Really? Things seemed to have changed.

Apparently only of this morning, if we are to believe anything McGowan says. What a sad night for our federation.

According to late night media reports here.. things changed about 4pm yesterday when the latest numbers of deaths came out from the Eastern States. An a Emergency Meeting was called.. and plans started to change.

Exactly why the covid death definition needs to be redefined

I hate to tell you this … they can police that. My next door neighbour’s son and family got permission to come and see her on compassionate grounds ( my neighbour is 90) from Queensland. They arrived a week ago. They have been allowed to quarantine with my neighbour, with her, in her home. The Police arrive at random times, twice a day, every day, to check they are all home. So yes, they can police it.

Yeah move those goalposts

They did it with the definition of 'close contact'...

He indicated more will be coming in under compassionate exemptions. More police needed to check on them. When in isolation those in the same household will have to isolate too. Like that's going to happen. Increased arrivals = increased chances of spread. The hotel quarantine system was leaky enough.

So it seems like he wants more chances of community breakouts whilst also appearing to be tough, so he doesn't have to take responsibility for allowing large numbers of cases in. He doesn't want to have put his name to a date to avoid any backlash, so just let them seep in.

If Airlines had any guts they'd announce a snap end to all flights into WA, so none of those compassionate arrivals can actually get in anyway. Just keep one per day for essential freight only, no passengers.
They could also announce a grounding of FIFO flights, using the excuse of crews being distracted. Now THAT would force a change in minutes.

If Morrison had any guts (he doesn't) he'd just stop all those extra booster shots coming into the state, saying if WA won't follow the national plan they can fund their own vaccines. But when you have a failed marketing manager as PM who only knows spin you never get substance or action.

Cracking waste of police resources, grilling every person arriving into WA and going house to house checking on isolations. Meanwhile, assaults are up 14% on 5yr average and domestic violence up 19%.

https://www.police.wa.gov.au/crime/crimestatistics#/

Sure did, in line with the US and UK, backed by big business and not by the scientific community. The states agreed to the new definition too, so it's not an argument of bipartisanship. Why we would follow suit with those countries is beyond me.

Airports are now empty, supermarket shelves are empty, casual workers throughout the country are on LWOP and now we have the trucking industry and Scomo asking for child forkies. What a timeline.

Why even have the one freight flight per day? If McGowan and his supporters want to remain cut off from the rest of Australia (while constantly sneering at what’s happening in other states), then they can remain cut off. Properly.

They pretty much already have. Jetstar has pulled out for the moment, probably won’t return for a few months. VA and QF only have one flight a day over to the East Coast.

Nailed it Dre.
What a spineless twerp he is.

Does anybody really care? Who's going to WA anytime soon? I think it is time for people to move on from WA and whatever it is they want to do. So long as the FEDS are still getting the taxes they are owed out of the joint, all good.

Yep. Dre is on the money. It’s exactly what he’s doing.

In the mean time, what a stunning waste of police resources to keep tabs on all those evil G2G holders, while crime everywhere else here runs rampant.

And still no published plan to fix the hospital mess. Two years of absolute Covid free luxury to get us ready and he completely wasted it. What an utter disgrace.

Hate to rain on your parade but here in SA word on the street is the majority of the population wishes SA would do the same though probably too late now. Since the borders were opened the city is deserted, traders are complaining about no customers and/or staff as too many are off due to being a close contact. Flights are being cancelled and shops closed because of the above. Consensus now is it is worse than when we had borders closed and brief lock downs to control it. Phrase often used is that this has back fired on the State and Federal government and big business that pushed the "let it rip " scenario in the first place. Just saying.

Same in Tasmania which has an economy built on tourism. Locals are furious.

A big problem in SA - I've back and forward many times in the last few years - is that the 'locals' were lulled by the low infection numbers into going lax on the mitigation strategies. If I had a buck for each time I saw someone with his or her nose hanging out of the top of a mask, failure by a business to insist on check in and no social distancing during my most recent visit, I'd be very rich. A complete change from the previous visit.

The East coast has just about reached the end of the beginning of the practical long-term response to the pandemic. SA will catch up in the next couple of months. Standby for many more deaths.

The sovereign nation of WA? Who knows. I suppose it will depend on if and when the money runs out.

The problem is not the virus, it’s the ridiculous arbitrary isolation requirements. I caught it, was sick enough to have one day off work. But no, I had to take a week off, as did my wife. What should have been a single day loss of productivity became 10, multiple this by 100,000 people per day and it’s no wonder the country is coming apart at the seams.

All for a deadly killer virus that was subdued by a couple of Panadol.

McGowan has crab-walked away from a decision that has been set in stone for months. Hundreds of thousands of individuals and tens of thousands of businesses have planned around this hard date.
He has done this because either;
- He knows the virus is in the community and cannot be stopped. So he doesn't want to be blamed for this due to open borders (The Dre theorem), or
- He is deluded into thinking he can control it and will shortly return the good burghers of WA (who have done everything asked of them and more) back into lockdown, as open borders would have precluded this.

Either option is cynical, politically expedient and a disgrace.
There is white-hot seething anger amongst the many folks I engage with in WA.

You cannot hold a compact of the sort he did, imploring all that was needed was to meet a vaccination rate threshold, and then renege without consequence.
His electoral goose is cooked I suspect and hope.

The remainder of the country has lanced the boil, as unpleasant as that is in the short term.
WA must lance it too, eventually. The can cannot be kicked down the road forever.

Im in Tassie. At least before the border opening we locals were able to go to restaurants and pubs and do some support of local tourism. Now since the 'Opening' every time you step outside you are conducting a risk assessment on when you will catch covid or be a close contact needing a personal lockdown. Ive had enough and heading to Philippines next month. At least there they have built free quarantine facilities designed with fresh air in mind and lots of outside walking around by inmates. Better than being locked into a hotel room where you cant open windows.

What money would that be?

Absolute lunacy, 12 staff from Fiona Stanley hospital in 14 days iso because a positive guy went to the ED.
Good luck finding panadol, I can only function with osteoarthritis with Neurofen, unable to find either on the shelves because of people panic buying. Not fun trying to get around at the moment.
However am glad he is taking a more gradual approach to opening the borders for now because once Pandora's box is opened that's it.
If Gladys and her successor hadn't made such a mess of things perhaps we wouldn't be in this situation now.

It's already been opened Clare. Too late.

I would say it’s very polarising. Because lots of people I engage with think it’s a great plan to stay shut.. while others hate it. I don’t know of anyone ‘sitting on the fence”.

What mess would that be?

Living in lala land, McGowan has done a great job convincing you all that you're Peter Pan and can live forever. Hate to break it to you, but humans die. Humans may even die from a respiratory virus when they have one or several co-morbidities, which are the overwhelming majority of deaths.

In NSW, VIC and now QLD you can choose to live on your feet or die on your knees.

It is possible to avoid the virus by choosing not to go out to high risk venues or areas, washing your hands, wearing a mask, being considerate. It's great to have a choice.

Lala land is convinced it is chaos on the East Coast, you are getting filtered news, news that picks and chooses the narrative. The facts are rare. There is no chaos here, you can travel interstate, overseas. Apart from the ridiculous remnants of the fear campaign, life is pretty good. The East has accepted that you can't eliminate a virus, the west believes in fairytales.

Im living in Philippines , just getting over covid ( no big deal ) , omnicron is part of life , people moving around , life is good , I don’t listen to news so no idea what politicians are saying . Good luck getting here .

What a lot of people who get upseat about the current situation in QLD, SA, Tassie don't seem to understand is that the same thing will happen when WA opens up, that could be today, it could be February 5th or it could be July. Omicron will rip through WA like the Eastern states at some point in time. Wouldn't it be better for the nation if we all did it together?

It’s obviously a fairly even split about 50/50 on the opinion of people in WA, either very happy to stay closed or completely against it.
WA provides only 15% of National GDP and if their borders stay closed it’s still a win for the Nation as royalties go to the whole country as well.
They should just keep it closed and then 50% will be happy and it’s tough for the other 50% but just start working on voting him out. McGowan was just talking now and he portraying that it is some type dystopian hell anywhere east WA. I just got back from the States, took the kids to Disneyland,
was a great trip, and get news that WA has done this, they need to get out into the world and see their policy is really only being pursued in China and Hong Kong. Feel sorry for the families that still can’t reunite. I see there will be more exemptions on Compassionate grounds, exemption equal a ton of red tape if anyone has had anything to do with travel to WA the last 2 years. QF should just give up on the Perth -London flights from now on, if any new variant comes along it will be back to the closing credits of Get Smart, all the doors again will close to WA.

The situation is diabolical. We are unable to operate, not only because of our own staff isolation requirement, but because of everyone else's. Businesses are falling over like a row of dominoes. If the 10 day isolation requirement hasn't been lifted by the end of this month, we have no choice but to place ourselves in a state of voluntary lockdown.

To those in WA, keep your borders shut, because this situation is worse than any virus.

I think all Perth based QF flight crew (both cabin and pilots) should start assessing which of the other bases they would be prepared to live in. Alan is pissed. LHR is toast, and there won’t be any expansion.

Speculation or source? (not disagreeing with you…I think Perth long haul bases are on thin ice.)
At least SOPS is happy in retirement

McGowan's critics have been quite vocal about their displeasure, but a lot of people are quietly pleased about the decision.

Just my own speculation. 787/A330 people especially, 737 less so, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a “base balancing” as a sort of amnesty.

I feel that MM would have been devastated by the front page of the West Australian today. It looks like he may have lost their support.

Yes, it's interesting how they've done a complete 180 on him, going from fawning obsequiousness to baying for his blood. Mind you, I'm not sure he cares.

Well here's the text from the press release:
Timing to reinstate Qantas’ Perth-London route, which is currently operating via Darwin and was due to return to Western Australia in late March 2022, is under review.
Note the use of language. "Timing to reinstate". Trying to extract a glimmer of hope out of a very negative day, this would indicate they eventually want to return. If they wanted to pressure the WA government they could've use language like "the viability or long term future of the Perth London route is under review". A browse of the Australian Frequent Flyers Forum shows the Darwin stopover isn't particularly popular, if it were to be a long term option they would need extensive terminal and lounge upgrades which may not even be possible from the space available. They'd probably use SIN instead.

We know just yesterday they have been in recent talks over PER-JNB. They returned to PER-LHR as soon as the aborted opening date was confirmed, and soon after announced PER-FCO. So no secret they see money to be made out of Perth, and unlike pilots business people tend to forget about grudges if there's money to be made. They know however money will only be made with open borders, so I'd expect any confirmation of those international routes will happen post a new opening date. As for the 330 we know there's enough domestic transcontinental travel that it will be needed after border reopening so doubt that will go in the long term.

So if I was PER based LH crew I wouldn't be browsing real estate listings in other states just yet. Thing is there's still a lot of unused capacity out there, A380s, which won't all be back in the air by year's end. If there was so much potential flying out there those 380s would be back ASAP and perhaps those 787s and 330s would be deployed elsewhere, but that doesn't seem to be. In that press release the group Domestic capacity is only going to 60% until this blows over so I even east coast bases won't be flying at max hours for the foreseeable future. I think what may be likely is a return to rolling stand downs, no doubt airlines will lobby for more government assistance to keep going until WA finally reopens. The estimate is now for group Domestic capacity to be at 60% til this blows over. You can also expect a lot of talk about "remaining competitive" to prepare for future EBA negotiations.

As to that new date, it's up in the air.

On one hand due to McGowan not having the balls to own a specific date, he may hope there's further spread of the Omicron cases and more seeping in with some compassionate returnees in Feb, so after the East Coast waves reduce (which they are starting to peak now) he can reopen but have an excuse that means he doesn't have to own that decision.

At the other extreme if he wants 80-90% boosted that won't be until June, and then there's zero chance they'll open up at the start of winter. So then Oct/Nov as a minimum, and then the elderly will be almost a year from their booster.

I think at this stage the eventual reopening could be a coin toss anywhere from Feb-Nov.

Also comments from the Chamber of Minerals and Energy warning about delaying reopening too much, These are the guys who supposedly the most important in the state:

https://thewest.com.au/news/kalgoorl...body-c-5377922

It’s on total display at the checkout of every grocery store, newsagent, bakery etc…… all day, in every town in WA, calling him an “abject failure”. If he doesn’t care, he’s not much of a politician.

It’s going to be a long 3 years for him. With only the support of an unknown percentage (my guess would be for less than 50%) of the WA population (and that will diminish over time) and what now seems to be none of the media, he’s cooked.

OK what have I missed?

MM is in government, as the leader, with only two opposition members in parliament.

The people of WA voted him in with the majority to "go nuts, fill yer boots, the second coming has arrived".

He doesn't have to appeal to the people, only to his own party....or at least keep them in control.

Simples really! :ok: