As is the case here in Queensland, some are confusing allowing free travel between states after 70 and/or 80% have been fully vaccinated, with allowing free travel now. At the moment nationally we have about 30% fully vaccinated and 50% partially; a reasonable way to go to reaching the desired numbers.

Apart from maybe a few posters on this forum and elsewhere, no-one is suggesting W.A. open it's borders to everyone now, but once a consistent vaccination coverage of that magnitude has been reached then let's start to relax the borders and manage the virus so we can become a productive, cohesive nation again, not one that seeks an 'advantage' for the sake of (largely) political gain alone.

Fuhrer now stating he wants 90% AND then two months afterwards before opening borders.

This is one downside to mandatory voting. If voting was optional a low voter turn out could remove any mandate as it shows voters saw no options they liked. In Australian politics the turn out is always high, because you are forced to vote, so with singular options it looks like you have a mandate of numbers. It's very hard to know whether people agree with his policies or just voted as he was the lessor of the evils. Opinion polls can be manipulated by just polling suburbs you know will agree with your views, so even those can be misleading. Maybe we need another option on the voting cards marked "all options are imbeciles", although I think Mr/Mrs Imbecile will probably get voted in.

Well NSW didn't have too, we are only supposed to be returning Australian Citizens, still about 40,000 to go, maybe NSW should focus on them instead. I note she did say "wouldn't that be wonderful" if we can do that by Christmas. But then that can be viewed as failure recovery action.

Sorry, cannot agree. We are forced to turn up and have our name signed off as voted. What we write or do with the ballot paper is up to us. Plenty of opportunity to register lack of approval. Ultimately we know we have to vote for someone or else the system will fall apart.

I've explained my reference to Hitler.

If you wish to feign scepticism and call me a liar there's bugger all I can do about that, fill yer boots.

https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data...pulsory-voting

Not sure what falls apart when you remove the random votes by people that don't really care who wins and just cross anything or the first on the list. Look at the map and see how many countries on that list are strong democracies and apply compulsory voting. Australia is about the only stable democracy on it that practices such.

Well that would still be a vote :) informal voters just drop a blank unmarked ballot paper in the box, but most just have their name crossed off and walk out.

Looks like McGowan is secretly hoping that covid will sneak in so he won’t have to make a decision.

Or… he’s doing his bit for Albo.

Wow! You really are a savage. NSW which I agree should be letting residents return home. It’s on the inside their passport also. I really hope WA stays closed well into next yr and the price of the ore tanks to $50 tonne!

It would be interesting to see what voter turn out would be without the mandatory system, and what changes it would bring to candidates. Overseas the voter turn out is used heavily to show how much interest the public has in policy and direction and political engagement.

It's funny that number has been 40,000 since March LAST year. It's stayed at 40,000 every time they mention returning Australians, so it's either a BS number or they are letting as many Aussies leave each time they bring some back. Either that or some of those overseas Australians are multiplying like rabbits in boredom.

Well that's more likely to have a bigger impact upon Australia more than the people of WA.

That will also have a big effect on the Federal Government’s revenue and the extra money they can pump into COVID relief. A shift of $10 per tonne for iron ore, hits the federal government by about $2b.

$2b per annum? Chump change for the biggest spending federal government in Australian history.

A short dose of running its own defence force and 'stopping the boats' itself would be very 'character building' for WA, I reckon.

More technically it was 80%-90% and a grace period for any stragglers to get a shot.

The rate of vaccine uptake per day is about 0.7%, so it’s quite possible once hitting 80% the time to high 80’s could only be about two weeks, basically I think they’re going until the rate of increase begins to level off (ie you start running into the anti-vaxxers). This is probably what all states with low Covid at the moment will aim for, Tasmania, ACT and NT have pretty much said so too. Once all’s said and done it’ll probably only be an extra a month or so.

But the supply of vaccines is increasing too, Moderna coming online soon so the supply is going to increase to two million per week (from about 1.3 million per week start of August) which should bring the dates to hit targets forward considerably.

Even with a grace period I think a nationwide Christmas reopening is possible.

They've been printing money since 2013 when they said "back in the black". 200m net debt from Labor government and about 800m since 2013. I don't think they're worried about extra money anymore.

I have always wondered what money is actually, is it really worth anything, if the world collapsed, money would be the very last thing anyone would want to trade with, so what is it really worth.

As long as you don't print more money than what others are printing who cares. The US has given up trying to curb spending since Trump got in, problem is, who's going to collect on the debt... China on the other hand just prints money, and then fixes its currency value to stop it going high enough to affect business, so presently, cash currency is worth almost nothing in reality as no one is holding it to any value at all. There is most likely a big shake up coming that will force a change in how wealth is determined, but who knows what, when and how that will manifest.

All money does is make things with no value have perceived value. I can buy a litre of milk for $1, but a 400ml bottle of water is $4... now would you swap 4 litre of milk for 400ml of water? but we effectively do that each day in millions of transactions.

Interesting isn't it, if you want my wheat, lamb, wool, beef, pigs, milk. I want your, fruit, vegetables and any manufactured products I need, if you can't trade with anything I want then you need to be a part in producing those things I do. This provides some insight to a post apocalypse world. Skills and Knowledge rules.

Petrol prices in Australia are a good example of being played for fools, they make the price artificially float up and down up to 40%. Therefore there is no direct price for any individual service station to compete on, the consumer gets sick of playing the game of waiting until its cheap and just fills up whether its 50 cpl or $1.50 pl. It's a mass unofficial collusion that the gov don't want to touch for whatever reason. What is a litre of petrol worth, well apparently somewhere between $1 and $1.75 at the moment, funny that the price of oil or processing has not changed much... Imagine if the price of milk floated between $1 and $2 a litre, milk gets processed and transported by trucks the same way petrol does and the price does not fluctuate.

The other one that doesn't make sense at the moment, Beef farmers are getting record prices for meat. Abattoirs and butchers are going out of business, so what is failing? Why are the farms getting record prices but the processing is failing?

In my experience, the value of anything is what other people are prepared to pay for it. It gets a bit complicated when its something you must have.

The point is using a remote currency confuses value, it's very easy to part with wads of cash for an item you didn't really want, but if you had to trade it for something of value you would consider the transaction far more.

In a collapsed world, you can bring me all the cash and gold bullion you want, but sorry we have no use for it.

This would have to be the most tragic picture of this whole bull**** mess! Australia's version of the Berlin Wall created by modern day criminal lunatics!

Demand for vaccines currently outstrips supply. This is going to be reversed soon and it will present a more clear picture of the proportion of the population who are unwilling to get vaccinated. I think that number may well be in excess of 20% of the adult population. I think the government knows this too, that’s why there is a massive push to influence those around you and for employers to pressure their workers to do it, you need to agree to do the latter if you want to get a Covid safe plan for your business in NSW.

The number of people resistant to vaccination will increase as the lower age limit is reduced. People can be pressured into getting a jab they’re skeptical about, it’s harder to pressure someone into getting their kid vaccinated with a vaccine they don’t trust.

So far the only country in the world to achieve 80% of their population vaccinated is Malta.

Like the comparison of state premiers with Hitler, now we have a plastic barricade being compared to the Berlin Wall. A barrier where people were shot by snipers if they tried to cross. More hyperbole and trivialising a dreadful time in history.

Saw on TV the other day a weepy sob story of a person unable to "go home" across the same barrier, while on camera in the background people were jumping over it!

Do we really need to reference the WA premier to a figure in history that is better forgotten. As bad as he is at running a state, he is not that! No one is being shot at the wall also, if anything, it just makes Australia (if that’s what we still call this island) look bloody terrible to the world. May as well keep international border closed who would want to come here after seeing how we treat each other.

You don’t think you’ll get shot if you ran past the numerous QLD Police officers at the airport without answering their stupid questions?

Why do they have their weapons attached if they’re not prepared to use them. They are not required to have weapons attached at all times however they all have them on at the airport…

They have weapons to deal with threats such as armed offenders and terrorists etc etc... If you run past a police officer or border control agent at a checkpoint illegally you will become a criminal and they have the right to arrest you. No police officer in Australia can shoot you on sight without a valid safety reason to do so. The freedom protests were a good example where police are charged and beaten yet not shooting at random protesters who are disobeying the law.

Again comparing Australia with truly evil past iterations of government and control is just stupid and shows complete lack of empathy for the survivors of those events and lack of education.

The pictures of the people jumping over roadworks barriers is not akin to the Berlin wall, it's akin to jumping the median strip on a busy freeway. The danger is not getting shot by police it's spreading covid and getting hit by a car. The pictures just mean police have footage of you and can charge you at any time they wish from video evidence, they don't need to shoot you. If they can be bothered you will get a fine or summons for court in the mail in the next 12 months.

PS if you have a passport or drivers licence the facial recognition software will give the police your name and address in about 10 seconds, it's then just a matter of whether they think it's worth their time to charge/fine you.

That's not correct. Uniformed Queensland Police officers are required to carry a Service firearm in a Service issued holster which is to be worn on a Service issued utility belt when on duty unless authorised by the District officer.

For the border hoppers, QLD Police Officers are accessing your iPhone to see where you've been. "Significant Locations" is the hardware. Happened to me yesterday whilst hiking up on the border. Nice guy, believed in what he was doing, however, what a shameful mess of a country.

As you know, what you have will just be taken off you by those with better weapons.

Scotty off for a holiday again. I guess there's not much to do when you handball your responsibility to the states

Of course, you don't have to let them search your phone without probable cause, even then, they still need a warrant.

holiday? wouldn't call it that. Just a citizen that applied for a travel permit (you know, those papers we need to leave home lawfullly in this crazy a$$ country) to leave one state and to enter another and was granted the exemption provided he stayed in his residents upon return only leave for essential reasons. Which is what he is doing.

I applied for a permit Sunday also and was approved will you give me grief!

Just one of many, many examples that prove there is no lockdown and the borders aren't closed. It's one of the reasons so many people don't take the 'rules' seriously.

I’m not sure that’s the case in Australia:

Police searches without a warrant

It’s pretty much a grey area.

There was a US Supreme Court case that said police generally need a warrant to search a phone, and that’s maybe why there’s an idea that extends to Australia as well.

They need probable cause, police just cant walk up to you and search you.

I think your issue is with AB, surprisingly who also sits on the side of Labor. Sco mo has done nothing wrong, he went through the correct process and was approved then exercised that to travel back to NSW.

Mr AFL on the other hand was denied by McGoose then gave EM cheek about it, he let others that were less needed to be there than EM. This GF will be interesting playing at 19:00 WST I'm thinking it could well be the lowest viewership in and AFL GF history.

From the ABC
Am I the only one who is concerned by this? Key words - "new freedoms". WTF. I always thought that outdoor recreation in my country was a an inalienable right.

Whist I have no significant qualms adhering to the various health directions I made a decision a couple of years back that I would not let Apple (and now the QLD police) see my ‘significant locations’ and thus it’s not enabled on my phone.