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?

He’s prepping for an election....

I’ll wait until I’m actually there before I believe it.

Talk is cheap and this man has a special way of twisting things to put the blame on others.

@sashagabadon

smh.com.au/world/europe/for-the-first-time-pm-acknowledges-frustrations-of-expat-australians-20210908-p58q1d.html

This article seems positive for ex pat Aussies. Home quarantine and no exit permission required by November.
Morrison acknowledges Australians wanting to get home , rather than ignoring them, first time I think?
NSW leading the way with home quarantine trial.
Fingers crossed all the U.K. Aussies get home this year.

Bit hard to swallow knowing if he’d shown some urgency on vaccines last year Australia would be 80% vaccinated some time ago.

It’s only the usual ‘look at all these nice sweets I’m giving you’ diversionary tactic when you’ve screwed up booking the promised bouncy castle for their birthday party...

Yes. I don't see how we can have holiday travel overseas when there are still expats desperate to get home.

Qantas can bring DS back to the UK for a couple of months, and take a plane load of Aussies back to NSW!

@ajandjjmum

BA have already cancelled our February flights - apparently they're not planning to fly to Sydney before 27th March at the earliest.

Had my fingers crossed that our May 2022 trip would happen, but then DS got me excited by talking about the positive vibes for Christmas travel back to the UK, which he's hearing, although if I'm honest, it sounds too good to be true.

It does seem too good to be true. Maybe it will happen but I think the PM is just dangling a carrot, to give 'some sort of hope before Xmas, and of course there's a federal election looming in the coming year.

I'd like to go away for Xmas (not back to UK, too cold!) but might just save my time/money to do a bigger trip around Easter or May/June - to see my parents (missed two milestone birthdays so would be nice to catch the next ones!) and go to a friend's wedding.

But not hoping for too much either way, until actually confirmed!!!

While this is about Australia and New Zealand, vaccine passports will be mandatory for night clubs in England from the end of September and for other events too in Scotland; and other events are requiring them themselves eg football matches and large trade shows.

What is concerning is the suggestion that they will be required for the Commonwealth Games next AUGUST! Almost a year away!

Anyone read Mark McGowan’s latest pearl of wisdom? Apparently he thinks international borders should be closed like longer than the rest of the country, partly because it’s been so good for the economy! www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9969901/Coronavirus-Australia-WA-premier-Mark-McGowan-says-border-stay-closed-April-2022.html (sorry for the Daily Mail link)

Now maybe he was being lighthearted but you can’t just toy with people’s freedom of movement because it suits the bottom line. If the WA economy is going so gangbusters maybe they could use some of the cash upgrading their health system. Might be a bit hard to entice health workers to come and be locked in the state though.

Wow! Thats truly crazy from a man in charge of a state. What about those wanting to visit family after 2 years!!!

@PileOfBooks

Wow! Thats truly crazy from a man in charge of a state. What about those wanting to visit family after 2 years!!!

I know. Apparently most West Australians love him and call him ‘state’ daddy’ which I find more than a bit disturbing.

www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/heat-on-chief-health-officer-over-lockdown-exit-plan-20210909-p58q92.html?btis

OK, so Australian Medical Association Victorian president Roderick McRae is now advocating not just a lockdown but a "freeze" (or, as you might say, a "Wuhan-Welder") in Melbourne.

He called for a strict circuit breaker lockdown for seven days, including shutting down all essential services, except medical, to limit movement. “This would not be a typical lockdown, it would be a freeze to minimise movement and reduce transmission,” he said. “What we have done so far is not working, and it’s not looking peachy.”

(Don't worry, I think most Australians think he's barking as well)

Situation for ex pat Australians is improving though. My ex pat Australian friends over here are starting to feel cautiously optimistic, especially as the vaccine drives are going brilliantly.

He called for a strict circuit breaker lockdown for seven days, including shutting down all essential services, except medical, to limit movement.

This is worryingly unrealistic. Utter cloud cuckoo land.

During the post Christmas lockdown, a pipe burst in our next door neighbours house resulting in water gushing into my own. You can’t put a ‘freeze’ on issues like that.

I sometimes wonder if some Australians don’t ever read the press from other countries. Other places tried the circuit breaker and it works. And then they open up and it immediately stops working.

I think Victorian officials have seen NZ’s success and are having buyers remorse on moving away from Covid zero. Problem is poor Victorians are so lockdown fatigued that anything further is unlikely to work, especially when they see NSW laying out plans to live with C19, knowing full well it will find its way over the border again, whatever they do.

Dan Andrews is a cruel man. Putting his own desire to be “right” above all sense.

We’ve had a tough time in U.K. but Melbourne is close by. Even without high deaths so many days in lockdown.

@MarshaBradyo

We’ve had a tough time in U.K. but Melbourne is close by. Even without high deaths so many days in lockdown.

Yes, I read Melbourne now leads the world in days spent under lockdown. It’s saved many lives, but there is not enough focus on the trauma the lockdowns themselves are causing. I have relatives there and they are sounding so, so worn down.

You only have to look at some of the recent threads on here to see the long term damage they’ve caused to mental health in the U.K.. I’m not anti-lockdown, they have their place, but the less easy to quantify damage they do needs to be weighed.

Indigo I agree and I’m not surprised protests are happening.

Worse still to be in lockdown and still have rising numbers.

We had falling numbers usually (but high deaths so still awful too).

As an aside it was always a reason I found the argument re zero Covid here fanciful- we’d let small number of cases in to U.K. via road freight if we shut borders. We’d spend so long in lockdown trying to get back to zero, more so than Melbourne, we’d not get the any of the upside.

Victoria saved covid deaths for sure, but double the amount of children died from preventable accidents in 2020 compared to 2019 undoing a decade worth of downward trends. This was not replicated in any other state.

Yes I saw that terrible statistic @Ineedsomebody
It makes sense when you have children at home for so long. Home is normally the most dangerous place (next to car I assume?) so leaving them at home, with distracted parents trying to work, or in abusive homes has been much worse than if they had caught Covid.

I live in Melbourne and it is awful. I am more than prepared for the exit wave that will happen to get me out of this hell. And someone earlier mentioned 'sniping' between states about vaccines. Melbourne will now be in lockdown longer because some of our Vax supplies were given to NSW and our exit date is determined by reaching vaccination levels. I don't think the outrage at that situation should be called 'sniping'.

Big Brother is alive and well.
It’s a dystopian nightmare.

Having now left, it really is a totally dysfunctional country at the moment. So hoping things change soon.

Melbourne will now be in lockdown longer because some of our Vax supplies were given to NSW and our exit date is determined by reaching vaccination levels. I don't think the outrage at that situation should be called 'sniping'.

And we will be forced to face the continual risks of seepage from NSW as it "opens up" thanks to its higher vax rates - in part because it got a proportion of other states' and territories' allocations to get ahead.

Andrews reckons Vic has been shorted 300,000 Pfizer shots - enough to have it already at 70 per cent with one dose.

Andrew Barr, ACT Chief Minister, says 12-15 per cent of the Pfizer they have used has gone to NSW residents - priority cases for jabs who live in NSW but work in Canberra.

Thanks Gladys, thanks Liberal "freedom". What a disgrace.