Can Scott Morrison open his mouth without causing further confusion about vaccines? And can he open his mouth without lying? Answers to such vexing questions are unclear after the prime minister finally emerged into daylight for a brief media conference at Kirribilli yesterday.
The first question he was asked was whether the NSW lockdown was on him.
“At no stage at any time in the last 12 months has there been any suggestion that Australia would have reached a level of vaccination at the level we now see in the UK, which I note is not even yet at 65% for two doses at this time,” he answered.
“The national vaccination plan that was adopted last year and all of the targets, even on their most optimistic scenarios, which haven’t been realised, none of them put Australia in a position where a suppression strategy could have been lifted at any time … So the suggestion that somehow there was a vaccination rate that would have put us in a different position right now to what was planned last year is simply not true.”
Trouble is, Morrison himself unveiled a vaccine rollout schedule on March 14 that assumed around 20 million Australians would have had a first jab by now. And that was his revised schedule; his previous schedule had the entire population being fully vaccinated by October. There was a vaccination rate that would have put us in a different position right now, and Morrison promised us that rate.
This was an example of Morrison’s unnecessary lies and falsehoods, the ones he tells even when he doesn’t have to, knowing he can be fact-checked.
He didn’t need to invoke the UK or vaccination rates; he simply could have said the delta variant is a new and more serious threat and blah blah blah. The fact that he immediately resorted to that lie revealed how sensitive he is to it being pointed out that he’s badly botched the rollout. Like lies so often do, they reveal more about the liar than any statement of fact might.
Morrison then urged people to get their second AstraZeneca jab after eight weeks, instead of 12. “We would also be encouraging the eight to 12-week second dose to be done at the earlier part of that eight to 12-week period,” Morrison said. “That is consistent with medical advice — the TGA approval does sit, and [Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATGAI)] advice, on eight to 12 weeks.”
Except, it doesn’t. This is verbatim the advice from the TGA and ATAGI.
TGA’s regulatory approval allows the second dose to be administered from four to 12 weeks after the first. The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation has recommended that the interval between first and second dose is 12 weeks. However if this interval is not possible, for example because of imminent travel, cancer chemotherapy, major elective surgery, a minimum interval of four weeks between doses can be used.
The list of conditions at the end does not include “because the prime minister is in trouble and wants to help boost the vaccination stats by cutting corners”. There’s a reason for the 12-week recommendation — it significantly improves the efficacy of the vaccine above having just one dose or having a second dose only four weeks after the first.
To make it a trifecta, Morrison, having announced that NSW residents would not be subject to the same assets test for accessing federal lockdown assistance that Victorians were, was also challenged about why this wasn’t preferential treatment for a home state run by a Liberal government: “I reject that, I think that’s an absurd suggestion. We’re into the third week of a lockdown. We’ve provided exactly the same support that was provided in Victoria.”
For once Morrison fact-checked himself and followed that up with, “There’ll be a need for further support because this is going longer in Sydney than in Melbourne”. So not exactly the same support at all.
Usually Morrison leaves a longer gap between directly contradicting himself. Maybe he himself is getting tired of misleading us.
The big worry is so many people will believe the lies of this man. How many reports in the commercial TV news bulletins this evening will contrast what Morrison is saying now, with what he said last year and earlier this year?
Very few. They’re all working on Deep Fake representations of Scotty to make him look like an actual leader.
Er…hang on ….I know that one…..none?
Will it be front page news that Kevin Rudd Labor rescues Australia after Morrison refused to contact pfizer? And that it was the ridiculed despised Rudd who got the extra pfizer?
Senior Pfizer executives told the businessman that if Australia was to make a more serious effort, after its treatment at the hands of relatively junior bureaucrats, it would have to come from much higher up, expressing their astonishment that Prime Minister Scott Morrison had not directly spoken to the Pfizer chairman and chief executive Albert Bourla, as former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had done on multiple occasions.
I wonder how much of Morrison’s life, is spent; saying that he never said what he definitely said, claiming that he never did what he obviously did, announcing things that he has no intention of doing and obscuring the details of what he really plans to do?
And then there’s all his auxiliary activities; discrediting those who tell the truth, silencing those who speak up, promoting those who will support his deceptions and endlessly scheming how to make his alternative reality seem plausible. No wonder he hasn’t the time to oversee an effective vaccine roll-out.
But now, as PM, he’s under so much scrutiny, surely his lies will come back to haunt him.
Murdoch, always remember Murdoch. Howard’s lies never bothered anyone apparently, until he over reached in 2006 but he’s been reconstructed and rebadged since then thanks to Murdoch.
Don’t forget Stokes and Costello.
Like most of us, he has lived a life where every utterance isn’t caught on tape. Clearly he has become used to just denying everything. Now that his utterances are being taped, he is unable to change his spots.
The obvious corollary is that anytime he denies he said something to someone else in private, such as Malcolm Turnbull (I’ve got your back) or Julia Banks, then I am inclined to believe the other person.
…couldn’t lie straight in bed, to quote Frank Hardy
Lies like a dead fish in a bucket
Like a stuck pig in the mud and he enjoys it
”Senior Pfizer executives told the businessman that if Australia was to make a more serious effort, after its treatment at the hands of relatively junior bureaucrats, it would have to come from much higher up, expressing their astonishment that Prime Minister Scott Morrison had not directly spoken to the Pfizer chairman and chief executive Albert Bourla, as former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had done on multiple occasions.
The executives suggested that, in the absence of Mr Morrison, former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd — who was known to them because of his work in the United States as head of the New York-based Asia Society — may have some influence.
The network of businessmen contacted Mr Rudd and set up an introduction to Dr Bourla. A Zoom meeting was arranged on June 30. Mr Rudd sent a text a message to Mr Morrison to tell him he was going to make the call, making clear he would be representing himself as a concerned Australian and not in any way as an emissary from the government.”
Of course, GHunt denies this version of events…..which almost certainly makes it true ;).
June 2, 2021
The ABC understands Prime Minister Scott Morrison does not want to establish any incentives for the states and territories to lock down, in response to COVID-19 outbreaks.
The strong view within government is that the states decide what restrictions to impose and should therefore be responsible for the economic consequences.
Acting Victorian Premier James Merlino is the first leader since JobKeeper ended to request federal support for a lockdown.
Why did Victorians have a liquid asset test? Why did Victorians get $100 less? Why did Scott Morrison refuse to pay for Victorian business support but is paying for NSW business support payments?
We all hope NSW get’s through this, but the PM is playing favourites.
Does this clown have any shame – or is he just a common, bottom of the garden, sociopath?
I mean, it’s not as though this is one of Dutton’s “He said : He said” scenarios – he’s been caught on camera with his lips moving in perfect synch. It was his PR spiel.
Even his doG would take him with a pillar of salt.
‘Bottom of the garden,’ or bottom of the pond?
Bottom of the pond at the bottom of the garden.
with green algae growing on his dark hidden portions
To quote the Abbottrocity hissownself, ” …scrapping through the bottom of the compassion barrel“.
Who knew that it came in barrels?
I think Barilaro knew, he said so
Bottom of the barrel at the bottom of the pond at the bottom of the garden….
Worse than a “common” sociopath. Full blown Dark Triad – sociopath, narcissist and machiavellian. Plus, he’s a toxic 1950s patriarch. For Australia’s sake, his own party must topple him, Albanese can’t do it.
so true, The Libs are going to self destruct. Abalone cant get out of his shell and will be replaced
I’m not sure. I’m quite fond of Macchiavelli. I don’t think he was a bad chap at all, just unsentimental, realistic and practical. I would not be sorry to have someone with his skills and intelligence running the country. Morrison is just not in the same league, not at all.
He was a brilliant guy, though serially unfaithful to his long suffering wife. But you can see why the “Christians” have badmouthed him, over the centuries. Read the magnificent bio, by Alexander Lee.
Don’t get why he isn’t sacked already.
There is the old one, what is the difference between a catfish and a politician – one is a bottom feeding scum sucker and the other is a fish!
Starting to confuse his alternate reality and truths with the real truth.
Smirko the clown stuffed up the vaccine purchases and roll out, widget!
As some other wit observed with Keating-like clarity “Morrison is just a smirk with an idiot hanging off it”.
That’s going to the pool room
If you are going to lie constantly you need enough memory to be consistent. I doubt Morrison has the memory capacity to be other confused and confusing.
But there is no need to be consistent. It might be necessary when, for example, giving evidence in court or to an inquiry, such that your evidence is closely examined and tested, but Jonathan Swift’s famous essay from 1710 on Political Lying clearly shows how the art, as performed by a true master, pays no heed at all to consistency:
…my imagination this minute represents before me a certain great man famous for this talent, to the constant practice of which he owes his twenty years’ reputation of the most skilful head in England, for the management of nice affairs. The superiority of his genius consists in nothing else but an inexhaustible fund of political lies, which he plentifully distributes every minute he speaks, and by an unparalleled generosity forgets, and consequently contradicts, the next half hour. He never yet considered whether any proposition were true or false, but whether it were convenient for the present minute or company to affirm or deny it; so that if you think fit to refine upon him, by interpreting everything he says, as we do dreams, by the contrary, you are still to seek, and will find yourself equally deceived whether you believe or not: the only remedy is to suppose, that you have heard some inarticulate sounds, without any meaning at all…
You really cannot beat Swift for relevance in this game.
priceless, thanks!
Absolutely.
And that applies to Gladys Berejiklian we now have 1 death numbers exponentially exploding and still she isn’t taking appropriate health measures she is playing politics with people’s lives and health , Ruby Gladys Princess Delta, the Gold Standard of covid-19 negligence