Indeed they do.

As a one-trick-pony, McGowan excels. Keeping people focussed on his Covid response - which, let's face it - was nothing more than shutting the door to keep the boogey man out kept people from scrutinising his management of the rest of the state, for example, the health system that has had negative trends in key measures for the last several years, where ambulance ramping is currently at record levels and elective surgeries are having to be cancelled because the existing system - that he's overseen for years, remember - cannot cope. It truly is no wonder he is so desperate to keep Covid out of WA, because god knows the WA health system isn't capable of managing itself right now - without Covid!

But yep, he won the vote because he kept attention away from where it needed to be and their citizens lapped it up. :yuk:

Budget assumptions forecast a worse case scenario, and aren't always accurate.

Last year's budget assumed a WA Border closure until April 2021, as outlined in this headline in this news.com.au article published on October 7th which announces it like a it's a definite confirmed decision:

Western Australia plans to keep border closed to April 2021
Details buried within the federal budget apparently reveal a quiet plot to keep one Australian state's borders closed for six more months

What day did they announce the ending of the complete hard border to all states? October 29th, 22 days later.

No problem Icarus, I haven't checked but there was a program I saw around the time it happened (I should have said all 'recent' PMs, meaning the last 30-40 years) and in the program they went through with someone who had researched it, the PMs that had instead stayed at home or spent their holidays in summer at a favourite holiday spot - I think for Howard, it was Hawkes Nest.

Yes, for someone with that background, it is unfathomable that he would not understand that concept. I just think he is intellectually incapable of seeing the obvious a la 'gee, this could blow up in my/our face(s)' as you state Howard, and I would add; Keating, Hawke, Rudd, even Abbott and Turnbull, etc. all seemed to be able to gauge with a few exceptions as always - e.g. Howard remained silent on the 'actual' situation with the Tampa to let the electorate go with the flow to win the election, then was very careful afterward to manage any mention of it - his government's relentless and disgusting pursuit of Andrew Wilkie who essentially was a whistle blower on the matter is, I believe, one of the real reasons Wilkie was never going to back the LNP in 2010 as it was his opportunity to stick the knife deep into people who had made his life hell for telling the truth.

As for the French, yes, I was just noting that a true statesman(person????) with guts and decency would have said to Macron months ago, this is a sh-t show and we're becoming concerned it's not what we want - rather than, as he always does, never considering the potential mess then trying to avoid it or manage it which I think just means he is essentially lazy minded and gutless. I know this might upset some people, but religion has no special protection from criticism as far as I'm concerned and I would just say, it's not entirely surprising considering that he is too lazy to think past invisible man in the sky stuff and attends a religious institution where people 'speak in tongues' and the like. I don't think you can be a forward thinker if you accept that nonsense without question - and surprisingly for a 'Christian' he seems to have no morality that I can detect.

However, I was just saying to someone the other day - the only power that the French have exercised in the Pacific that I have seen in my lifetime has been to try and avoid for as long as possible the granting of independence to their former colonies, preferring instead to let off nuclear bombs in their backyard and then laughingly claim that Tahiti and New Caledonia, et al are 'part of metropolitan France'....... when question about his specific objection to these tests in Parliament one day I can only echo then PM Paul Keating's response something like "... most other Nations who have nuclear weapons, which we also object to them testing, such as the Chinese, at least have the decency to do it in their own back yard. Then we have this fallacy that it's part of France - Oh, yes. There are Polynesians all the way down from Aix-en-Provence. They pop out of the woodwork. They are doing Polynesian dances in the back end of the Loire Valley, in the walled city of Carcassone, in the lovely humidity of Aix-en-Provence. There are Polynesians everywhere." Love him or hate him, it was a perfect response to the hypocrisy of the French testing and even more fitting now they are claiming to be a 'Pacific Power'.

Hmmm, I think they were not a Pacific power when the Japanese were rampaging through the Pacific in WWII, when Australians and Americans were dying to stop them in PNG, no French around then - What's that I say "You were fighting off Hitler"....... Yes, and I wonder who was helping you....

So, yeh, very little sympathy for the French who I think were looking to take Australia's ridiculous request of turning a nuclear sub into a diesel-electric and milking it for everything it was worth.

At least, despite the way it was made, the right decision has now been made where we hopefully get some version of the Virginia Class SSN which is years ahead of everyone else. I've seen some reporting that we might not be able to lease subs from the USN but I notice in their inventory, among the Los Angeles Class which are slowly being retired, there are at least two Los Angeles Class SSNs in 'reserve'.

I for one, couldn't care less if WA permanently closed domestically and internationally. I actually hope they do stay closed as planned for April 2022. You can all watch us from a far moving on with life.

Vax numbers out. Queensland nowhere in sight. 80% might need to be downgraded for SA/NT/WA/QLD to 70%.

Canberra and Geelong looking like will be the most vaccinated jurisdictions on earth if they keep going.

Great work Dr Young.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....a30902e32.jpeg

It should be noted however that NT (and the ACT) are not States and don't have the same powers.

Both are Commonwealth Territories and they have local legislatures ONLY because the Commonwealth granted them, they have Senate representation ONLY because the Commonwealth granted them 2 Senators each and their citizens can vote in Constitutional Referenda only because the Commonwealth instigated a constitutional amendment in the 70s to allow their votes to count toward a national total in a referendum but not contribute of course to the majority of State(s) vote and anything they pass in their Assemblies can be overridden by an Act of the Commonwealth Parliament - witness the NT's Euthanasia legislation some years back, overridden immediately by the Commonwealth Parliament.

As such, neither have 'State's Rights' so whether people agree or not, if the Commonwealth Parliament says they open up, then they open up. That would of course cause an almighty sh-t-storm, especially if there were covid deaths as a result so I won't hold my breath for the current government to do such a thing (or any future federal government for that matter).

Respectfully, it actually does matter what these people think. The idea of having the border closed permanently is nothing short of idiotic and that point needs to be clearly articulated to these people.

We elect our politicians to lead the country and not take these populist positions that are currently taking place (A fanciful concept I know). What the WA and QLD premiers are doing is made all the more disgraceful by the fact that they have both recently been re elected. They can move away from popularism and lead their states (and in turn the rest of the country) out of the pandemic towards Covid Normal.

Love him or hate him, what John Howard did after Port Arthur with gun control was incredibly unpopular with his voter base - but he knew it was the right thing to do and so acted decisively and lead the country through that turbulent time. That was one of the last times a political leader in this country has actually had the courage of their convictions to make an unpopular decision.

Keeping the state borders closed is disastrous for the economy in the long run, is disastrous for those that are away from home / family for whatever reason and is slowly but surely killing the aviation industry (rather relevant given this is a professional pilot forum).

So I will call it out now - anyone that is advocating for state borders to remain closed once the country reaches 80% vaccination rate should be quickly told in no uncertain terms to pull their heads in.

It would create a bottom burp, not a sh_t-orm, for precisely the reason you identified. And the ACT's borders are effectively open, anyway. The Chief Minister has already acknowledged that it's not practical to try to keep them closed.
Hear! Hear!

I think the tobacco plain packaging legislation was another example. Well done the Gillard government.

And Tony Abbott made the correct call on the subs replacement.

If there's a change of government at the next federal election and a federal ICAC with real teeth is not immediately legislated by the incoming Labor government, it's another few years at least of waiting until there's any hope of it being implemented.

Couldn’t agree with you more.

You realise more supply was given to NSW then Victoria over the last few months due to the situation in those states?

Spot on, everyone in a team has to do some heavy lifting at some stage. Assuming WA is in fact in team Australia?

Team Australia.. ACT leading the way in nearly every metric. And also 'donating' 10% of their allocation to the surrounding NSW region without making a song and dance...
Labor govt as well.

Team Australia? No problem.
Team Gladys? I don't think so.

Guess you'd be happy for Gladys to stop all international arrivals coming through Sydney airport then? I mean, since she's not in your team anymore....I'm sure the 77,000 extra people that came in through Sydney over and above NSW's fair share appreciate Gladys being a team player and shouldering the lions share of the risk.

Here's the latest BTRE international passenger data, from April 2020 to June 2021 (the latest month for which figures are available). The percentages are those of inbound travelers of the total, and the state percentage of the total Australian population, to show which states are pulling their weight and who isn't. I'm guessing (as the data does not distinguish either way) that the BTRE excludes repatriation flights, as Darwin should have significantly more than that shown, but it'd be unlikely to skew the percentages significantly over 500,000 returnee's.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....30b6b67ac5.jpg

Gladys (and to a lesser extent Chairman Dan) have decided at some stage crash through or crash will be required. That time - for them - is now.

Totally depends on whether you believe Delta can be eradicated/suppressed or similar.
Personally I don't think it can be, others may disagree, fair enough.

I believe Delta will force all states/territories to have their own crash through or crash moments.
I can't see - logically - any other expectation.

Cheers.

I don’t think it’s as simple as that. Howard brought in gun control to prevent people dying, opening up a COVID free state, even at 80% vaccination, will cause a spike in deaths from zero to wherever. NSW and VIC are lucky in a way, they don’t have to make that decision, to willingly allow COVID in. They will likely see a rise in deaths, but they aren’t going from COVID zero, and I believe that makes it very different. I wonder what Chairman Dan’s attitude would be if Victoria was sitting on zero COVID at the moment? Even NSW might be more hesitant if they had zero COVID and WA or QLD had significant community spread.

Im in no way saying COVID zero is a viable strategy, but I do understand the decision to open up from COVID zero is not that straight forward.

No offence - but who the f**k cares what Chairman Dan might/might not do if Victoria was zero COVID.
We're NOT - and NSW is NOT - so what's the way forward?

Look forward...like, you know...the future rather than...the past. :ugh:

Cheers.

Yes. I agree.
But I think that time is when everyone who wants to get vaccinated has either been vaccinated or has had a reasonable opportunity to do so.
And not before.

I thought that's what all the "70%, 80%" stuff was about in determining when things could/should open up?
Completely agree it should me more looked at as everyone who wants to be vacc'd has had the opportunity, I would hope that approximates the 70-80% stuff which appears accepted as the baseline to work from.

Then lets just throw in a few "90%" comments to confuse the punters - leadership at its best.

Cheers

The 70 / 80% proposal has NEVER been sufficiently explained to the Oz public.
Ask most which group the 70 - 80% applies to and they'll have no idea.
And do the masses understand that these rates are all about keeping the health systems in functioning order and that preventing deaths is only a side-benefit?
I doubt it.

And to relax controls before everyone who wants it has had the opportunity for double vaccination is morally reprehensible.