Originally Posted by
MickG0105
I know that response was to another comment but let's apply that reality test. Under the reality of the Federal government's paper thin parliamentary majority, the Constitution's division of powers between the Federal government and the States, and the current state governments can you articulate for us an alternative public policy approach that would have had even a ghost's chance of being enacted. Like it or lump it, here in the real world the guillotine test for public policy is implementability - can it be made real.
Happy to be proven wrong on this but there appeared to be a manifest lack of sufficient political support for alternative approaches to the pandemic for said alternative to get implemented. You can say that your 'unicorn' of an alternative approach would have been far superior on every dimension to the camel that we've got but the camel is what was realistically achievable, the unicorn is imaginary.
If the Commonwealth had stepped up to and competently discharged the responsibilities that fall squarely within its power, when it became obvious what was needed, we would all be in a different place now. Quarantine, vaccine purchase and roll out and aged care facilities.
We all realise that Scotty doesn't hold a hose or a syringe or lay bricks or work in a laboratory or run aged care facilities, but it's his government that pays the Piper and could and should have called the tune a lot earlier.
But I agree with you about the underlying politics. That's why the rumours of an early Federal election have evaporated. Scotty and his team are becoming very unpopular, as a consequence of their incompetence and - most recently - the differential treatment of Victorians compared with New South Welshmen.
All they know how to do well is react to political risk. And many, many Australians are getting very, very angry.
As I've said before, I earnestly hope that the urgency with which vaccines are now being purchased and rolled out will be the 'circuit breaker'. The alternatives are pretty ugly.