Still, Australopithecus, Scotty knows the attention span of the average voter is quite short. As my favourite political philosopher, HL Mencken said:

Sadly true. That fact makes a mockery of democracy, doesn’t it? And what’s worse, social media has provided an unstoppable infection vector for stupidity.

Democracy is fine, what it makes a mockery of is the pathetic state of education and the fact that enough are too dumb or uninformed to spot when they're being fed BS people simply can't be bothered if they hear the magic words, even from a certifiable liar....... "tax cut".... there is a proportion of the Australian electorate who are the quintessential 'Charlie Brown' to 'Lucy' of Peanuts fame - she holds the ball every year for Charlie Brown to kick, every year she promises she won't pull it away at the last second, causing CB to fall on his arse, like she does every year and every year Charlie falls for it.... same here, ScoMo says "tax cut" and all the morons vote based on it and every time after the election they find out the fine print says "in 3-4 years time"....

Please don't insult creeps. I'm sure there are creeps with, in fact, a cockroach crawling up some toilet wall somewhere, with more redemptive tissue than the happy-clappy-slogan-bogan.......

A mockery of Democracy? Come to Victoria if you want to see that!

Obviously an opinion not shared by everyone.

The PM is responsible for everything - You obviously have not been paying attention to the media or listening to the State Premiers.

The system is broke - big time! We have tyranny increasing, Ozziegarch property “portfolio” owners, corruption running crazy from local to Federal and Federal MP’s who, on average own 4.1 properties - whilst we have homeless people and schools that can’t afford text books or run a Physics class.

The corrupt circus, that is “Parliament” is a disgrace. Self interest, in the main, will always take front stage. However, whether or not we still have our jobs, the fact that we can’t travel domestically, is now - nonsensical.

The Public service office types and the MP’s are living the dream. Guaranteed income, work from home from their Holiday homes are as out of touch as XiPing and the Tsars.

Or the fine print says that you need to make almost triple the median wage to receive the cut.

Hmm, "democracy is broken".

I find this thread funny, first you say it's broken in some way that the states acting in line with the majority beliefs of their population, which is democracy in action. In WAs case getting re-elected mid pandemic with a massive margin, NSW with high popularity ratings and even Victoria with reasonably high approval even with all the other state issues going on outside of Covid. Democracy is the will of the people, so saying that the PM should be over-riding the states policies to satisfy the few would be, hmm, dictatorship. Then talking about underfunded public education, which is a socialist policy, again moving away from choice into the theme of we all have to pay for it whether we want it or not. If you want more funding for your schools, get on the bandwagon, make it known to your local MP as a major issue above everything else, same for hospitals and the rest. Yes a lot of voters are just backing red or blue or names and know little about policy, however the election is decided by the educated as they swing with whats best. All the 'not so electoral savy' will do is prevent one or the other side being wiped out, giving some stability to the govern vs opposition mantra. BTW I don't see massive protests against compulsory, mandated voting.

And I can think of nothing worse than Prime Minister Albo.

Wait, yes I can, Clive Palmer. Julia Gillard. Any Green person.

This thread is a laugh. Started in May 2020, it will no doubt make two years and by that time we will be discussing 7 different countries. I see old mate in WA has just sealed his border even tighter :-)

Is Albo worse than Scomo? If so, why?

Ascend Charlie, well if your tired and retired you fit right in to crusted old right wing numbnuts. I just love how you deny anyone a gong except your crusted on Liberal party, brought on most likely by your upbringing. Enjoy your retirement, the tide will wash away most of you next year. Enjoy buddy! 👍

Scomo is a basically corrupt marketing puppet that has passed less than 20% of the legislation that Gillard did in 4 times the amount in office. Anyone that hasn’t realised this yet must be brain dead or stupid. Everything he says turns to nothing and anything he does has been useless. You can’t polish a turd…

Is the passage of legislation the hallmark of a good PM? Just asking.

The one piece of legislation the feds should pass is to end the individual states closing their borders. We could become Australia again. I won’t hold my breath waiting.

The Feds have absolutely no authority to pass such legislation, it’s called Federation, and we are behold to the State Premiers, full stop.

Western Australia is now closed off to the rest of the country, It is not up to the PM. Its up to the Premiers.

PM trying to keep the country open. Premiers playing power games. Roll on a referendum and put an end to this stupidity! We need one clear voice & direction, doesn’t matter what Party.

(Never seen a Republican model I liked, but if one gets put up to abolish States, then it’ll get a Yes from me!)

WOW! Such strong comments! You forget Labour pollies are just as bad. Covid aside, you are totally blind to the each way betting idiot Albo on all fronts. He stands for nothing like the rest of those labour fools.

Actually, closed to the World. Australia does not care barley made news over here. It’s is what WA voted for, this is what they want.

SHVC, no I’m just saying the facts, I’m not a LABOR supporter (note the spelling) , a brand new independent would be quite frankly superior to Scomo atm, he has lost the F ing plot. I support diluting these fat arsed major parties and making them work for their money, this bull crap about stability has been spruiked since the 60’s, Bring it! Boomers will now sledge me, but hey prepare for death losers, your time is about to end! Lol!

Not until Boxing Day.

So why is the LNP better? What policies make them stand out?

LNP handling of the pandemic is one. if Labor was in, no way they would of had the balance sheet like LNP had to support JK, JS and business support. Lower taxes, balls to have stronger national security the list goes on.

A vote for labor in my opinion is a vote for the Greens and all the independents, imagine that JL bogan in the upper house she is terrible. One of the policy of Labor is this net zero rubbish. Albos plan of reducing emmisions by 43% by 2030 which will be 7.5yrs away by the time election is done and he has moved in without a sustainable plan to get there. If Labor gets in they will bow down to Xi, with sorry speeches and hugs. At least PD and SM have the balls to make Australia number 1. Many more of their policy’s are rubbish.

The current PM is not that bad, we know what he stands for at least and he is a heck of a lot better than each way albo. Recent announcements SM has made in Labor strong holds in QLDare very good ideas although the truck apprentiship should of been thought of 10+ yrs ago with expat drivers.
I would hope PD takes the reins one day he will make a fine PM.

The current balance sheet is worse than it has ever been, even before covid. The LNP has accrued more debt than any other Aus government in history with no plan to pay it back. Not. One. Single. Plan. Lower taxes from the LNP is also a myth. Most taxpayers will have a tax rise when the tax offset is removed next year. High income earners will get huge savings costing the budget even further.

Dutton doesn't like China but he sure acts like he wants the same as China. Internet surveillance, social media censorship. We'll be accruing social credits to go with all that debt in no time. Labor also agrees with everything the LNP has done on the Chinese policy level.

Mask mandates. Capacity limits back. No singing and dancing in doors. Does not seem like the Premiers are listening to the PM at all.

Gillard's passing of a bucketful of legislation doesn't make her a good PM. It just makes more red tape. We need fewer laws, not more. Just better laws.

Would that perhaps be through the JobKeeper payments, which kept small businesses like mine alive, and allowed me to continue employing people? Our unemployment numbers are amazingly low, which isn't helping me at all, I need more workers. So do the restaurants.

All Albo does is squawk out the one-liners written for him to be a sound grab, no depth, and his only policy seems to be to bag the LNP, not promote the country.

No dancing unless you are at a wedding.

How does the virus know the difference?

And now McGowan is sh!tting his pants just a few days from Xmas with mask mandates and other restrictions over ONE case. When asked why no lockdown, he replied “because of our very high vaccination rate…one of the highest in the world”. Well if the rate is so high, then why not open the borders?

Karma is a b!tch though and McGowan deserves a dose of it. WA may well be locked down by New Years Eve once this spreads during Xmas gatherings. Bring it on, and hopefully we won’t have to wait til Feb 5 for some common sense to finally prevail.

Time to join the party Mark , let it rip !

No, National debt has been rising under Labor and then Liberal governments since the GFC, Covid and JobKeeper has only accelerated it.

Anyway some interesting news out of the McGowan press conference today about the spread in Perth. He said that if there was enough community spread the planned February 5th reopening becomes redundant.

So that all important date, you know the title of the thread “All Borders to Reopen” may be imminent.

We can only hope dr dre

You do seem to be rather an unpleasant fellow wishing Covid on people.

Yep…I would hate for fully vaccinated healthy people to get a runny nose and sore throat. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.

what about the people who spend weeks in ICU units, go on to develop long-COVID or die?

Well the vast, vast majority of people in ICUs are unvaccinated.

We’ve now reached a point where Australia’s high vaccination levels will mostly keep ICUs from overflowing. Every leader is now pretty much abandoning those who’ve chosen to not take a vaccine. And Australia has, through want of getting out of lockdowns or mandates, one of the highest vaxxed adult populations.

Those who die of Covid are now matching standard excess mortality, which means they’re not causing a massive increase in death. Check out this graph of UK excess mortality for instance:

Excess Mortality in England

Spikes around early 2020 and winter 20/21 but now more in line with expected numbers. Basically the populations vulnerable to influenza now the ones vulnerable to Covid (so make sure they’re vaccinated and avoid contact if contagious please).

The prevalence of long Covid after vaccination is still unknown, however it’s probably safe to say you’re less likely to get symptoms, the symptoms will probably be mild, and the time they persist for measured in weeks rather than months. Here’s a good article to read:

Do vaccines reduce your risk of long COVID? Here's what we know so far - ABC News

I am lost for words.

Like signing up for the CCP's Belt & Road debt trap?

People are still people, regardless of how misguided or stupid they may be. I for one do not believe this is worthy of minimising the impact of their death or suffering regardless of their impact on my career or family life.

That’s a first