Thread by @Voice4Victoria

Current Pandemic Bill situation🧵

In short, we're all in the Adem show now. He's got the govt by the balls & basically the future of the state in his hands. People seem to have underestimated just how much of a position he holds here, which we saw a taste of this morning. Let's clear up a few things.

Adem has repeatedly said the bill needs to be amended, it's trash. He never said "kill the bill", he's said "kill that version of the bill". Given SOE is no longer an option & the other states retain ongoing powers, most MPs accept something (far, far less awful) could exist.

For those new to this the original deal was that the bill was ONLY meant to cover extremely specific pandemic powers like quarantine, masks etc not much else, because nobody trusted them with the emergency powers. Then we got the legal equivalent of a human rights crime scene 🙄

On this, even if you did kill it, the govt can literally just write & table another one. There seems to be confusion about this. Killing this version of the bill is absolutely imperative. Thinking they won't keep going until they get a watered down version through is unrealistic.

Getting a bit concerned about how many people seem to not realise that they can just write another bill (a better one) even if this did get defeated. It's wildly embarrassing for them, but they just start again. This is very hard to combat when other states retain ongoing powers.

Back to Adem. His stunt telling the govt he'll block it was enough for them to panic & delay the bill, he never even had to show his face. When they voted to delay debate, what they actually voted for was to delay it TODAY. We are still waiting on an update even now.

They'll either: keep debate going, then adjourn to next sitting week. Or straight adjourn it to next sitting week.
Problem for the govt is they have:
No idea who will play nice AKA where that needed vote will come from OR how long that will take. That's very problematic for them.

They've done everything possible to avoid proper scrutiny, including voting against a full SARC evaluation (irony is lost on nobody). Depending how long they adjourn for they're in a VERY tight spot trying to get out of scrutiny of their precious 'transparent & accountable' bill.

Basically the crossbench has the govt by the 🥜s right now. The govt want this thing passed, they need another vote. NONE of the crossbench are happy with them or likely interested in making it easy after their disgusting & unprofessional performance on this.

In short the govt need to delay but don't know how long for & are having a meltdown over how much further scrutiny can be given to the bill in that time. Then also knowing that it's absolutely going to get gutted in a way that'd make a fisherman proud in order to be able to pass.

Adem joining in this crossbench dynamic hasn't even begun to get weird yet as the battle begins to see who's willing to negotiate for a vote & on what terms. The one great thing is everyone, especially the govt, knows they're not in a strong position to bargain now. Very amusing.

Doubtful if there's ever been this big a piece of humble pie served to a current government, while in power, in living memory.

Current update. They've delayed until tomorrow. Possibly.
Words can't adequately describe the chaos & panic that would be happening in those inner circle govt offices right now.