Professor Nancy Baxter on ABC radio PM program not mincing words. This is rationing, she says, about eleventy times. We are rationing PCR tests. Rationing due to lack of sufficient tests is what is going on here, she says, over and over again.
this was the only serious takeaway from Morrison’s press conference today. CMO Paul Kelly let slip that there is a PCR test shortage. He was supposed to be lending faux credibility to the PM and his national cabinet announcement but PCR test shortage was the actual info conveyed.
been queuing up in Sydney since Boxing Day? Had holiday plans? Every test clinic shut? Tried to take personal responsibility, for yourself and those around you? Here, have a health minister sneering at you wanting a “free” test when he and his mates failed to secure PCR supply.
regular reminder that one thing Sydney Liberals will never ever do is allocate public spending to the public good. They will sooner give billions to corporate donors before spending our cash on essential services. Even outsourced essential health services during a pandemic.
This. Is. Who. They. Are. Not one public dollar may ever be directly spent on the public good. Never. Every public dollar must be channeled through profit seeking mates. Every dollar, every time. Liberal Party ideology. This is who they are.
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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.
I would have thought milder disease and more rapid transmission is exactly what to expect of a virus variant moving through a highly vaccinated population where basic public health measures are prematurely cancelled.
But apparently these are inherent characteristics of omicron.
insane queues at the WSU Hawkesbury campus testing clinic this morning, which the histograph website claims is open on 28 December. All the road signs, including electronic signs, are advertising free covid testing and results in 12 hours. But everything is closed.
the Vineyard church testing site is shut down. The Hawkesbury showground site is closed until 3 January and has a sign re-directing people to the Hawkesbury hospital clinic, which also has a sign saying closed until 3 January.
so the NSW Premier has reinstated mandatory check-in.
a simple mask wearing rule immediately lowers infection risk and is simply government regulating public and commercial spaces. The QR system, on the other hand, will ping people to test and isolate under threat of $5,000 fines and wreck private christmas gatherings.
I realise spelling out the illogical dishonesty of Liberal Party ideology is redundant these days but anyway. Getting pinged 2-3 days later with a close contact notification is a lot more government right inside peoples lives than wearing a mask in public spaces.
I am once again asking press gallery journalists to compute that needs based funding would and should skew to low income areas, which are typically represented by Labor and Nationals MPs. michaelwest.com.au/regional-rorts…
and to do some fucking homework on the lawfulness of handouts to organisations in seats the Morrison government wants to win. Stop telling us these corrupted processes are “legal”. Ministerial override has to be expressly authorised by the parent act. Go and check.
when constitutional law experts like Professor Anne Twomey tell a Senate Committee that the funding authority is a statutory organisation but whatever. The Davids “believe” vote-buying handouts by ministerial override are “perfectly legal”.
good morning from unceded Darug lands☀️today on #Insiders are murdoch editor James Campbell, former murdoch columnist and ex-Costello staffer now 9fax columnist Niki Savva and 9fax government correspondent Phil Coorey.
The interview is with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.
opening spiel: Labor has decided it does want an election on climate change.
What’s the Morrison perspective, skip? Well, the “government immediately pounced” [insert tax lie, repeated obediently by Speers] but business is “siding with Labor”. #Insiders
the montage soundtrack is Stevie Nicks. It is about rampant sexual violence (called “culture”) and bullying in the parliament. Hollie Hughes gets lots of sympathy. A reckoning, apparently. Despite strong tory resistance to change. #Insiders
yep, Morrison is bold and hateful enough to use LGBTQI+ teachers to attack the Andrews government as federal election campaign strategy. That’s where endless press gallery endorsement of Liberal Party nastiness gets us.
they still blab on about voters separating state and federal issues in our tiny voting heads when it suits their partisan agenda but federal-state conflict journalism is irresistible to the CPG eg coverage of Morrison’s massive fail campaigning in the 2020 Queensland election.
when a 3-time women-led incumbent Labor government increased its vote even tho messiah complex man himself was up there campaigning his coal dead heart out with the usual vote-buying announcements and military props and other toxic stunts.