Wartime powers can mean anything. In WW2 the Federal Government used the emergency powers to snatch more control from the states because of the disjointed state of the nation. So if you think the current iteration lacks control, think about how much less power they had pre WW2. Federation could quite easily have been several separate countries within Australia rather than one nation. The larger states governed as independent nations effectively, with their own separate armed forces and governance pre 1901. Victoria had its own navy, ships were HMVS (His Majesties Victorian Ship), including a coastal battleship, infantry, artillery and mounted horse regiments etc. This is why Australian states wield the power they do.

You would have to have much higher death rates going on for any emergency powers to be enacted against the states in a pandemic. There would have to be proof of an undeniable threat to the public that would warrant it.

Dutton would be a better war time prime minister , anti war protestors locked up and online chat sites banned for national security reasons . Getting a covid vaccination or not would bring a smile to your face as you stood in line for compulsory conscription injections . Pressure ramping up this week on getting vaccinations!

It’s so telling when the self-proclaimed “numbers” person drifts into politics and starts using words like “utterly inane” and “nonsense” to describe matters other than statistics.

We are living in an authoritarian state, now. If you could get your head out of the numbers for a moment, you’d see that many Australian are being told, on pain of criminal liability, that they can’t visit their families and friends and can’t travel more than a specified number of kilometres from home. There are police and ADF members on the streets enforcing those restrictions. It suits Scotty that a lot of the consequent ‘blowback’ hits the state premiers rather than him.

The Commonwealth coerces the states, financially, all the time. And the government doesn’t need to make a law that can be stopped by the Senate, to achieve the outcome. And a spending bill that originates in the Senate can be blocked by the government in the House.

The Commonwealth has enough power to take over and run the response on a nationally consistent basis. Its failure to do so is a political decision, plain and simple. It’s probably a blessing in disguise though, because we can only speculate what a clusterf*ck it would be if Scotty or what’s-his-name on the other ‘side’ stepped up.

They had only recently taken control of aged care for national consistency. They could not even run a consistent approach to protect those from Covid. The first outbreak in Sydney saw the vulnerabilities in aged care and then the same vulnerabilities were exposed in Melbourne as if no-one had learned a thing. They finally got the message when it started spreading in Melbourne again this year and increased the vaccination rates. Luckily Victorias state government had their act together by then to soften the spread to them while they acted.

We need to separate the question whether it may be done constitutionally, in principle, on the one hand, and the question whether a government has the requisite competence to do it on the other.

Federal governments have been pretty mediocre for quite a long time. And they'll happily remain that way whilever most of the public accept (or give up in frustration while watching) the blame-shifting games. Just look at quarantine.

But be in no doubt: A pandemic is the paradigm example of a matter that falls squarely within the nationhood power and, even if it didn't, the Commonwealth has more than enough power to 'encourage' the states to implement what the Commonwealth wants (e.g. some semblance of 'order' in the aged care sector). It's a political choice and - I'll say it - political cowardice not to.

Another question. What has happened to the AHPPC? In the beginning we heard about them all the time.. but lately it is like they don’t exist.

Sorry mate, I respectfully disagree and don’t ascribe that level of cunning to Scomo.

He has been weak as p1ss throughout; announcing National cabinet decisions only to have the state premiers walk them backwards as soon as they leave the room.

Sadly for Australians, the rest of Scomo’s cabinet are mediocre at best, the opposition is anything but, and the state premiers have been playing politics from the start and running rings around Scotty from Marketing.

There will be an enquiry or royal commission in due course, but as we saw with the Coate and Brereton enquires, the vigour with which they are pursued varies.

Before the inevitable #istandwithdan responses pour in, I don’t really care.

Wise comment indeed.

The majority of society everywhere appears to want to be vaccinated so that life can return to something approaching normal. To those who say we can't reach the 80% that the current government says is the target, how come the Israelis and Brits are already close to achieving that? Our government's slow response to getting vaccines is certainly one reason why we are way behind the civilized world in this regard but surely we can achieve 80% by early next year.
As for the minority who oppose mandatory vaccination in certain jobs and in order to have certain privileges such as unrestricted travel, it will be interesting to see which wannabe government at the next election wins on such a platform.
Despite the rabble in our midst I think enough sensible Australians will just get the bloody vaccine to get on with life. They have had enough.

No need to apologise. We'll have to agree to disagree.

Nobody gets to where Scotty is without being as cunning as a sh*thouse rat.

Just over 66% of Israelis have received at least one dose of vaccine as of July 11. At the current pace, 70% would have been vaccinated by August 5.

In Israel the vaccination rate had plateaued in April as new COVID infections were on a months-long steady decline. But when the arrival of Delta brought a spike of cases in June, the government jumped in quickly with a new campaign urging teenagers to get the shot and parents to vaccinate their children aged 12 to 15.

They hit a wall in April and May. By May 29, the rate of daily new vaccinations had them on pace to hit 70% sometime in autumn 2022.

https://graphics.reuters.com/HEALTH-...N/xklvyxrdgpg/

Chances of a life threatening blood clot from the AZ vaccine 1 in 1,000,000
Chances of being struck by lightning 1 in 140,000

Sort of puts it into perspective doesn't it.

Im fully done with AZ. My wife is having her second AZ tomorrow. I spent years flying across the North Pole. Getting radiated or taking the chance of diverting to some sxxt hole airport in the middle of nowhere. I’m happy to take my chances with AZ.

Where would we be, in your estimation, if we had received the 3 million AZ doses that did not turn up from Europe and the Pfizer withheld by Biden?

There must be a significant wedge of us oldies just coming due for our second AZ.
Some may have taken up the chance to have their second dose a little earlier when the rules changed but many would have been content to wait out the 12 weeks.
I expect to see a spike in "fully vaccinated" this month.

Unless you have something to back your claim, all the evidence I’ve seen (including a senate inquiry answer by relevant bureaucrats) says Pfizer is delivering to the planned schedule.

Scotty from marketing can’t PR his way out of not ordering enough early on!

in the same place.

Regarding the AZ supply from Italy, from ABC on March 5:

“In a statement a spokesperson for the Health Minister Greg Hunt said the shipment that has already arrived in Australia would "take us through" to when it is made locally from the end of the month.
"[The Italy shipment] is one shipment from one country," they said.
"This shipment was not factored into our distribution plan for coming weeks.
"Domestic production starts with 1 million per week of deliveries from late March and is on track."

and one week later AZ was tarnished in this country.

From the CDC Lightning is one of the leading causes of weather-related fatalities. But the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are only around 1 in 500,000. However, some factors can put you at greater risk for being struck. Regional, seasonal, and occupational differences affect your risk of being injured by lightning.

Last reports - Chance of getting a blood clot from AZ was 1 in 77000

Chance of Xeptu having no idea ... 1 in 1

Sort of puts it into perspective doesn't it.....

Yes,i think you would be right,we are both due in next few weeks & in late may/early june when we got ours the walk in sites were booked out for at least a week in advance so as you say there will be lots due for their 2nd jab soon.

But chance of a fatal clot from AZ is more like 1 in 1000 000.

wrong in relation to AstraZeneca. Had we had those 3 million on time before the great big scare campaign we would be significantly ahead of where we are now. And if people remember we had a target of 4 million doses by the end of March, something that people jumped on Morrison for missing, notably the hopeless Labor party. Now you see why we missed that target.

AstraZeneca, which is producing the COVID-19 vaccine at cost for the duration of the pandemic, is facing global pressure to boost supply. It had planned to provide 180 million doses to the EU in the second quarter but will only deliver 40 million.

The British-Swedish company also told the Morrison government in January that it could only provide 1.2 million offshore doses in February and March instead of the expected 3.8 million. Only 717,000 doses – the ones from the UK – have arrived so far, leaving 3.1 million doses in the balance.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/...07-p57hcl.html