Australian & NZ Politics: Woke Sushi

ahava

Hey y'all

Wanted to make a new thread for us to talk all things Aussie and Kiwi Politics.

I'm very clever with OPs though, so if Somebody wants to put one together and i'll edit it in, lmk.

-Loki-

The more I hear from health experts about what's going on with NSW the more concerned I get. One was saying last night that NSW had gotten to 70% single dose by pushing vaccinations around the hotspot LGAs, which is an obviously good thing to do. However, the hotspot LGAs are some of the most densely populated areas in the state, not just Sydney, so while the states single dose is over 70%, it's focused almost entirely in Sydney city.

Regional areas, which Gladys will open travel to at 70% double dose, has had barely any uptake for various reasons, mostly being that there's no vaccination hubs out there. They're in Sydney and Wollongong. So opening at 70% and allowing regional travel will very likely just spread Delta to areas that managed to skip this outbreak by virtue of distance isolation.

Coupled with children not being approved for vaccination but also opening schools, this is a sure for way for it to spread in schools and then have family's make some day trips to the south cost, central coast, southern highlands and other popular areas and bring it with them.

exis

-Loki- wrote: »

Coupled with children not being approved for vaccination but also opening schools, this is a sure for way for it to spread in schools and then have family's make some day trips to the south cost, central coast, southern highlands and other popular areas and bring it with them.

I assume you guys also have ad campaigns promoting domestic tourism to help prop up local operators? We do in NZ at least. Scary to consider that well-meaning (even vaccinated) folks may be inadvertently spreading the virus to areas with the lowest vaccination rates.

-Loki-

I haven't seen any myself, but I don't watch a whole lot of free to air TV these days. But it's been emphasized whenever they talk about relaxed freedoms that they will be allowing regional travel.

Also, Gladys announced today that she's no longer doing the press conferences. Her staff will do them via video link, and she will do them occasionally (I guess when there's the occasional good news?).

Criticize him all you want, but Dan Andrews stood there day after day after day, answering every question put to him, sometimes for over an hour.

Gladys is so terrible at her job.

discrider

Just make the first question tomorrow 'Where is Gladys and why is she not leading us through the crisis?".
And every other day she doesn't show up.

- Oh, the entire thing will be cancelled from Monday, according to the ABC app.

-Loki-

So we've gone from bad leadership to zero leadership.

NSW is getting through Covid based on NSW Healths twitter updated from now on.

discrider

You're welcome to watch the ACT one.
First question to Andrew was 'are you going to continue doing these', and he's like 'well, I'd like to spend Christmas elsewhere'

Gvzbgul

Maybe: AUS/NZ politics: old thread's closed

Fishman

Honestly for an OP just post this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_0zFEtPbiA

The Zombie Penguin

Well, Judith's decided to show her whole ass.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12471290

For those who dont want to click through, she decided to call Dr Siouxsie Wiles 'a big, fat hypocrite'.

Which, you know, is certainly a choice you could make. Epsecially after you threw a temper-tanty over using zoom and insissted on flying from auckland (the heart of our break) to wellington.

Thank fuck this muppet wasn't in power when covid started, and if she keeps making plays like this, wont be anywhere near the reins of power soon.

ahava

Oh Judith.

I think there are only a few people left that she could insult that would upset others more.

Like

Richie McCaw. Or Dr Bloomfield.



Over 100000 submissions were put through to support the ban on conversion therapy, btw.

I didn't see any numbers about what Brian T from Destiny Church and his bigots managed to do.

The Zombie Penguin

It's just such a.. pathetic thing from Judith. Like a: You're giving credence to someone being a creepy fuck with the stalking Dr Sioux. b: afaik, she was and is obeying all the lockdown rules - her friend shouldnt have gone from a swim, and sioux has said yeah, she should have stopped her friend, but fucks sake, have a bit of empathy, and c: This is the hill you wanna die on Judith? Really?

Like if you wanted to make political hay from it, you could easily spin "look at the toll lockdown is taking on people like the steemed Dr Sioux" or something, instead of... well, base mudslinging. It's just sad.

Also feck, i forgot to throw my support behind that ban - is it too late, do you know @lonelyahava

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Antoshka

This seems like the dumbest possible hill for Collins to pick. Honestly, I have no idea what her conception of an upside was here.

ahava

yeah the submission period ended this week?

Fishman

Hypocrisy isn't a public educator and private citizen exercising within a bubble as permitted under allowed essential movement within the local area, a region that is intentionally left undefined so as not to place restraint on the myriad of living circumstances of people in New Zealand and is instead left up to each individuals own best personal judgement to define so as not to burden citizens and government with unnecessary bureaucracy.

Hypocrisy is the leader of the party of personal responsibility and fewer restrictions attempting to define local neighbourhood and introduce restraints that don't exist so as to invent a political gotcha to further their own argument that we should have fewer restrictions.

I submit that there is a hypocrite here, it just isn't Siouxsie Wiles.

exis

The Zombie Penguin wrote: »

Thank fuck this muppet wasn't in power when covid started, and if she keeps making plays like this, wont be anywhere near the reins of power soon.

Her own failures aside, she's the opposition leader during a (inter)national crisis which the sitting government is handling very well, all things considered. It's pretty much an unwinnable position if her goal is to maintain relevance.

I can only assume that the National party plan is to keep her around to absorb the punches until there's actual political ground to be gained, at which point she'll be ousted and replaced with somebody who might realistically stand a chance at the next election.

ahava

I do wonder who they might be.

Bridges was pretty much tossed aside, Muller had a mental break, and Bennett is hosting TV game shows.

I get that Collins is in a pretty tough spot right now, but the constant bad attacks from her just look like flailing. And not at all any controlled opposition that might be saying "I have a better idea"

It's all just contrarian crankiness

Fishman

As far as villainy goes, Judith Collins aspires to Machiavelli and Lex Luthor, but actually is the kind of low-rent comic moral warning who wouldn't have made it to end of Willy Wonka's Chocolate factory.

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The Zombie Penguin

The sad bit is you could definitely give the government a drubbing on things like wealth inequality, the mental health toll the lockdown is taking etc.

But I'm pretty sure national view the wealth inequality and housing crisis as features, not bugs. As to the mental health issues... Nationals solution seems to be to translate that into physical health issues for everyone, plus emotional trauma.

They're also probably trying to play to places like the conservative nz subreddit, and oof, those places are hell. As much as we talk about echo chambers on the left, they're a huge thing on the right too. Heck, Cameron Slater (the turd behind the whale oil blog) was just claiming that 'Judith's a good friend'.

Which well, says a lot

exis

Welp, that conservative subreddit is new to me. I'll add it to my list of "things that make me miserable but I end up reading out of morbid fascination".

Tef

There’s already the beginnings of a business revolt happening. Things started to get a bit dicey there when Labour pissed off the growers and pastoralists by restricting their access to their cheap and compliant pasifika workers, times with the minimum wage increase. This has (mostly) subsided now that concessions have been made.

Just wait until Labour start pushing hard on their workplace agreement reform package. The bourgeois will be well and truly frothing at that point

Mr Ray

exis wrote: »

Welp, that conservative subreddit is new to me. I'll add it to my list of "things that make me miserable but I end up reading out of morbid fascination".

I poked my head into the "CovidSkeptisismAustralia" subreddit, or something similar to that... I don't know why and I wish I hadn't. It really is an alternate reality. I expected fully made-up bullshit but what I found was worse; they're reading the exact same news articles that we are and somehow coming to the opposite conclusion. Royal Melbourne Hospital had to go on bypass (i.e, we're full, nobody new comes in, too bad if you're in a car accident and need emergency care, go somewhere else) and furlough a bunch of staff in order to deep clean two floors to prepare for COVID patients. You and I would see that and think "well that's bad, because clearly they're preparing for a big influx of COVID patients", the COVIDiots apparently see this as "Haha, they're sending staff home? And they want us to believe this is a real pandemic? Wake up sheeple!"

I don't have enough faces or palms for these people.

plufim

Today was meant to be the first day of Gladys dodging press conferences, and she's already doing one. Based on previous messaging, she'd only turn up if "necessary" (she's the premier, it's ALWAYS necessary, but I digress). Fingers crossed this isn't to announce bad news, but it might be instead to announce good news or to spin something as "good".

Given they cut yestrrdays presser short because the questions became "whoops! All ICAC", and the extremely bad look of Bondi Beach full of Sydneysiders unmasked....

Look, I don't know where I'm going with this? But let's see what happens at 10:30.

plufim

In rare GOOD news, over 12s are eligible for Pfizer in SA from today.

plufim

https://twitter.com/kirstenaiken/status/1437226452924047365?s=19

.......uh. Uh huh.

Antoshka

Well, in a shocking twist, Auckland / Tāmaki Makaurau is remaining in Alert Level 4 for another week. My condolences to those of you with children.

On the plus side, it looks like restrictions are working, so with luck we can continue to see that.

ahava

just keep going just keep going. please send chocolate. just keep going.

discrider

It gets easier post-first shot.
I was basically melting down the first week of lockdown when I thought I was a casual contact twice while unvaccinated and waiting for Pfizer.
Ended up only being a casual contact the first time, and misread the date on the second one, but it was still terrifying.

Wife gets her second next week I think, and then it's how long can I put off my second AZ shot (to get close to the optimal 3 month dosage spacing) before NSW floods the country with Covid.

discrider

Still having totally normal dreams about being trapped in Bunnings with no mask though.
Breathing through my jumper.

ahava

my lockdown dreams are all about drowning. or trying to escape rising waters.

every dream dictionary i've looked at says that water represents control over ones life

plufim

Rumblings today that kids over 5 may be eligible in Aus from mid October. I will be so much less worried once my boys can get them jabs.

-Loki-

Pfizer dose 1 done.

Man, my whole body ached the next day.

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Mr Ray

I found that the first jab made me feel a bit crap for a few days, and the second made me feel very crap for a day and then I was absolutely fine the following day.

But, taking to the nurse as I got the second jab, there really doesn't seem to be any pattern to how you're going to react to the first shot vs the second.

McFodder

Yeah I had sore arm from the first jab, sore arm and very tired for 24hrs after the second.

5G reception is still shit.

Sanguinius666264

Another month's lockdown in the ACT and kids not going to school for a few weeks after that. Not too unhappy about it, but a lot of folks are feeling the strain a bit I think.

Solvent

So this is very interesting. A new bulletin from the COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group finds that because of Australia's control measures, excess deaths in 2020 were actually substantially negative. The result of lockdowns massively retarding the spread of influenza is something that's been talked about a bit, but this gives some hard data from Australia.

About 3000 fewer people died in Australia as a result of respiratory diseases in Australia last year, compared to what might be expected in a 'normal' year (see page 4 of the pdf linked to above; approx 600 from influenza with the balance from other respiratory diseases). That is about 2% of the expected number of deaths per year. Even if we were to develop some great new treatment that made COVID-19 not a problem, should the states maintain constantly closed borders anyway, and should Australians be permanently forbidden from leaving the country? Should everyone visit their grandparents less often? Thousands of lives could probably be saved per year, even if you make some adjustments for noise and put other qualifiers on this data.

Road deaths, of course, were also significantly lower for that part of 2020 where people were locked down (not discussed in the linked report above, but in a related note from the Actuaries Institute).

I'm being intentionally provocative, of course, but I'm pretty sure I'm not misrepresenting these numbers. It also may be worth mentioning just for clarity that the document I referenced is, as seems pretty typical of actuaries, extremely sober stuff and doesn't make any comment on policy.

-Loki-

Looks like small businesses in Sydney are starting to go on social media saying they're not fussed about vaccination status, just come in and spend money.

I guess people with 4 months of backlogged/owed rent from being unable to run their stores just, you know, need money?

Gladys grand reopening is already off to a great start.

discrider

Solvent wrote: »

So this is very interesting. A new bulletin from the COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group finds that because of Australia's control measures, excess deaths in 2020 were actually substantially negative. The result of lockdowns massively retarding the spread of influenza is something that's been talked about a bit, but this gives some hard data from Australia.

About 3000 fewer people died in Australia as a result of respiratory diseases in Australia last year, compared to what might be expected in a 'normal' year (see page 4 of the pdf linked to above; approx 600 from influenza with the balance from other respiratory diseases). That is about 2% of the expected number of deaths per year. Even if we were to develop some great new treatment that made COVID-19 not a problem, should the states maintain constantly closed borders anyway, and should Australians be permanently forbidden from leaving the country? Should everyone visit their grandparents less often? Thousands of lives could probably be saved per year, even if you make some adjustments for noise and put other qualifiers on this data.

Did they die due to smoke before Covid though?