Thread by @iMusing

Perrottet is up. His talking points are ICU capacity and how people being double dosed has enabled his government to “open up as quickly as possible”.

he says he is “very proud as Premier of NSW of the health workers”. Wagga hospital gets another shout out today. No word on car parks.

in a clear measure of how terrible Perrottet is at his job, the Premier claims to be doing “everything” they can to address long PCR testing queues. He then tells people “who are not unwell” to not to line up for a PCR test.
That’s the “everything” then I guess.

Hazzard directly attacks people in the PCR testing queues. If you think you can just get a PCR test for free, he sneers, get out of the queue. Go to woollies, he says. Go to Coles. Get off the social media, says the health minister, helpfully.

stop listening to social media, repeats Hazzard, or you could end up in ICU and then you’ll be dead. This insane nonsense seems to be based on an implied and false premise that there are people eligible for boosters who are choosing to sit around doomscrolling instead.

Dr Chant then does the official numbers report. Obviously 11K Dom and 11K Brad do not want to be recorded citing the number of cases they have caused out loud.

the Prof is cut off because Morrison has decided to sabotage Dom who already said there is a national cabinet meeting tomorrow but Scott wants to announce it himself.

sounds like someone has explained volume vs severity to Morrison in words of one syllable. The “states and territories are working very closely on their pans (sic)” says the prime minister informatively. He calls omicron a “phase” that “we are moving forward into”.

the states and territories are in different stages of the omicron phase. Explanatory genius on display here. National cabinet is looking to define close contact tomorrow.
Mate I redefined casual contact in a 3km queue for a closed testing clinic at 7am this morning.

wait Morrison is now reading out contact definitions, the ones that he just claimed national cabinet is going to define tomorrow. Has he not got a computer? Perhaps he could tell the premiers directly, instead of duelling press conferences.

following this garbled contradictory casual close household contact definition and RAT test (sic) or PCR test instructions from the prime minister, on the telly, interrupted by voiceover half way through, apparently amounts to us taking personal responsibility.

the states are responsible for procuring RAT tests sic and the commonwealth will procure RATs RAT tests sic for the national stockpile and the states are responsible for RAT tests sic in their settings and the commonwealth will RATs sorry I lost the thread.

on boosters, Morrison says supply is running at three times the something metric of his failed first dose procurement and defaults back to saying “RAT test” over and over.

Morrison then - recall, this is what national cabinet is supposed to be agreeing on tomorrow - reads out the different circumstances in which you, personally, will take personal responsibility for choosing whether to take a RAT or PCR test.

thankfully Morrison wraps up and - with another burst of RAT gibberish - hands off to Kelly, who lets slip that there is “strain on our PCR supplies”.

No wonder PCR testing clinics scheduled to re-open today stayed closed. No wonder Hazzard was sneering at people in PCR queues.

a new phase a new approach to our TTIQ regime, says Kelly, on who gets a test. These are the key changes they are talking about today, says Kelly, presumably to signal that TTIQ is still official policy.

whatever the question was, Morrison says his government has “traditionally” provided vaccine supply. That’s a very short tradition, prime minister, even for classic conservative tropes like “it has always been done this way”.

like his Sydney Liberal co-fuckups, the PM distinguishes who gets “free” PCR tests and who purchases RATs at retail outlets (he says pharmacies). No word on the Victorian procurement and distribution policy.

comparing Australia to the UK is apples and oranges, says leader of government whose ministers have lingered ghoulishly on UK death rates whenever it suits their political messaging purposes.

Morrison again recites, in his garbled way, who gets what tests in which conditions and Kelly then openly contradicts him and says he will not go into detail because these are decisions that will be reached in national cabinet tomorrow lmao sure mate🐎

what we are doing is getting “bang for our buck” says the CMO on testing parameters that he is not announcing and Morrison just read out which also national cabinet will apparently determine tomorrow or something.

people do not want to line up for tests so the need will rationalise the demand, says Morrison. Free market galaxy brain right there.

but we do not want people who are symptomatic turning up at chemists says Morrison. He again name checks his “discussion” with Andrews “this morning”. Says Andrews is on leave lmao meow. Still no mention that Vic is paying for RATs purchase and distribution tho.

someone squeezes a final Q in even tho Morrison has clearly checked the BOM multiple times to maximise a rain shower cutting his presser. Whatever the Q was, his answer remains the same: “that is a matter for the states”.

and with yet another reference to the rain, off he fucks.

a presser called purely to give loyal press gallery scribes cheap copy from which to weave coverage that puts his preferred optics above the fold. He literally stood there buck-passing and causing mass confusion on testing decisions. But that is not what the reports will say.