSW LNP State government because I seriously doubt that ANYONE with an IQ >10 will vote for him! He is a self-righteous signed-up lunatic member of the alpha male, Opus-Dei-educated misogynistic Catholic Mafia who remains anti-contraception believing that women should remain muzzled, barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen – with his Stepford Wife now heavily pregnant with his SEVENTH child!
Even before this sanctimonious, offensively pompous Parakeet is elected as NSW State Premier, he has the audacity to spew out homophobic criticism in relation to same sex marriage and, as expected, is rigidly anti-abortion! In fact the Parakeet is just about anti-EVERYTHING that ordinary SECULAR Australians believe would make our country more progressive and improve the lives of so many people. Perrottet is an uncompromising conformist member of of the Catholic Mafia who, clearly, doesn’t believe in ANYTHING that doesn’t fit into his medieval, restricted and very narrow view of the world. The LNP are now OVER-RUN with appalling, callously inhumane, judgemental, bible-thumping hypocrites and signed-up members of the notorious, paedophile-protecting CULT of Hillsong! This is a nauseating, judgemental and dangerously undemocratic regime who believe that THEY are way, way ABOVE the laws set down for the rest of us and who try – and FAIL – to hide their escalating level of self-serving corruption, criminal nepotism, abuse and waste of MILLIONS of hard-earned taxpayer dollars, non-stop lies, broken promises, homophobia, skirt-lifting misogyny (even the rapists in their midst) behind a THIN and transparent layer of nauseating, phoney bible-thumping hypocrisy!
FFS Australia, WAKE UP and kick the political psycopaths in the LNP to the gutter because THAT is the ONLY place they really belong! VOTE LABOR or, alternatively, vote for a left-wing Independent and make SURE that you give YOUR preferences to Labor!
John B., Chamberlain deserves some explanation and defence from extremes. The Mc Donald and Baldwin governments had done little, had little money, relied on allies and empire, had little push for different from oppositions and media. Chamberlain had Hitler supporters alongside in outspoken old Lloyd George, in Halifax, in many manufacturers, nobility and royalty. As things worsened in 1938-9, he listened widely, knew what little was possible, tightened cabinet solidarity, consulted privately with everyone.., opposition, committees, Beaverbrook and similar, enjoyed no real opposing loud view, except that Churchill became more strident, as would be expected. A weakness is that in his dying time in 1940, still in cabinet, he and Halifax were said to be murmering of offering Mussolini some “prize” to keep out as France fell, perhaps a concession such as Malta. lf this is so, appeasement becomes a dirtier concept, but that government then, led by Churchill would ever have thought on it for a minute. . Chamberlain was not treacherous, no “Petain” type, but a practical man, who saw that “business and peace” were threatened. In 1938..no honest alternative assessment has ever been fair or reasonable. It was just that Neville had to then wear the failures flowing from the Versailles system as first political officer, while actually doing all possible to catch up. The coming fight was inevitable, the desire for peace an agony.
Another example of the fascist NSW Liarbral Nazional$ misgovernment being incapable of doing the correct thing. Even my mate Blind Freddie can see that when government sets up laws to punish Australian voters for the chronic deficiencies of both the misgovernment and the politicians benefitting from the perks of office, that the law is properly considered unethical, incompetent legislation and contrary to natural justice.
@Kaye Lee 1: The NSW Prima DoPe is the Vatican’s Man in Macquarie Street, keen to follow the Scummo model of paying off his ”church” with an about $5 BILLION gift of NSW cemeteries. This dispensation covers all the sins in office.
@Kaye Lee 2: The Anglican Archbishop of Armidale NSW Rod Chiswell, booted a long standing gay male ”couple” out of the St Mary’s High Church Anglican congregation. So the flock moved out leaving an empty church. Chiswell is a follower of the Jensen brothers evangelical philosophy (Sydney Dioceses) that denies women the right to be priests and give communion.
But it gets better …. Young Rodney ”inherited” his bishopric some years after his father retired from the same position.
His mother insisted that Young Rodney attend Armidale High School because she felt the academic standard was higher than The Armidale School where her husband was necessarily the Chairman of the School Board.. Certainly Young Rodney lived up to expectations, being elected School Captain in his final year.
@PP: I am amazed at you detailed knowledge of pre-WWII Britain. Thank you for your interesting contribution.
Opus Dei is the ultimate lobbyist group. Their members cannot lie as they are working directly for god, making their every word or action the truth for god who takes all the blame for collateral damage and puts any personal pain as faith testing? Adrian Gattenhof, Mullumbimby on perrottet
(a classic quote)……’This is typical of right-wing sleight of hand. It resonates with the Taliban’s proclamations that women have rights – within the misogynistic prison of Sharia law…. ‘https://www.echo.net.au/2021/10/perrottet-opus-dei/
“Sanctify your work. Sanctify yourself in your work. Sanctify others through your work.”
Caesar vs Chamberlain.
Julius Caesar is remembered for subjecting half a million indigenous Celts to slavery through invasive conquest, then prosecuting a civil war which converted a flawed electoral republic into an absolute dictatorship.
Neville Chamberlain is remembered for cutting a flawed diplomatic deal (‘sorry Czechoslovakia’ ) in order to buy some temporary peace-time to prepare mutual defences for inevitably looming war.
Possibly worth refreshing consideration of comparative merits and failings in character and approach twixt the twain.
Corvus, you may, or should know, that the “flawed diplomatic deal” was not at all Chamberlain’s idea, creation or fault. Bonnet, Daladier, others in France, plus Polish, Czech and Italian inputs must be weighed. The Czechs and the Poles, respectively in 1938 and 1939, would not, when “cornered”. consider Soviet intrusion, even through rights and bases, for a united action against nazi aggression. Only passing and passage rights would allow the USSR to collaborate in a united allied defence of the Czechoslovakian state in 1938, and later the Polish state in 1939. These states threatened by Hitler were airforce and military bases, an “unsinkable battleship or carrier”. type of concept, BUT, the Czechs and later the Poles thought that they would lose their lands, and their souls to Stalin’s USSR forces, a mindset of fascist resignation, or despair. A western alliance of Britain, France, Poland, the Czechs, with keen and offered Soviet support, could have and probably would have beaten the Hitler menace. The Soviets had at least three thousand modern planes available for their western front alone in 1938-9 and were keen to see off the obvious German threat to future European peace, and, probable aggression against the Soviets, as soon as Hitler could see his way cleared. Chamberlain is clearly freed of excess “blame”, whereas the French, Poles, Czechs failed. Only in the last weeks of July/August 1939 did the USSR seek to survive and gain time, having adjudged western treachery in turning Hitler east. Stalin knew and Molotov told him, they had gained perhaps a breathing space for accelerated preparation. Just so…The USSR gained less than two years, nearly expired, won eventually, after the facts of betrayal, tolerated the accommodations of alliance and collaboration while it lasted, went back to western suspicions, undermining, the cold war of xenophobia, racism, supremacist “exceptionalism” by the extremely deluded and neurotic USA, under the shadow of which I have studied, consulted, researched, assessed for a long time of…misery, resignation, foretelling of doom and destruction. There has never ever been an imaginary god to explain this, nor even many wise men to rationalise a post MAD world.
Phil,
I am not entirely uneducated as to various historical geo-political manouverings leading into conflicts, nor was my intention to pour more post-mortum scorn on ex-PM Chamberlain’s difficult hand at international poker.
My point was more to point out potential problems in excess praise of Caesar.
Ps, sincerely appreciate your historical perspective, but would suggest that some paragraphed punctuation would aid recipient comprehension.
Corvus, it’s post mortem. Chamberlain was ill prepared in many ways. He spoke no foreign language and his flight to see Hitler at Munich was his first ever. The paper he waved about “peace in our time” was apparently a laundry list left in his pocket and a convenient prop. And, a paragraph is a segment of an argument, and I prefer a continual and/or continuous flow when driving it. And, Caesar stands alone, indifferent, in his attracting comment, praise, blame.., unlike such as Chamberlain.
Phil,
Mea culpa re latin lingua.
I always confuse mortem with scrotum.
Your choice entirely on your word-flow structuring.
Myself, I find that regular punctation within writing process acts like a mindfull breath cycle when anaerobic, or a pause within sustainment of fire to reduce heat & fatigue and allow a quick OODA loop.
Also, if I don’t keep conscious track of my own wordflow, my thought-sound-shapes tend to become puddled ponds of alphabet soup unfathomable to my own initial intended meaning (if that makes sense).
However, omnisizing is a myth, and obviously you are under no obligation to change your how-do on the basis of my say-so.
BTW, thanks again for informational perspective of interwar events, it scratches a genuine curiosity.
Ah corvus, may your scrotum not be mortem.., and certainly, I should pause and reconstruct, but, decided to avoid Victorian (1837-1901) approaches, in which one sentence might be a whole paragraph of immense length. I whip these out fast, relying on memory, but, we all get caught now and then, I do u3a talks and a previous good mate talked of Chamberlain going off in the “old DC3”, whereas Brit Airways as then had bought Lockheed 14’s, clearly seen in pictures with the twin tail. One “fears” a fundamental historical error as one looks “bad”, even untrustworthy. So, best commenting wishes to us all…
Phil,
Bone to pick with divine Caesar and his August heir adopt.
I understand that factors of better numerically copaceticizing existant calenders with observed celestial cycles warranted the inclusion of two extra months
(although i think naming things after oneself is smug beyond cocksurity)
but couldn’t they have tacked July & August onto the end of the year rather than stitching them into the middle?
September through December makes absolutely no linguistic sense in describing the 9th-12th months.
Perhaps i should start actively campaigning for systemic calendric reform against Julio-Augustan dictates.
I’ll believe it when the huge fine of, maybe, $55,000 is issued. What a joke to a cult that collects tens of millions of wonderful tax free dollars a year. Anyway, Hillsong is a protected species.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-14/nsw-premier-shocked-by-hillsong-church-camp-supports-fines/100756158