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One need not be a devotee of “washing one’s soul with pure air, with the rush of the brook …the shimmer of sun”, to quote ardent angler Herbert Hoover, in order to be plunged into a state of livid distraction by the clown-show stars of Victoria’s ongoing COVID circus. They’ve been lying again, doling out the whoppers and ‘look, over there!’ distractions all week, most notably at Wednesday’s noon press briefing, which stretched credulity to the point where even a few members of Spring Street’s docile press corps were moved to set aside mere stenography and put a few tough questions, alas but a very few, to Chief Medical Officer Brett Sutton.
“People will die,” Sutton was warning, this prediction arising from his claim that the latest COVID eruption, which has seen 6.6 million Victorians locked up yet again (150 days in purdah and counting) — is a strain of such virulence that one might become infected (and die!) by simply sharing footpaths with the carriers who walk amongst us. Hence, the alleged need to extend the latest lockdown for a further seven days, to promulgate VicPol’s dobber line for reporting insufficiently obedient neighbours, to seal golf courses, shutter cinemas, compound the financial woes of eateries and pubs and, what should be a capital offence with the Western Bulldogs doing so well, throw the AFL season into ad hoc rescheduling and looming chaos.
Seven days, just seven more days, Sutton and Acting Premier James Merlino were saying, sweetening the bad news of the latest restrictions on civilised life with the unctuous sugar of their appreciation for the populace’s stoic acceptance of edicts past and latest. Bell wethers no doubt feel similar depths of gratitude for a well behaved flock. And it was all a lie, yet another of so many.
The ‘tell’ came in an aside about a ban on travel from the greater Melbourne area to the bush over the upcoming Queen’s Birthday long weekend, at that point ten days hence. They were mushrooming us again, offering false hope of a rapid return to normal while already laying plans for the next seven-day curtailment of movement, commerce and, not to put too fine a point on it, the basic human right to live one’s life without the State’s supervision of its every smallest detail.
At that point — permit me to get personal here — fury welled in an uncontrolled gush. What with last year’s four-month lockdown and my mother’s quite sudden decline and death, circumstances conspired to keep rod and creel hanging neglected on their pegs in the shed. This year’s Queen’s Birthday weekend was to have seen their long-delayed return to the banks of the Howqua, Macalister or Delatite.
Preparations were already underway. My swag had been hauled out, dusted down and Hoover’d free of spiders. And over in Williamstown the Dunlop man was waiting to put new, all-terrain tyres on my 4WD. The current ones are roadworthy and entirely legal but designed for the street, so an investment in extra grip for High Country tracks slick with winter mud was more than an indulgence. Now, due to the restrictions, the tyre shop is out of bounds — a few insignificant kilometres too far beyond the 10kms-from-home limit to qualify as a legal destination.
Today, just now, I called the tyre shop and cancelled the fitting. What would have been the point? Queen’s Birthday marks the end of Victoria’s trout season, which sees streams closed to anglers until late September. So even were it legal to drive the spitting distance from Altona to Williamstown, the need for higher-profile treads had vanished. The servo guys are also out of pocket, as I had wanted, just to be sure, a bit of attention for the injectors and a new battery lest the current one give up the ghost at the foot of some seldom-travelled precipitious descent. A long, damp walk back to civilisation would have been most annoying.
So here I am, fuming in frustration while merchants eager to take my money scratch those sales from their ledgers of certain income. It’s Victoria in miniature — lost revenue, failing businesses, crimped lives, and all this with panic (‘You will die!’) enshrined as policy.
What hasn’t changed is the presumptions of this state’s architects of disaster, who once again have stuffed the pooch while expecting the rest of the country to foot the vet’s bill. No doubt Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will sling Incompetents Inc something by way of financial support, but he damn well shouldn’t, and certainly not unless some very specific questions are answered, starting with the whereabouts of Premier Daniel Andrews.
Our Incredible Disappearing Premier hasn’t been seen for three months, having vanished after what is said to have been an innocent tumble down a wet set of stairs. Franklin Delano Roosevelt ran America’s war against Germany and Japan from his wheelchair; if Andrews can’t manage a small fraction of that burden while wearing a back brace he should resign.
And what of the 800-odd deaths during Team Andrews’ initial exercise in COVID mismanagement? Why did the farce of an enquiry into that mass tragedy keep chair and good Labor gal Jenny Coate so very busy not finding out what went wrong? To repeat, 800 lives were lost and a judicial probe that made a virtue of incuriosity professed to have found no one worth holding responsible. How about a Royal Commission into those deaths, Josh? And while you’re at it, into the conduct of the Coate probe and its inexplicable failure to produce the goods?
One of the joys of impaling a maggot or casting a fly is, as Herbert Hoover also said, “fishing’s discipline” in serving as a reminder that all men “are equal before fish.” Personally, I’d prefer bowing to a trout. As a Victorian, I’ve had more than enough of deferring to grubs.
UPDATE: As expected, Treasurer Frydenberg has further subsidised incompetence.
Yes, well. What are the actions that would remove the ALP-marxist Govt of VIC at the next election?
And what are the actions that would retrieve the VIC public services from the marxist commissars at all levels top to bottom, who now enjoy lovely access to all sorts of personal goodies, while they closely control the lives of the plain people, whilethey vilify Western Civ among themselves and in their tweets?
And which persons in various walks and stations of life would volunteer, in sufficient numbers, to sacrifice their own time and their own money, and their (out-moded) “ideals”, to conduct such anti-marxist efforts?
These are the questions the melancholy answers to which are most likely to help concerned commentators accept their fate in a Land That Will Be Dominated By Marxists In Perpetuity.
What is the mathematical basis for the determination that a ten km radius from home will now be safe whereas only five km was safe the day before?
It is indeed very painful (Harry) to see how deeply the infection has infiltrated Melbourne – its public service – its teachers – its universities – its unions – How it has destroyed dinner parties and almost all civilised conversation – So it is useful for Franklin to remind us of trout fishing. I used to love trout fishing with a bottle of Jameson’s over a weekend – even alone from time to time .. sitting around a fire for awhile on a cold night and sleeping close to the ground. They’ve killed art too – its all about race and gender now – you have to know people they say – they’re more interested in smashing statues than making them. The poets refused to write a poem to Australia on Australia Day … because they claimed it was ‘Invasion Day’ and the Indigenous have been all writing the same poem for at least ten years. These lefty governments want more control than a pedophile – they seem to think they’re grooming us into fully automated luxury socialism, but look at what clowns they are when faced with even a small existential challenge they collapse like a house of cards. … germs on the footballs. Trout fishing in Tasmania takes at least a week and is usually a two bottle trip.
If I lived in Victoria, I’d have moved by this point. What a ridiculous state of affairs. How anyone can actually live there is beyond me.
The lockdown had another casualty.
Remember how that pregnant lady was handcuffed for a misdemeanor and prevented going to her ultrasound.
Yes, it was Ballarat, where the virus was a distant disease.
Another ‘sufficient cause’, happened again.
Lockdown started, a beautiful young Alto Soprano took her life.
She had performed Mimi in a local production of La Boheme.
Anxiety and depression have many authors.
Yes Ballarat again, a good candidate for repression.
Now, one could understand locking Ballarat and her down for scientific, medical reasons.
But the data shows there was no need to lock Ballarat down, just take reasonable precautions.
https://covidlive.com.au/vic/ballarat
The only ‘case’ was in hospital, safely off the streets and was a false positive anyway.
Watching the Q@A today on the ABC with the Victorian health spokesman, he was asked for the science and studies that led him to advise State wide lockdown.
What followed was an airy account of the manner of transmission of the virus.
Then we heard that the reason for the spread was that the feds had not built proper quarantine.
It escapes me that one can then extrapolate and conclude that a count of ‘no virus’ would lead the authority to lock down Ballarat.
She singer sang this part.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XZRBkxo0BY
What a loss.
Victoria must be freed from its maladministration.
Its Time.
Solo, you can’t move. You’re ‘locked-down’ as they say. The horrible misapplication of a term used for rioting prisoners is now rightly applied in Victoria. The populace is the prisoner of the incompetent, mendacious bunglers of Spring Street.
Oh, and I wonder what ‘the science’ says? Or even a half-wit with a nodding acquaintance with statistics?
This marxist state of affairs not only has killed VIC.
And it has not only destroyed the ALP States/Territories.
All of the public services -Fed, all States, both Territories and almost all Councils- are thoroughly marxist-greenist controlled, whichever party has nominal political power.
And that means all the pubic services -including the education and legal systems, immigration/refugee programs, distribtuion of tax-payer funds to anti-Westernist groups, clamps on business activity and innovation, infrastructure, transport, and the cops too, mostly.
And regard the marxist assaults on Ben Roberts-Smith and the SASR, and the feminisation of the entire ADF.
The mandated lockdown . Roger ,the rainbow trout have been given a reprieve.
Victoria is a failed state. The Lawyer X case showed that it has a corrupt police force. The Pell case showed that it has an unprofessional judiciary. Safe Schools showed that the Andrews government promotes the indoctrination in Marxist identity politics in young children. Covid 19 has shown the Victorian Government and civil service to be fatally incompetent. Given all of this, I’m with Solo. If I had the misfortune to live in Daniel Andrew’s Victoria I’d be looking to leave as soon as possible, even if I had to wait until between lockdowns.
But Ian you left out the three pillars of Marxist (Marx- cyst) hope – Abortion, alive late term abortion to be exact-euthanasia for the elderly at the moment- and portion of the the populace who can’t work out whether they should be called Arthur or ‘MARTHA’.
“Our Incredible Disappearing Premier hasn’t been seen for three months …”
Our beloved Premier is tasked with keeping all Victorians safe. Obviously this extends to his own person, as does his signature “Abundance of Caution” approach.
As for the Hotel Quarantine Inquiry, he does not accept the premise of your remarks. In terms of the fateful decision to employ private security, the Inquiry unequivocally found that it coalesced from a creeping assumption into a collective decision—albeit without a collective.
He would like to thank all Victorians for the hard work they have done during this global pandemic. Today there were four positive results from 49,439 tests, so remember, if you have any symptoms get tested immediately—there’s not much ‘flu about so it’s probably this silent, cunning and now ‘fleeting’ corona virus.
At first, and for quite a while following, I had considered the attempt to have WorkSafe Victoria prosecute for the 800+ deaths in 2020 as a Don Quixote romance, and as doomed to failure as the Don. Elected politicians and their appointed bureaucrats are impervious to their own rules. For those who make the rules, there are no rules – this is the point of power.
Yet most unusually, Andrews has stayed out of public gaze for 3 months now, with very little information supplied on this absence, and that which is supplied of no value. Now I do wonder if he’s actually scared of his own legislation. Certainly, I would not choose to be the current WorkSafe Commissioner.
At last we are now allowed to know the US government were funding gain-of-function research on Covid viruses – which then escaped from the lab. What there needs to be now is a class action against the US government for personal injury and financial loss.
Alistair, the US government wasn’t tasked with keeping the virus in the lab, the Chinese were. Obviously it didn’t come from the wet market- but telephony transmissions from the viral lab went silent at some point in time- what point in time exactly?
Ps , as I understand it , Dr Fauci did not inform any body in the US gov, and that includes President Trump that he had decided to implement funding for the said program. Can someone find out Dr Fauci’s political persuasion – I seem to be ‘left’ wanting!
And in the ways that the people talked about The Wasteland They Lived In, it was clear that none thought in terms of how to establish A New Land Devoted To Human Flourishing.
I have been having regular physio on a fractured foot at Sydney’s Prince of Wales Hospital over the past few months. Entry to the hospital means I have to say that I haven’t been to a range of nominated sites in and around Sydney and NSW for that week. They change after 14 days and new ‘outbreak’ locations are mentioned. Masks have also been removed from most areas, including this hospital, with a brief return, fairly unsuccessful and half-hearted, in a recent outbreak.
Gladys has managed the ‘outbreaks’ here in Sydney very well.
Melbourne’s freak show, not so much.
So sorry Roger that your loss is the trout’s gain. It shouldn’t be like that during trout season.
It’s not just incompetents running Victoria, it’s thieving liars. I suppose they take their cue from the racist fascit gangster led CCP.
Where has Comrade Dan been all this time? He needs to get up in parliament and put to rest those rumours about him breaking his ribs falling down drunk at a billionaire’s house.
From my scientific observations, conclusive evidence proves that the most dangerous transmission agent of the CCP virus is a body known as the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) with a virulent spinoff strain known as SBS.
If the scientific research can investigate further avenues to shutdown completely both of these dangerous transmission agents then symptoms of fear, political madness, lead poisoning, brainwashing and boredom will evaporate and we can all get back to common sense…..?
Just saw a graphic comparison between Vic and NSW Covid performance:
Returned travelers: Vic 31,559; NSW 125,856
Days in lockdown: Vic 163; NSW 45
Deaths: Vic 820; NSW 54.
So Dan’s government has received a quarter of the returned visitors that Gladys’s government has, but Victorians have spent 4 times as many days in lockdown and suffered 15 times as many Covid deaths.
The Left can only maintain its power over the Plain Folk for as long as such folk are convinced that taking responsibility for their own lives is a bad thing. Which is why the Left preaches that only the spending of “government money” can fix all the problems faced by Plain Folk. And it also why the principle of “being responsible for oneself” is demonised, when not suppressed, by the ABC, SBS, 90% of the commercial media, and in all the education systems, Kindie to Uni, and in much of the criminal justice system-
– and by feminists who proclaim that women should be able to get boozed/drugged up beyond self-control and not expect to have sexual experiences that they later regret and blame men for.
One of the more galling elements of the the Commonwealth’s bailout of the vandals in charge in Victoria is the failure to hold the government to to its own standards for public health management. The Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008 (Vic) states regard should be given to guiding principles, of which one is that decisions should be based on evidence available in the circumstances that is relevant and reliable. Persons engaged in the administration of public health should as far as practicable ensure decisions are transparent, systematic and appropriate.
Instead we receive fear, platitudes, hyperbole and absolutely no reliable evidence to justify the draconian restrictions on healthy Victorians.
The Victorian “case numbers” are a complete fabrication, just as is the “virus” itself. People have seasonal flu in winter time, that’s all. There’s a political agenda at play and Victoria is the Australian petri dish for Agenda 21 and the Great Reset.
Mrs. Beare,
Thank you for your comment. I certainly disapprove of plenty that the NSW premier has done, but I have felt more than once that some Quadrant writers and commenters have failed to acknowledge that she has not been nearly as bad as most of the other premiers. Being “less bad” may not seem like much; but when a person is going against what everyone else (except perhaps the first minister of NT; but who ever hears about him?) is doing, she certainly deserves some credit.