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The greatest con of all: It’s safe

It started with the prime minister appearing on the morning television programme; The Today Show. He was making comments about Australia opening up.

Morrison was making comments about the possibility of the country opening up. You see, he has this plan put together by the Doherty Institute:

“Now, it’s like that movie – in The Croods, people wanted to stay in the cave … and that young girl, she wanted to go out and live again and deal with the challenges of living in a different world,” Mr Morrison said.

Now I’m sure Mr Morrison, like me, has never seen the movie, and someone has suggested that it would make a good metaphor for devious utterings.

When he took to Facebook overnight, WA premier McGowan replied to the Croods reference, saying it was “an odd thing to say.”

“It was an odd thing to say. I think everyone would rather just see the Commonwealth look beyond New South Wales and actually appreciate what life is like here in WA.”

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister went on to say that:

“COVID is a new, different world, and we need to get out there and live in it. We can’t stay in the cave, and we can get out of it safely.”

Outside Parliament House, he used the safe word repeatedly.

“It’s the safe plan to ensure that Australia can open up again with confidence.”

So, there’s the rub or the con, to put it another way. Yes, the Prime Minister is trying to con us into the plan the government had briefed the Doherty Institute on.

The brief put to Doherty was squarely aimed at winning an election, not the safety of our citizens. Not only that, the period they were asked to look at was the end of October to the beginning of May. Draw your own conclusions.

The procedure also requires only rudimentary measuring of half the population, which might fit into the Prime Minister’s plan for winning the next election, but it is by no means safe.

No one doubts that we will have to end the shutdowns and learn to live in the real world at some time. Has anyone ever suggested we shouldn’t? To say we can do it safely is another matter. It is a world in which the Delta strain of the coronavirus virus prevails.

Writing in The New Daily, Richard Dennis suggested that:

“The only fight the Prime Minister thinks he has a chance of winning against the premiers is that their people are tired of lockdowns (of course they are) and that we shouldn’t stay in lockdown forever.” (?) [That will not be safe. But in his mind, he needs to act urgently].

I’m no scientist, and I have little knowledge of epidemiology. Still, I know that keeping Australia safe from this monster requires high vaccination rates and measures of certainty on what percentage is the safe one. At the same time, there is the need to keep people away from each other while potentially infectious. Doing so requires science to dictate societal needs and not the timing of a federal election.

Allow me to put it another way: As I understand it, the Doherty modelling does not say it is safe to end lockdowns once the vaccination rate hits 70 or 80 per cent.

In a piece for The Australia Institute, Richard Dennis reasonably argues that it is:

“An inconvenient truth, perhaps, but no matter how many times the PM quotes the Doherty modelling, his false distinction between vaccines or lockdowns is all about messaging, not medicine.”

“Indeed, according to the Doherty modelling, we could spend up to 39 per cent of our time in lockdown if we begin to open up when vaccination hits 70 per cent.

Regardless of what the PM says, temporary city-wide lockdowns will be a near certainty for Australians over the next 12 months, regardless of when we open up.”

No matter how well Scott Morrison spins a safe opening up of society, there will still be limitations on our play, production, movements, and mingling.

The politics of it are this: Simply put, The Prime Minister stuffed up the purchase of vaccines, and before a rock-solid judgement by the Australian people that it is all his fault sets in (if it hasn’t already). He wants to be the Prime Minister who gave us our freedom and in so doing set up a win in the next election.

He is desperate to move the debate away from the fact that we wouldn’t have the current problem had he acquired enough vaccine when he should have.

We can sometimes become so engrossed in our own problems that we can easily overlook the enormity of the suffering of others.

Because of Morrison’s stupidity, the Australian people now face the unenviable position of:

“… letting COVID-19 have its way with more than eight million people – most of whom are children – who will still be unvaccinated when we hit the 80 per cent vaccination threshold that Scott Morrison is so focused on.”

His bad decisions have been numerous this year, and to place winning an election before the welfare of the people speaks more of his miserable leadership than anything else.

But while lockdowns will, over time, inevitably be lifted, whether partially or entirely, huge case numbers and high mortality rates are still forecast.

Heroes are the people who do what has to be done when it needs to be done, regardless of the circumstances or consequences.

If we wait until vaccination rates are high and uncontrolled outbreaks in states like NSW are controlled, the number of deaths will be much lower than if we let the virus rip after giving it a running start. So, we have to face the inevitable question…

How many deaths are acceptable?

It is not at all clear if the contact tracers will be able to cope. So, Morrison should not be shoving all this safe talk into unwitting ears when Doherty itself points out that even if the virus is raging, the assumptions it makes about the effectiveness of tracing once there are thousands of cases in the community are at best an even bet.

A point on contact tracing: Without it, “Australia would have looked more like the UK last year than New Zealand.”

Safe be buggered, I say. Without a fully supported hospital system together with the best possible tracing, any plan is futile.

Morrison’s words and actions bring into question the very essence of the word truth. Or he has at least devalued them to the point of obsolescence. Power is a malevolent possession when you are prepared to forgo your principles and your country’s wellbeing for the sake of it.

To pretend that it is safe under any circumstances to venture into a new world with COVID-19 is the most exceptional con of all.

Given all the mistakes he has made, he cannot afford another one going into another one. Watching Insiders on Sunday, I was surprised that none of the panellists could make a connection between Morrison’s plan and the next election. In fact, the upcoming election didn’t rate a mention.

Perhaps Speersy was too busy doing what he usually does.

My thought for the day

The true test of any nation surely must be the manner in which it treats its most vulnerable.

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22 comments

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  1. BB

    “It’s not a race, I don’t hold the hose” smirks Morrison, leader of the disingenuous Lieberal/Notional Party.

    I’d like to see a deep dark chasm open up that Morrison falls into, a deep dark bottomless pit he can never crawl out of!

    Morrison’s a liability. Zero plans for the future well being of all Australians. Only looks out for his Liberal “mates”. Zero empathy. A liar. Opportunistic photo op addict. Backstabbing specialist.

    Bullshit is his forte. A fervent forked tongue religious RWNJ. Politicians have little to zero expertise in medical issues. How dare Morrison try and control the narrative, a massive con!

    Collateral damage of thousands of Aussies dying of covid is irrelevant to Morrison, he’s only interested in staying in power.

    Morrison doesn’t give a rat’s arse about anybody as long as he can kowtow to his masters. Murdoch and Pirate Corporations. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-29/in-chinos-man-huw-parkinson/13518942

  2. Terence Mills

    The prime minister’s Crood attack on WA and Qld for keeping their states free of community infections is bizarre.

    Most of us agree that the short term solution has to be 80% of the population having their double vaccination and that includes school children. But it seems that supply is still a major problem and on that Morrison doesn’t want to discuss.

    We also need to move quickly on a vaccination ‘passport’ available through a secure App as has been adopted in numerous countries overseas. Without that ‘passport’ we have no way of knowing who is vaccinated when state borders open up.

  3. New England Cocky

    ”[Scummo] is desperate to move the debate away from the fact that we wouldn’t have the current problem had he acquired enough vaccine when he should have.”

    We must always remember that the COVID pandemic in Australia and the world got an enormous boost from the Prim Monster wanting his Hell$inger$ congregation to get home in time for lunch and it appears Gladbags bent over for him … hence Scummo had his hands in the entire disaster form the very beginning ….. despite his denials and cover-ups.

    Now add Scummo failing to order sufficient vaccines early in the pandemic to this deliberate misquoting of the Doherty Report and his uncaring unChristian reckless disregard for the lives of others.

    Do I really want this type of Prime Minister??? NO!!!

    At every election:

    VOTE ANYONE BUT LIARBRALS IN CITY ELECTORATES &

    VOTE SFF OR CREDIBLE INDEPENDENT IN COUNTRY ELECTORATES

    and we can then overcome the mismanagement of the Australian government for the benefit of the Australian voters.

  4. Josephus

    I am reading the Australian daily for the first time and am horrified by some of its content eg articles an letters putting ‘freedom” first. What matters more than even immunisation rates is that our existing laagers for so called illegal refugees should have been converted fast into isolation stations with medical staff protected on site. Also has the ruby princess scandal ever been investigated publicly eg the theory that the pm asked for Hillsong passengers to be disembarked fast and some nsw official gave the orders? Can’t we disobey a clearly stupid order?

    I hate how the pm uses crude or rather crood talk to us . I suppose that voters for his lot have an average lowish IQ or support paranoid theories.

    We need near full immunisation and certificates too and those who profit from moneys given them made to pay it back. It is the corruption and bungling that there seem no laws to stop. It isn’t baying for freedom but honesty, not profiting from the plague that we need.
    And by the way don’t trust estate agents who spruik seaside properties! They lack scruples. The seas are rising already.

  5. Keith

    Years ago I read a little homily about a stuffed up situation in a government Agency, at the coal face the situation was pure shit, reports going up the management chain were cleaned up and it became a bucket of roses by the time it was delivered to the Minister responsible.

    The New Daily has an article from Mal Pascoe to suggest that Hospitals in New South Wales are finding it difficult to cope with the number of covid cases. Doctors and Nurses are overworked. Triage is likely to become a larger factor in the future when taking into account the human resources available. The little homily would appear to provide an accurate example of what is happening in NSW.

    https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/2021/08/30/michael-pascoe-coronavirus-freedom-triage/?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Morning%20News%20-%2020210830

  6. wam

    Politicians are safe in the knowledge that you don’t have to ‘pay the piper to call the tune’ when you can set the terms of reference.
    In the last 8 years of unlimited cash, extra insurance of favoured outcomes has come from a few millions in the right places.
    Judging by the wins of turnbull and scummo, the vulnerable and the workers voted against your best interests. Any observations as to why?
    ps
    A friend shared a peanuts cartoon where lucy explains why we don’t need unions: “If you work hard and put the company before yourself the company will share its prosperity with you”. Hmm sounds like the churches work hard, donate and put god before yourself and your family and you will be rewarded in heaven.

  7. Henry Gilbert Rodrigues

    The way this lying bastard gets away with all his lies is that the people, voters, are ignorant, indifferent or just stupid, and Scummo with the fierce support of Murdoch’s maggots and the rest of the corrupt media, is smug in his belief that he can pull anything over the country. The constant spin, deliberate misrepresentation and with the subservient behaviour by Premier Bin chicken here in NSW. Scummo will keep on doing the same thing, lies but no solution and blame everyone else but himself and his party of coalition dickheads.

  8. Phil Pryor

    Lower than a bug’s botty, this P M, a predictable misfit, is deliberately misleading any listener for his own selfish career hopes, totally undeserved as we need a real human to lead, not a brown log in a bedpan. On a Crikey site last week, the real and only prof. Doherty spoke with two editorial reporters to have an open interview on this ongoing topic, and, Doherty clearly stated his preference for figures including the whole population and not just the over 16 group. We know that 80% of the over 16 population actually means c. 64% of the total population, not near enough for confidence in opening up to old norms. Doherty even said that he would prefer to see c. 90% of the total population fully vaccinated for ongoing confidence and we know from facts and figures coming in from Singapore, Israel, Malta and other areas that we must hope for an ongoing high rate of vaccination, with followups, with further boosters, with many a check and test to come. It is a difficult concept for some, and listening to a non medical goat is useless, be it Alan Jucking Fones, Morrison, C Kelly or Mother Mary from Marrickville on social media. Morrison the health hazard must GO!!

  9. Graham

    So why isn’t anybody asking any Government Minister just how many deaths they think are acceptable if we open up at 70 or 80 percent only of the 16+ group?

  10. Henry Gilbert Rodrigues

    No one’s in the media is asking about the deaths because they are all complicit.

    Don’t rock the boat, keep the coalition going, until they reach their goal of re-election.

  11. John Lord

    Under your plan Prime Minister it is inevitable that deaths will occur. What do you think is an acceptable number.

  12. Max Gross

    Morrison is full of shite and Dennis is right. “Regardless of what the PM says, temporary city-wide lockdowns will be a near certainty for Australians over the next 12 months, regardless of when we open up.”

  13. BB

    In Morrison deluded arrogant heartless mind most deaths will occur on the other side of town, ‘out west’, the poorer sections of society, the disabled, the unemployed, the homeless, the non white people, it doesn’t really matter much to Morrison on what numbers will be involved, thousands and thousands, in Morrison’s mind they are 100% expendable, as long as business is back up and running, and then Morrison can make out what a great leader he is… “My plan is working… the economy is what’s important, we gotta open up for business, we gotta get outta the cave”. For Morrison the poor will always be a non event, a vague number, unimportant, a nuisance, and because in Morrison’s sick mind the poor never try to have a go, they are leaners, that’s why they are poor, so they they don’t deserve to get a go, (at life!)

  14. Harry Lime

    The latest campaign of lies and misinformation by brother Scotty the arch liar simply indicates his desperation, and the lengths he’ll go to ,to keep his pudgy arse in a job in which he has demonstrated how totally inadequate he is.He lied his way into the job last time ,with a tidal wave of bullshit from the trash media,and not a little help from mudguts Palmer,and he’s hellbent on a repeat.He will get worse before it all goes down in flames.He doesn’t give a fuck who, or how many he has to sacrifice in the cause,he is rotten to the core.

  15. Graham

    “The U.S. is projected to suffer nearly 100,000 more COVID deaths between now and Dec. 1, AP writes from the influential model by the University of Washington. “( From the NY Times today)

    The USA has 323 million people of whom 52 percent (all ages) and 61 percent (age 12 and up) are fully vaccinated [CDC figures today] and is fully open with limited mask mandates in some places.

    If we open up at 52 or 61 percent fully vaccinated we can expect proportional number of dead as the USA – just under 8000.

    A small price to pay eh Scomo? They mostly would not be voting for your mob so no big deal.

  16. Ross

    John Lord, when you say ‘keeping Australia safe from this monster’ is this monster you refer too the pandemic currently cutting a swathe through the population of the east coast or is it Scott Morrison and his jolly band of federal government ne’er-do-wells that Australia has to kept safe from?

    Either way we must have been very naughty to have both thrust upon us at the same time.

  17. ajogrady

    The Morrison L/NP governments institute shopping Doherty Institutes plan is simply a rehash of the Menzies plan of the “Brisbane line” during World War 2 where the Menzies government would capitulate and cut and run leaving all of Australia North of Brisbane to the invading Japanese forces. Before this despicable plan could be actioned Labor came to power and protected all of Australia and Australians. Similarly the latest Morrison government plan will capitulate and cut and run to the Covid virus.

    The total miserable mess in Afghanistan is another example of the Morrison government penchant for cutting and running. The short sighted closing of the Australian embassy in April has caused massive pain and confusion. Not only has the Morrison government capitulated and cut and run hurting Australians but also those Afghanis who put their lives and those of their families in jeopardy who stood beside Australian officials in Afghanistan.

    Will a duty of care be invoked for the people of Australia and Afghanistan or will charges of willful criminal negligence or perhaps manslaughter by unlawful and dangerous acts perpetrated by those responsible in the culpable Morrison government be the necessary outcome so that future governments always act in the best interests of those in the Australian governments care. There is an implied duty of care for Australians and those who stand with us.

  18. Pete Petrass

    “His bad decisions have been numerous this year, and to place winning an election before the welfare of the people speaks more of his miserable leadership than anything else”
    Personally I think it speaks more towards his Pentecostal leanings and incompetence. He has no leadership so it cannot be miserable.

  19. Henry Gilbert Rodrigues

    The question and the scenario being presented to the Australian public is, “You just have to live with the virus and suffer many many more deaths or give up your standard of living” , a message being pushed by Scummo and the media, as Gladys Bin chicken takes up the refrain. day after day ,at her 11 am press conference. The instructions come from the big end of town and of course Newscorp HQ. As someone has pointed out, this scenario is expedient for them because it will affects mostly those who live in the great divide to the west where all the undesirables and not so white unwashed live, not Double Bay or St Ives or Killara.

    Today’s numbers, 1290 new infections. They’ve stopped giving the total because its too scary, even for them

  20. PeterF

    When people ask “where are all the vaccines?”, I reply : ‘They are at the head of the queue’.

  21. Bert

    John LordAugust 30, 2021 at 12:32 pm

    Under your plan Prime Minister it is inevitable that deaths will occur. What do you think is an acceptable number?

    I changed the full stop to a question mark.

    Scovid should be hammered on this all the time. Just exactly does he think is an acceptable number of deaths should we open up? 10? 100? 1000? 10,000?

    What IS an acceptable number?

    Any number as long as it doesn’t include a family member?, a good friend? A family member?

    What IS this magic number?

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