“The problem with Australians is not that so many of them are descended from convicts, but that so many of them are descended from prison officers” — Clive James
In New South Wales and Victoria at least, judging by the following various bits of news, including this:
Several impounded dogs due to be rescued by a shelter have instead been shot dead by a rural council in NSW under its interpretation of COVID-19 restrictions, alarming animal activists and prompting a government probe.
The reason for this is even more insane:
Bourke Shire Council, in the state’s north-west, killed the dogs to prevent volunteers at a Cobar-based animal shelter from travelling to pick up the animals last week, according to council’s watchdog, the Office of Local Government.
Despite the fact that the shelter volunteers had COVID-safe measures in place to handle the dogs, one of which was a new mother.
But perhaps the situation demanded it, after all, Polar explorers were known to have killed dogs for food.
According to NSW Health, there have been no recent locally acquired COVID-19 cases in Cobar, although fragments of the virus have been found in the area’s sewerage system.
Well yeah. That’s what the laboratory-specified PRC test will do. Run across an entire population it would likely find the remains of virus fragments from every virus you’ve ever caught.
Remember that the same sort of human beings who did this are the ones who have done the following:
Please spare me the excuse that there is a difference between the likes of the Premier’s of these states and low-level government officials of a rural council
Or for that matter ordinary people who have had their minds pushed into a world of paranoid fears by said government. Here in NZ we were having a discussion with our friends and neighbours a couple of days ago during a walk and found out that their son in his Canterbury university dormitory had been instructed to stay in his room between 11:59pm and 6:00am each night, as were all such residents. Not even a “bubble” on the floor, let alone the whole residence. Unlike the Auckland University situation there was not even a case.
The parents promptly got on the phone to the people in charge to find out what the hell was going on. They were especially concerned because they were already worried about their son, who seemed depressed, as many of the kids are at the moment in what was supposed to be the normally fun and exciting First Year of varsity.
The phone call rapidly went up the chain from the 19 year old, 2nd Year bloke in charge of the floor to the 24 year old manager of the whole complex, and then rapidly escalated as he huffed and puffed about the need for the team of Five Million to pull together, and got parents arguing how insane such a restriction was, plus threats to call the likes of Radio New Zealand and other media outfits if nothing changed.
Fortunately in this case, the manager backed off, and of course it was only his interpretation (and others in the “team”) of what a Level 4 Lockdown means.
Back in Australia the Prime Minister, perhaps sensing that things are starting to spin out of control, has announced that:
“We can‘t stay in the cave forever. That’s not sustainable,’’ he said.
“We have to move forward. We cannot hold back. Our task between that day and now is to ensure that we ready ourselves for that next phase.
“Cases will not be the issue once we get above 70 per cent. Dealing with serious illness, hospitalisation, ICU capabilities, our ability to respond in those circumstances, that will be our goal and we will live with this virus as we live with other infectious diseases. That’s what the national plan is all about, was always about, that’s how we designed it.”
With the rate currently at about 30% it’s going to be a while, perhaps a few more weeks, and that depends on how much the Australian public gets its back up about the whole situation:
Mr Morrison said he understood some would try and undermine the end to the lockdowns but it was now a case of “if not now, when?”.
“We must make that move and we must prepare to make that move and we must prepare the country to make that move,‘’ he said.
“The lockdowns now being endured are taking an extremely heavy toll both on the mental and physical health of Australians and on the economic success of Australia. It is taking a heavy toll and so they must only continue for as long as they are absolutely necessary and not a day more.
I like that Morrison’s adult approach lacked mention about “kindness”, “saccharine laced platitudes masquerading as announcements”, “waffling presentations” and all the rest of what Peter Dunne described as the “extraneous, embellishing drama” that is the New Zealand Prime Minister’s approach.
Given that I always thought that Dunne was a pompous windbag it’s saying something that even he’s reached his limit.
Meanwhile back in the land of Oz.
Leaving aside the crack at the mentality of Australians in that Clive James quote, don’t think for one moment that we’re not capable of the same level of insanity here, if we’re not there already.
Never Forget.
No Minister 
Among the other things that angers me over this massive cock up is that airtheaded Prime Minister and her grey little Government apparatchiks getting to decide what is or isn’t an “essential business”
What that grotesque toothy hag cannot comprehend that for the business owner of a “non essential business” as defined by her bureaucrats is that the business they have deemed unworthy is essential to the livelihood and wellbeing of the business owner.
I don’t think our economy recovers from this
I don’t think our economy recovers from this
Depends on what you mean by “economy”.
We’ll survive it with the destruction of large numbers of small, ordinary businesses run by individuals and families.
The supermarket chains and any business that can use the Interwebby for transactions, will not only survive but thrive, as they have in the last 18 months.
I had to laugh at poor old Chris Trotter attacking the “giant” supermarket chains and talking up the equivalent of “Kiwifood” or some other horrendous government business to compete. I pointed out to him that the reason why they have increased their power is thanks to … governments like the ones he supports and their Lockdown tactics. It’s they who are actually responsible for the likes of Bezos increasing his wealth from $120 billion to $200 billion in the space of less than a year.
Oh well, good future funding mates for National and ACT I suppose.
And fresh in from the department of Oh FFS
Covid-19: No masks, no helmets – large group on dirt bikes rides through south Auckland
Quelle Horreur!
What a total prat that man is – give him a Karen award
We’re rapidly approaching the point where we’ll be relying on the criminal community to show us the meaning of freedom.
Pray tell, Mr. Dawson, which communities are ‘especially vulnerable’ to the impacts of Covid-19?
Terminally il old buggers? Poofters? Labour Party members? Muslims? Heroin addicts? Presbyterians?
Meh, over on Homepaddock today Elle linked to a truly painful piece of standard MSM agitprop guilting and shaming with some doctor in LA who I found is one of the go-to medical experts whenever the Agony Aunts need clicks. take a look at this shite:
When hundreds and thousands of people continue to die — when the most vulnerable members of society, our children, cannot be vaccinated — the luxury of choice ceases to exist.
Amazing! They actually published that and expect people to just swallow it whole because, hey, who shifts off their ass to check out the stats. As I pointed out to Elle, “hundreds of thousands” do not continue to die in the US and children have been the most invulnerable demographic to this virus right from the start.
Sadly, there probably are still morons who read the LA Times and think they’re traditional, authoritative journalists who check the facts before publishing (layers and layers of sub-editors my ass), or that because it’s written by … a doctor … they couldn’t possibly lie or bullshit you.
FFS. It’s amazing to me that science and technology advances at all. Maybe we’re just heading for the future that Idiocracy portrayed?
Look for Wayne to huff and puff and chew his mustache about how THAT”S NOT FUNNY AND PEOPLE COULD DIE and yada, yada, yada.
He could be that Victorian Premier in a heartbeat. You could just see Wayne in the spotlight saying the same things with gravitas and seriousness and condemnation and deeply felt moral indignation.
The outrage. The shame. Burn them!
I presume your last photo is supposed to be an ironic joke. But don’t you think it is a bit ridiculous to compare a New Zealand government decision to go to Lockdown Level 4 with Nazi concentration camps?
It is that sort of comparison that causes the opponents of the current Lockdowns to be ridiculed. And no, you won’t be able to convince me that basically I am (and just about everyone I know) is just the same as the Nazi SS.
Who said anything about the SS? That’s just another example of your seemingly programmed ability to not actually read and think about what is written but instead harvest entire fields of straw men out of the text so you can burn them down.
You think it started with the SS? It was actually the SA – aided by ordinary people who pointed the finger at their neighbours.
And I am not in the least concerned at your typical National Party fear of ridicule over issues that people deserve to be confronted about, even shocked about. It’s one of the endless failings of the National Party that they can be ridiculed but are clueless about throwing back ridicule. It’s why you lose so many arguments – not that you probably care about that as a former member of the Labour Party.
The point was about how such ordinary people – not members of the Nazi Party or the SS or the Communist Party or the NKVD – allow such things to happen because they refuse to condemn it or even, as was the case with our friends incident or the NSW local council, enable it via their own “extreme” interpretation of the atmosphere.
The Salem Witch Trials come to mind.
I’m sure that you are not only not able to be convinced but that you will quite happily join in with all this, as you have to date, smug in the knowledge that it will be forgotten in a few years time.
The real question is what are your limits, Wayne?
Be prescriptive, and understand as you outline such, that you have said nothing, absolutely nothing, as to whether you think what the NSW and Victorian state governments are doing is ok. The implication of your lack of criticism of their rules is that you approve – and would approve harsher measures yet.
But on the extremely faint possibility that you might think differently about civil liberties and freedom – even in the face of Black Death 2.0 – tell us what you think of Hitler’s Willing Executioners, which very much went into the detail of how ordinary people enable this stuff.
And no, you won’t be able to convince me that basically I am (and just about everyone I know) is just the same as the Nazi SS.
No Wayne – you are not among storm troopers you are closing your eyes to the growth to an Authoritarian State in the highly mistaken belief that you are being kept “safe” – you are like the rank and file Germans who quietly complied in the face of growing Fascism
It was people going along to get along in the hope of a quiet life that allowed Hitler to come to power
Evil flourishes when good people do nothing is all I get out of that photo.
Residents were planning anti-lockdown protests in several large cities for the weekend of August 21. When this came to the attention of law enforcement, David Elliot, Minister for Police and Emergency Services, told the public:
From his lips to Wayne’s ears. Liberal he may be but he’s also the perfect National Party “conservative”. It’s what they mean by conservative. You don’t actually conserve anything – but you sure as hell back the State to the maximum when they’re enforcing “law and order”, no matter what the laws are.
And if you have a neighbour like Wayne, keep a close eye on your dog. 🙂
Poor old Wayne all that time in politics and still understands bugger all.
First they came for the Unemployed but I had a job so I did nothing , in fact I was secretly pleased someone finally put a stop to the bludging.
I have no problem with Mr Mapp having sought nomination for the NZLP, beaten by one Phil Goff, before embarking on a career in National, such “flexibility” is not without precedent, an early introduction to what makes a politician tick was the Hon T P Shand, we were in his Marlborough Electorate from my earliest memories accompanying my parents to the Lyndon workers quarters to vote. Shand a man who flirted with Far left Socialism in his pre University days as a labourer in Meat and Flax industries, that continues into his studies at Canterbury B Com and Lincoln College Dip Farm Management then ending up confronting Tom Skinner and the Federation of Labour in the Holyoake governments. Not forgetting Both Skinner and his predecessor F P Walsh were capitalists in their personal lives.
Another example was Wyatt Creech who after a bun fight in the Electoral Court saw off dear old Reg Borman allowing him to get a life far more befitting his abilities as a Cab Driver in Masterton. Creech’s success caused a minor conniption when the long held tradition of offering membership of The Masterton Club to the Wairarapa MP was a problem for s few old guard who were miffed that Wyatt had earlier connections to NZ Labour Party.
While not comparing in any way Mr Mapp’s credentials or abilities to Shand or Creech but merely as a manifestation of the old adage if one is not a socialists at 20 they have no heart but if they have not embraced capitalism by forty perhaps they have no brain.
I enjoy Mr Mapp taking the time to comment here it sure does give an insight to what Parliament leaves a participant with as regards comprehending issues that mere mortals often view so differently. They certainly are different to the Mob (historic, not current). My attitude is based on being neighbour and quite close to both Derek Quigley and John Falloon, along with several others. from Labour and National, while always avoiding becoming a member of either Party.
We will often disagree Wayne, it is business not personal, M.