Australia. Please Mr Prime Minister

[GADDay]

The infection rate is soaring.
The shops are chaotic.

We had a golden opportunity to shut this thing down but people just can't or won't implement social distancing.

I just went to the supermarket. Huge signs explaining social distancing - the floors marked with massive crosses. Not a single soul followed the instructions. An elderly lady was coughing up a storm and nobody batted an eyelid.

The cafes, hairdressers, nail bar were all busy.

What will it take for our PM to implement a lock down? Before it's too late.

The curve is doomed with cases doubling every 3 days.

I despair - people just don't think it can happen to them. Even now.

[GADDay]

Just saying on another thread that I envy New Zealand and their calm, decisive PM.

Lockdown in 48 hours for NZ. I truly hope Scotty from marketing is proved to be correct. My money is on Jacinda Ardern though.

[AgentPrentiss]

Our school (WA) is officially closing.

[bluetongue]

What a massive fuck up the whole letting people line up for Centrelink help debacle is. The UK solution of income support sounds much better and I don’t recall seeing any lines there.

[WindyRose]

I also applaud Jacinda, she's a tough cookie. Wonder if we could swap her for ScoMo? Aus Pollies are on holiday until August....when the chips are down, they've abandoned the ship.

Saw the C/link queue on TV last night, such a debacle and put so many additional people at risk.

Stay safe everyone ;-)

[StartupRepair]

My work has finally said we can work from home. Phew. It is hard to imagine a worse set of leaders in position for this than Trump, Boho and Scotty.

[Percivalthebabyspider]

Dan Andrews spoke very well. Much better, clearer and more concise than the PM.

[YouNeedToCalmDown]

Another shitshow of a press conference last night. That smirk. The Betoota Advocate nails it as always: www.betootaadvocate.com/uncategorized/prime-ministers-speechwriter-doesnt-know-why-he-even-fucking-bothers-anymore/

[janeskettle]

It's the bloody Titanic in Australia, and we're all going down with idiot Scotty.

Thank God one of my kids is in Victoria - Dan Andrews has some backbone at least. The rest of us, including my kid who's a nurse, are in NSW and we're suffering weak and incompetent leadership at state level as well.

I'm hitting despair today.

[MaitlandGirl]

My DS is doing work for the dole. On Friday the relevant minister issued a statement saying Work for the Dole is suspended effective immediately. On Monday the govt JobSearch website said WftD was suspended immediately. Today (Wednesday) DS’s job provider told him they’d decided to suspend all WftD activities.

What the hell?? It wasn’t their decision, they’re not doing it out of the goodness of their own heart - it was a govt decision and they waited 5 days to tell their job seekers.

We are a vulnerable household (in the uk we’d be on a 12 week lockdown) but DS was too scared to tell his job provider he wasn’t going in (following the govt directive) as he can’t afford to have sanctions applied and his payments delayed.

[janeskettle]

Sorry, Maitland Girl. It's all so hard.

[StartupRepair]

Sure is. I have been shaken to the core by the border closures with family members on the other side.

[Thinkinghappythoughts]

Schools in NSW are not closed DD down. The government have effectively left it up to parents to make the choice.

They say you should take your child out if you can, but they are still open if you can't. I work in a secondary school. No kids on site. My daughter's primary school has approximately 25% of the kids.

I noticed a pattern speaking to other parents that more girls are being taken out of school that boys. Is that coincidence?

[justilou1]

I had to buy food today, so braved the stupidmarket. Can’t believe the price hikes. Beauty salons close at midnight tonight for the foreseeable future. There were lines out the door. Are people’s pubes are going to grow back and will their lips will deflate to natural size in coming months, or is there going to be a rush in A&E with injuries and infections from botched home jobs?

[MaitlandGirl]

We tried to shop at Aldi today but discovered they’d decided to limit the number of people in store, there were queues all the way round the car park, at least 90 people and this was 5mins after they opened. I couldn’t stand that of so had to go into the shopping centre to go to Woolies.

Woolies wasn’t too bad, lots of people queuing who stuck to the 1.5m distance but the aisles are so narrow it was impossible to keep the distance that way. Yesterday I clipped several people with my cane, today only 1 so that’s an improvement.

[GADDay]

The text message. What a pile of stinking rancid horseshite.

The press conference last night... the smirking idiot.

The shops today were like a family day out. stupid market indeed

[YouNeedToCalmDown]

Stupid prices indeed. I paid $9 for a cauliflower .

At this point, I am taking my advice from the AMA and other health professionals rather than Scummo who just waffles on and self-promotes before getting to the important stuff.

[janeskettle]

I'm just following Dan Andrews, even though I'm in another state.

When Dad Andrews says jump, I plan on saying 'how high?' because of all the so-called 'leaders' in this country, he's the only one I'm even slightly inclined to trust.

[StartupRepair]

DH, working from home, just announced that he might 'pop out' for some lunch. Strong words ensued. It's going to be a long time in lockdown.

[janeskettle]

Yeah, I am having trouble getting mine to understand that, no, you don't 'pop out', you eat what's here, even if you don't really fancy it.

[justilou1]

Oh, and as soon as people have to get to their homes, petrol goes up by 40c per litre everywhere. Bastards.

[MarieFromStTropez]

We're in Sydney. My business has been shut down and my husband is facing redundancy. We have no savings and live in rented accommodation. Our DD doesn't even have Medicare.

Things are really bad here and, as a PP pointed out, you don't have the safety nets that you do in other European countries.

However, in spite of this, I still think the PM should shut the country down. It's the only way to address the problem.

[YouNeedToCalmDown]

I didn't get the text message! Are we all supposed to?

Mind you, this doesn't surprise me. Look at the Centrelink website fiasco.

[WindyRose]

I didn't get the text message either! Reading here was the first I knew about it.

[aussieaussieaussieoioioi]

@MarieFromStTropez out of interest, what kind of safety nets?

[IDoNotHaveABlackCat]

Our Prime Minister is a fool.

I understand this is a very difficult situation. But stop fucking around.

Dickhead.