Australia/New Zealand New Thread

[Kokeshi123]

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/pandemic-australia-still-liberal-democracy/619940/

Intrastate travel within Australia is also severely restricted. And the government of South Australia, one of the country’s six states, developed and is now testing an app as Orwellian as any in the free world to enforce its quarantine rules. People in South Australia will be forced to download an app that combines facial recognition and geolocation. The state will text them at random times, and thereafter they will have 15 minutes to take a picture of their face in the location where they are supposed to be. Should they fail, the local police department will be sent to follow up in person. “We don’t tell them how often or when, on a random basis they have to reply within 15 minutes,” Premier Steven Marshall explained. “I think every South Australian should feel pretty proud that we are the national pilot for the home-based quarantine app.”

This is... really really disturbing, honestly.

I grew up admiring (and, let's be honest, envying) Australians because as a nation, they always came across as a down-to-earth, fearless lot who had a healthy skepticism of authority while also being basically very civic/community minded.

What's gone wrong?

@KowhaiWhy apparently he can't even bring himself to offer Melbourne NSW's left over scraps.

Must admit I’m glad we don’t a federal system here!! Another layer of political schemozzlery

Feeling sorry for my fellow kiwis in Auckland. I think one of the main issues here in NZ is our chronically underfunded health service. We literally don't have the luxury (for want of a better word) of allowing covid to spread uncontrolled. I'm in a level 2 area so at least I have some freedom back but I'm still getting sick of the rules and restrictions wherever I go now. I'm fully jabbed and extremely keen to get back to normal asap. I want to travel overseas again without having to stay in MIQ and I want my family to be able to visit me. The messaging seems to suggest to me that we won't be going back to normal now until we have 90% jabbed! I think these restrictions will drag on until at least the end of the year. The press conference yesterday was obvious doom mongering in an attempt to convince the doubters to roll their sleeves up but I'm not sure it will have had the desired effect.

There is no depth too low for the Federal government to sink. Pork barrelling vaccines to preferred states is completely in their play book.

The only potential upside @Cousinit is that I think they over egged it with that Hendy modelling. They have managed to piss off everyone. We have all been doing our bit and nothing was done in the last 18 months to improve the ICU capacity.

@Cousinit how can the medical system over there not be prepared when they’ve had such a long time to prepare? I don’t understand this at all. We’ve had the luxury and benefit of knowing that a pandemic is heading this way for 18 months. If countries didn’t prepare with that time frame then it seems so unfair to now keep their people in such restricted situations. No one can say “well we didn’t know what was happening” - we saw the photos of Italy and New York back in April last year after all.
Presumably it’s not a money thing as clearly they must be getting the money to prop up the economy from somewhere? Why didn’t these countries pump the millions (billions?) into improving health systems over the past year?

That’s so tough for people in Auckland esp when rest is more free

Lockdowns are hard, we had high numbers to help compliance people are good to have down it for five weeks already when they messaging isn’t there

A friend posted images of the Melbourne exit restriction plans. Stage 3; 5 in a small hairdresser might do, but it has craziness like maximum 50 people outside at a theme park; only FIFTY in Luna Park or Enchanted Garden!? The size of each operation doesn't seem to matter, nor how it relates to the actual risk, nor the practicalities of running businesses that require numbers of people to be profitable. It's all rather confusing to see from the UK, given where we are.

It’s mad isn’t it @Ozgirl75 I think we got so impressed with our exceptionalism in “eliminating” the virus we just spent the year and a half congratulating ourselves.

The immigration system is a shambles - citizens can’t get home let alone highly skilled migrants we rely on to staff our health system .

The other day they released 3000 quarantine spots - there were 26,000 people registered to try to get one. They will release another 3000 and that’s it for the rest of the year.

@Gennz18

It’s mad isn’t it *@Ozgirl75* I think we got so impressed with our exceptionalism in “eliminating” the virus we just spent the year and a half congratulating ourselves.

The immigration system is a shambles - citizens can’t get home let alone highly skilled migrants we rely on to staff our health system .

The other day they released 3000 quarantine spots - there were 26,000 people registered to try to get one. They will release another 3000 and that’s it for the rest of the year.

How dare you criticize Saint Jacinda after all she’s done for you

Anyone catch what Anna P said today? ‘Why would you want to go to India’ how ignorant of your own people can you be?

I know, I’m embarrassed for her that she could be so tone deaf. Why on Earth would people perhaps like to travel after 18 months of being trapped in one country when perhaps their families might be in another country?

@Ozgirl75

I know, I’m embarrassed for her that she could be so tone deaf. Why on Earth would people perhaps like to travel after 18 months of being trapped in one country when perhaps their families might be in another country?

And now she is being investigated for telling Queensland’s over 2000 people a month would die if borders were opened.www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-24/queensland-annastacia-palaszczuk-doherty-report-speaker/100489514.

How awful to use fear against the people. Cherry picking such extreme data from the report is akin to propaganda. Propaganda to make people fearful of their own country men and women.

Here in Adelaide we’re still meant to be wearing masks everywhere indoors months after our most recent outbreak and with no community cases. Loads of people wear them everywhere outside. It’s crazy. I’ve been double jabbed for months and have decided to stop wearing my mask most places. Amazingly nobody has ever said anything to me about it.

The worst thing about seeing past some of the government lies is if you voice these thoughts to anyone they look at you like you’re some kind of crazed conspiracy theorist. On the plus side I’m seeing more and more opinion pieces in the mainstream media that agree with me,

How Daniel Andrews is as popular as he is I’ll never know. Poor Victoria seems to have a serious case of Stockholm Syndrome.

Sorry for the broken link www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-24/queensland-annastacia-palaszczuk-doherty-report-speaker/100489514

Well I’ve basically stopped wearing my mask outside now, with other vaccinated people. I have seen no evidence of Covid spread amongst vaccinated people in an outdoors situation so I’ve decided that this isn’t a proportional rule and I shall therefore disobey it.
In my (many) trips to the park this week, everyone I have met with has worn masks to get there and then taken them off to commence the “picnic” and then haven’t put them back on.
It’s not much, but I’m happy with this level of civil disobedience. I’m also visiting parks outside my LGA, in the neighbouring LGA, also which is over 80% vaccinated. If I get a fine I shall refuse to pay and will happily attend court over this.
I look at what the police are doing in Victoria - shooting rubber bullets, tackling people to the ground who were just standing there, knocking women to the floor and capsicum spraying them and I find this unbelievable that this beautiful, laid back country has become as awful as this.

Saying that, I also believe that everyone should be vaccinated - the people who are protesting about this are absolute goddamn idiots but even goddamn idiots should be allowed to protest without getting shot at, even if I totally disagree with their methods (and their message).

@Ozgirl75

Saying that, I also believe that everyone should be vaccinated - the people who are protesting about this are absolute goddamn idiots but even goddamn idiots should be allowed to protest without getting shot at, even if I totally disagree with their methods (and their message).

I agree about vaccination.

Nobody seems to know how to react when you’re pro vaccination but critical of the authoritarian measures taken by government.

I think part of the problem is that you’re meant to part of one of two opposed groups. You’re either an anti vax Covid denier who refuses to take any precautionary measures or a good citizen who not only gets vaccinated and obeys all the rules, even the stupid ones, but also doesn’t question any of it because the government is looking after us and it’s ‘for our own good’. Yet the same government has failed with supplying vaccines and improving the health system in most states. It’s more like they’re covering their own failures.

You can care about Covid and other people and take a critical view of the measures at the same time.

I’m a law abiding, average, citizen. Nothing in my record apart from a few speeding fines. A normally pretty risk averse, lower middle class government worker. But I have a limit.

@bluetongue I agree 100%
I’m very pro vaccine, but I also don’t believe that the government should be able to use public health as an excuse to absolutely overstep every single civil liberty that we have. I also have my limits.
Will I be attending a protest? No, I don’t think so as I don’t align myself with the anti vaxx Covid deniers, but I also believe in freedom to protest, freedom of speech, freedom to accept or decline medical procedures and many other freedoms.

I've been seeing a lot of clips on twitter purporting to show police in Melbournr apprehending people for not wearing masks ( i.e. throwing them to the ground with some force). Are these genuine or is there further context?

One was in the ticket hall of a rail station and the other was on the street.

@Ozgirl75 @bluetongue I couldn’t agree more. Such a relief to hear so much sense being spoken. It feels like there is no space for those of us who want health interventions like vaccines (albeit on the basis of consent!! Like other health services) without the authoritarian state/ dystopian destruction of all our basic civil liberties. When did this become such a minority perspective?!?

The protesters in Melbourne have been attacking health workers and disrupting vaccine clinics. The vaccine program in the Town Hall for homeless people had to close because of them. They are a bunch of violent idiots.

@Bordois - I’ve seen them too, no idea of the context but in both situations the force seems way too excessive.
And I agree @StartupRepair - they seem like violent idiotic assholes and should be apprehended for their violent acts. However, protest should be allowed and much as I disagree with them, and their message, it’s a slippery slope when we start allowing the police to use any force necessary.

Is anyone else confused by the fact that Oz and NZ use percentages of eligible population for their modelling, whilst most other countries use percentages of total population?

As an example:
U.K.
% of total population 1st dose: 73%
% of total population fully vaccinated 66.9%

These figures are the ones commonly referred to in the mainstream press.

However.....

% of 16 years old and over 1st dose: 89.6%
% of 16 years old and over fully vaccinated: 82.1%

As you can see, using the ‘over 16’ percentages it’s totally feasible that Oz and NZ could also reach 80% or 90% before dropping all restrictions.

It seems people could get really confused when they hear NZ targets being set at 90%, and then look at the percentages overseas which are actually being reported using a different data set.

Why are Oz and NZ choosing to report only ‘eligible’ percentages? Which is potentially a moving target, given that 12 years+ can now get the vaccine.

Don’t know about that.
I was watching the news this evening and god, the second hand cringe I had was almost unbearable. They had a woman on from Qld and one from WA both talking about how there’s no rush to get vaccinated, they’ll be fine, they’ve got no restrictions, everyone will be vaccinated and then it’ll all be fine.
It’s like, do you read? Do you even glance at the press from outside your own state? You have an opportunity to get vaccinated and do it quickly before the virus takes hold - don’t squander it like other places have. The perky woman from WA was just so embarrassing - pointing out how they don’t have restrictions, how lucky they are. We all felt like this! Learn from our fails!

Melbourne here. Shame shame shame to the protestors / rioters who chose to take their protest by the Construction Industry, to the Shrine of Remembrance

I have a friend (NZ citizen) who is currently hotel quarantining to visit a dying relative in NZ. I really don't know what the NZ govt thinks their endgame is. Cut itself off from the rest of the world forever?

The Aus situation is just bl@@dy frightening if you ask me. Melbourne seems to have gone full on totalitarian Police state. I suspect posting videos is not allowed, but they're easy enough to find. Whilst I appreciate that there's 2 sides to every story, some of the Police actions I have seen filmed are completely unacceptable irrespective of context.