Of course, it’s easy to pick on governments. After all, they’re the ones doing the heavy lifting. Well, usually…
Just a few days ago, the PM was talking about “personal responsibility”, but now he’s a bit concerned that too many of us thought that it was our personal responsibility to get a PCR test, so now we’re being told that a Rapid Antigen Test is enough. Or as the PM said, “… a RAT test”, which means we should rely on a Rapid Antigen Test Test.
And, of course, it’s not up to the Federal Government to source these tests. They have a few million or so for their areas of responsibility. No, no, the states should be sourcing their own. “How good is NSW and Victoria…” Ok, he never said that last bit, but I think we all got the vibe.
Yes, it’s all about who’s responsible and he certainly isn’t responsible for anything it seems. Unless it’s one of the following: Cricket victories, good economic news, fine weather and helping to keep government out of our lives… That final one is only true when it suits him because he has no trouble allowing Stuart Robert to veto certain research grants on the grounds that the process they went through didn’t allow for the minister to tell them that he doesn’t like people researching things unless they result in more money going into marginal electorates or the bank accounts of Liberal donors.
While there’s been a bit of chatter on social media about the PM being absent during the past few days, I feel that it’s a little unfair. Being PM is a hard job and it’s only right that he should be able to take the odd week off every couple of days. And at Christmas time, Scott Morrison should be able to spend time with his loved ones, just as soon as he’s done those obligatory photos with Jen and the girls…
Now, before you get the wrong idea, I’m not suggesting that Morrison is having an affair. I’m merely picking up on the rumour that he was in Aspen with Murdoch… Not that I believe to be true, but I just thought it was a good line and isn’t that what politics is all about these days? If you come up with the right slogan or line, you don’t have to do any more about it. We’ve committed to net zero and we’re going to do it with technology not taxes.
No, Morrison isn’t the federal minister having an affair…
I’m just wondering if that leaves me open to legal action. I mean, could any federal minister having an affair sue me over that, or could I just argue that it could be any of them? And when I say it could be any of them, I’m not suggesting that they all are… I’m just suggesting that there’s a rumour that at least one federal minister is happily married and not having an affair.
Of course, the whole issue about politicians having the right to keep their personal lives secret can be tricky for journalists. For example, if someone who has a strong family values stance in their campaigns, is it not in the public interest to know that they regularly hold drunken orgies in their offices? (Now I’m not suggesting that any politician actually does that before any politician reading this wonders how I knew and attempt to sue me!) While I’m sure people will have different opinions on that, what if the politician’s partner is an actress that he’s paid for the past few years and his children are robots? Does the public then have a right to know? And, if the actress playing the role of the wife is replaced like Darren was in “Bewitched”, should the press then challenge it or should they just go along with the charade?
I mean we’ve all witnessed Scott Morrison parading his religion and his curries and Jenandagirls, so at what point can he say, “Look, that’s off limits, you have no right to ask if that’s Jen eating the curry in the photo, just because she has her back turned and she appears to have much larger shoulders than she normally has… It’s none of your business whether she eats it or not. I told you that it was her favourite so that’s all you need to know!” And, if pressed, would he simply call in Phil Gaetjens to do an investigation into whether or not Jen has ever actually eaten a curry that he’s made.
And then we had Greg Hunt telling us all that his kid had suggested that this was his last chance to be a proper father… Now, I hope that he checked with the kid before broadcasting his views. Certainly, he would find it inappropriate for a journalist to follow up with questions like: “So, do you think he’s been a better Health Minister or a better father?” or “When you said it was his last chance, did you mean for you and your sister or were you suggesting that he should have another sibling before he got too old to do it right?” Well, he was the one who brought fatherhood into his resignation speech, so I guess he must have considered how this would play out amongst his offspring’s peers…
Whatever the situation with some of the politicians, we can rest assured that the new Covid rules mean that they can no longer be considered close contacts with anyone in the Parliament, giving how infrequently it sits. Apparently, you now have to either be living in the same place as a Covid positive case or have had unprotected sex with them for an extended period of time.
As I write this, Mr Morrison has just finished his press conference where he talked about close contacts… at least that’s what I presume he meant even if sounded like something that his government does on a regular basis. Now we need to be personally responsible for finding our own RATs unless we fit a number of criteria and we certainly won’t be getting them for free. Giving people free RATs would encourage them to test themselves and that could lead to a surge in the numbers, so it’s really better if we keep the numbers to the sort of level that suggests it’s under control. After all, the long queues in NSW and Victoria must have prevented at least a couple of thousand positive cases from being tested!
There’s a lot of things that we can criticise Morrison for, but certainly it’s hard to criticise him for anything that he’s actually done.
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