I doubt it. It has become a battle of 6 states and 6 premiers against each other, and people have taken sides depending on where they live and which side of politics they support. An effective and competent leader would have pulled the nation together, however we have a weak and incompetent PM. Off sightseeing and drinking at pubs in the UK whilst simultaneously fearmongering about how dangerous the situation is in the UK on breakfast TV when he got back and how, even with vaccination, we can’t open back up again indefinitely. And he’s copped almost no backlash for it.

Jetting off to the G7 in his big A330 like he’s a powerhouse influence in the world whilst his country is not only closed to the world, his own states aren’t even open up to each other.

Morrison has always been a weak leader, the bushfires proved that, just a marketing guru (a marketing guru who was sacked by Howard) parachuted almost accidentally into the PM’s position. I’m glad everyone got their franking credits and negative gearing, unfortunately competent leadership wasn’t included in the package.

We would be in a far worse position with a Shorten government. Make no mistake there.

It’s not that big!

Are you sure? Even back in November, before issues with AZ were known the opposition were calling for more Pfizer doses to be ordered, which was immediately dismissed by the government.

If they had been in power they could have been just as bad as Morrison or better, but it’s hard to imagine how they could’ve been “far worse” than Scotty.

Exactly and we will accept and live with that.

However in the meantime we have shown that you can contain the spread without the vaccine.
And your travel insurance is with?

In early 2020, we had a low understanding of COVID 19, there was no vaccine and it was infectious and put people in ICU, which had limited capacity; closing borders and lockdowns sort of made sense.

18 months on and our understanding is much better, there’s several vaccines and the new strains are more infectious, but generally less lethal; the problems we have now is people spreading it because they have no symptoms. There is no threat to ICU capacity from COVID.

Yet, here we are rooting the economy and locking down citizens every time there are 1 or 2 cases. The rest of the world has moved on and realised case numbers are no longer a useful metric, and COVID will be with us for the long term, but managed like Flu. Not Australia, or NZ.... there seems to be a nationwide panic every time there’s 1 case. 16,000+ cases in the UK yesterday, but they are getting on with it and planning holidays because the vaccine rollout wasn’t half arsed and they know case numbers are less relevant than hospital admissions or deaths.

Its the opposition duty to oppose anything the Gov does. if Sco Mo ordered 50 million Pfizer vaccines the Lefties would be screaming for more Astra Zeneca vaccines.

I bet QLD CMO would be looking like a fool, she said two days ago NSW contact tracers cant keep up, look at NSW go just proving why we are the best.

You'll actually find federal Labor have supported many things the LNP have done over the last 18 months. Federal budget, jobkeeper, jobseeker to name a few. The pfizer order cock up does require criticism. It could mean us opening borders sooner and all you whiners can go back to work.

Also calling Labor lefties is comical.


Side note: 22 cases in NSW, suburbs in lockdown.

Amazing how quiet the thread is for the Sydney "Stay at home" order. Will be weeks and weeks of border closures now.

The lockdown you have when you're not having a lockdown.

Why will this happen? Why are the Premiers going to surrender any of their new gained power? They're basically running their own countries now.

So Gladys has finally swallowed her pride and ordered a lockdown, she just hasn’t called it a lockdown, for 4 LGAs in the east of the city even though the mass spreader birthday party was 30kms to the west in West Hoxton?

What’s the use of locking down only 4 LGAs when there’s moving and mixing all over the city?

She has no need to swallow her pride, remember Avalon in January and northern beaches they were all locked down at a hefty cost of 6.8billion. As she said today her response is proportionate to the situation. If this were any other state you would all be locked up like criminals. Gladys has the perfect balance and I’m sure if tomorrow calls for it she will not hesitate to lock LGAs down.

Are you joking, she couldn't even bring herself to say the word lockdown. If she went hard and early the economic pain and length of disruption would have been less. Yes the risk is it may turn out to be unnecessary (as was the case in Perth / Brisbane) but you pretty much guarantee avoiding the situation Syd now finds itself in.

With the WA government now keen to move forward with the Feds to build a 1000 bed quarantine facility in Perth, along with previous announcements from other states, you know our scared little nation won’t be shifting from a fortress elimination strategy anytime soon. Murmurs already about that mid 2022 is too soon to consider any international border changes.

No use whining about lockdowns and state border closures either, we are likely to continue to see these ongoing for next 18mths minimum.

NZ Health authorities reported a while ago that flu was virtually unknown in NZ in the past 12 months

The fact that it's 1 year into the crisis and we haven't had anything built for it (Open air quarantine station etc), and we only have limited supplies of vaccine is telling of our leadership. It's like Britain ordering Spitfires for the Battle of Britain and getting them in 1950. Our leaders are most certainly not Winston Churchill.

How can 2 bit countries get their vaccination act happening better than Australia which supposedly has the most advanced medical system on the planet.
Stats for vaccinations in the last 24 hrs to 25 June 2021 .https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/c...-distribution/
China 21 Million
India 5.5 million
Turkey 951,000
Indonesia 545,000
Mexico 445,000
Pakistan 202,000
Australia 100,00 and forcast to DECREASE.

This is my concern also. The building of large quarantine facilities in each state, seems a good idea for future pandemics that the world is no doubt likely to encounter but in the context of COVID-19 I worry that it solidifies the idea of automatic quarantine for returning travellers for years to come.
it astounds me the number of Australians now who go along with this idea. Basically “tough ****” is their response. Any chance of returning to my former job in another APAC city and travelling back and forth regularly to see family looks like never happening again in my lifetime.

Word is they are considering sites at Perth and Jandakot airport.

On one hand building dedicated dongas without connected ventilation should (almost completely) eliminate transmissions out of quarantine, which is why Howard Springs hasn’t yet had (and is unlikely to have) a breakout. Which should mostly put an end to lockdowns and interstate border closures. Which is what should’ve been done 12 months ago.

However it doesn’t bode well for international travel. Given these centres will be built post vaccine rollout it doesn’t show the government has any confidence in the program establishing a herd immunity. They’ll want to be seen as “been tough on borders” to win votes so little chance current restrictions will change even post vaccine program (whenever that will finish now) for the foreseeable future even post election.