With the latest Australian outbreak of COVID-19 there have been a lot of pointed fingers and proposed solutions. But who is right? What can realistically be achieved? And who has the power to actually do anything? Today, Your Say dissects the who, the what, and the how.
On blame for the recent outbreak
Mal Kelly writes: Read Bernard Keane’s article today and it is a rational 360-degree view of the situation. I do take issue with this statement though: “Nothing has stopped [state governments] from building quarantine facilities within which to house incoming people — particularly if they’re keen to enable the return of economically important foreign students and tourists.”
The experience of the Queensland government application to build a purpose-built quarantine facility adjacent to the Toowoomba Wellcamp Airport would suggest (from what I read and hear) that something HAS stopped them and that seems to be Scott Morrison. He trotted out some feeble excuses to not approve and considering it was going to be privately funded anyway, it would appear that he has blocked it by saying “planes don’t fly to Toowoomba” even though they do — wide-bodied freighters fly to and from every day as well as domestic commuter flights. The only “weighty” consideration for the federal government would be to fund an immigration and customs outpost for international arrivals — too hard?
It’s very puzzling by this government, but consistent on form of being not able to commit and wasting valuable time with word salad.
Avis Williamson writes: Bernard Keane might want to understand who has control of the creation and issue of the Australian dollar. Hint: it’s NOT the states and territories who would have to borrow in order to fund quarantine facilities. However, they all let the federal government get away with NOT committing to and actually building suitable quarantine facilities; a fact we might be able to demonstrate the truth of, were we able to see the national cabinet deliberations.
Austin Docherty writes: I lay the blame for Victoria’s latest COVID lockdown firmly at the feet of Scott Morrison, Greg Hunt, and the federal government with the additional caveats: Victoria entered a snap lockdown following 25 new local transmission cases in three days including very high risk exposure sites at both the MCG and Marvel Stadium — with the infection rate, this is the smart action to take.
For my twopence worth: Victorians (some) are at fault for their complacency, for not getting tested when symptomatic or not using QR codes everywhere, or not wearing masks in any situation where the 1.5m rule can’t be maintained … The Victorian state government is at fault for not fully enforcing an integrated QR code system everywhere sooner, and for maintaining a lackadaisical border permit system. However contact tracers are only as good as the information they are provided.
The Federal government is at fault for not fully implementing fit-for-purpose Australia-wide quarantine facilities (à la Howard Springs) and for incompetence around securing, procuring, and delivering vaccine supply.
Finally the virus is at fault for being a tricky wee bastard.
Joan Chandler writes: I blame old “Have a go”. I just read that the federal government is responsible for QUARANTINE and AGED CARE, didn’t I? Also DISABILITY CARE? He points the finger at anyone but himself and his feckless, bumbling sidekicks. He’s gotta go. They’ve gotta go.
Terence Mills writes: Scott Morrison has said that hotel quarantine is 99.99% effective which I think confused us all until we looked a little closer at this marketing spin — what he was actually saying was that all community infections in Australia have been 100% traceable to hotel quarantine. It just needs one infected person to start another wave of infection as we are seeing in Melbourne but Scottie always likes to put a marketing spin on everything which is dangerous when we are talking about community health and safety.
Stephen Dunn writes: Clearly a responsibility of the Commonwealth — Section 51(ix) of the constitution. Typical of the Morrison government’s ducking and weaving of its responsibilities! We need a statesman-like performance, not a marketing politicking charade. And exactly why did ScoMo get sacked from Tourism NZ and Tourism Australia? The truth please. We need an approach inclusive of all Australians, not just those at the top end of town!
Keith Manning writes: This falls squarely on the federal government … all the money-driven Liberals have done is outsourced the responsibility to Liberal party donor private companies like the ill-fated hotel security guards and aged care homes, leaving the state governments to try and manage. This privatisation of government departments has to stop even though the damage to our country has already been done since the Howard era.
The hotel industry is very happy.
What surprises me is the media – not only Murdoch’s media, but all daily print news – all strong supporters of LNP’s actions? Not enough honest reporting from them – wishy washy!
A very good point. It would be interesting to see which companies are the major beneficiaries of the hotel quarantine system as it stands, & their links to the LNP. The stench emanating from the federal government makes anything possible.
Leaking quarantine hotels & the stubborn refusal of the federal government to do anything to build new facilities. SA exported the latest outbreak, then our thick as a brick premier declares there is no need for purpose built quarantine. Those of us in SA with family in Victoria (and there are many of us) will not forget this. Nor can we ignore the ambulances ramping at Adelaide’s hospitals & the desperate calls from ambulance drivers, nurses & doctors for MORE facilities. We cant cope as it is. Imagine if we had a covid 19 outbreak. The health system would collapse. sQott wants his cull. He is a dangerous man. (Go to the footy. Let in the Ruby Princess) There are no longer any excuses for his wilful neglect of the Australian people. Here & overseas.
The Liberal party in SA is facing a flood of membership applications from sQott’s maaates….. we cannot let the franchise fleecers get grubby their hands on any more governments in the country. We need a return to governing for the people. Not this wealth redistribution scheme in favour of billionaires we currently have.
In Victoria Im pretty sure the hotel quarantine guards were organized via Vic Gov.
Yes, they were. Because the Federal government was shirking its contitutional responsibilities for quarantine, biosecurity and immigration control (hi Ruby!).
Do you think the Victorian Liberal Party would have done anything different? Correct! They would have extorted donations from the security companies first in return for contracts, because that’s how they roll.
sQott’s advice was for a us all to ‘go to the footy’ & to ‘let covid rip’. A bungled hotel quarantine system, a bungled vaccine roll out, conspiracy theorists in his own party. He is woefully inadequate. But still we have people trying to blame Victoria for a our problems…the desperate & deluded now claiming some sort of conspiracy around Andrew’s fall & injury. Victorian Liberals are one teeny tiny step away from being fully fledged conspiracy nutters.
Who is to blame. Back in the early times, epidemics caused much human misery. We gradually learned to deal with these outbreaks, quarantine stations were erected to isolate the suspected infected, great advances were made in recognising the disease and developing immunisation against future outbreaks. The populace was always supportive of these advances.
But now we have seemed to have forgotten the past and with the worlds deadliest pandemic upon us, politicians are scrabbling for ideas. A new breed of fools called ant-vaxers is thwarting the task.
So what is to blame? Lethargy. The world basked in ignorance of the predictable scourge about to descend. Scientists, politicians, are all to blame for that.
In Australia, we are now thinking that those once forgotten quarantine stations, now sold as prime real estate, might have been useful in curbing the virus. Astute pharmaceutical companies were quick off the mark to produce viable products to potentially immunise the world. The easy task. The logistics of the distribution of these products took second place. That’s where the scientists bowed out and the politicians moved in. Chaos ensued.
The answer is clear. Only those Australians with a vested interest, business owners and the like, would wish to see the virus unfettered and thousands die, lockdown is the only viable tool to fight the virus at this time.
Viruses obey the simple law of the survival of the fittest. They will become uncontrollable unless Morrison and his ilk think more about our future beyond the next election.