“It’s easy to imagine a lot of citizens in East Berlin in 1961 saying, ‘Oh that? That’s the new wall; it’s a fact of life; let’s just live with it’.”
Philip too:
“This paragraph delivers the hardest body blows this Morrison government will have felt:
Last Saturday, between 9pm and 11pm, Victorian police conducted 535 social distancing spot checks, many at home, because we can’t be trusted. We can’t be trusted to run small businesses using sensible social-distancing measures. Local, state and federal governments have made risk calculations based on a profound lack of trust in Australians, shutting down most of the country at economic, health, educational and social costs so enormous that no one can calculate them.
Exactly. The government that is not treating people with respect will lose their respect. That is happening.”
Not so Gavin:
“We’re tracked by all the apps we use plus our mobile anyhow. This will assist greatly in minimising the effects of COVID-19, and is in all our bests interests. It’s a no-brainer to sign up!”
Simon said:
“Your ‘idiots’ will avoid tracing anyway by disabling their phones or not carrying them. Sensible, responsible citizens will be surveilled and potentially controlled by power hungry bureaucrats and police, whose past actions do not inspire trust. I totally agree with a Janet. The government needs to tread very carefully here or they will trigger the sort of reaction on display in the US and lose control of the ‘curve’.”
John’s take:
“It is not that the Government can’t trust all of us, rather just the minority of idiots who flout the rules.”
Trace this, said Matt:
“This is a health issue, not politics or espionage. If you are concerned about privacy, best delete your internet accounts, cut up your credit cards and wear a disguise in public.”
Bring it on, said another John:
“Oh my God. They’re collecting our name, age, postcode and mobile number. It’s the end of liberty and privacy as we know it. Feel free not to download the app, but whose father, mother, grandfather, grandmother are you willing to sacrifice because of your ill-founded paranoia. And the reason why the government doesn’t trust some of us? Go for a walk and see why. Alarmist clap trap.”
Joel rejoinder:
“I have elderly parents and I don’t expect the country to shut down to ‘save their lives’. They are taking, and will continue to take, sensible precautions with the support of their kids until the danger to them has passed. In the meantime, the rest of us need to get this country back to work. Now.”
Benjamin cautioned:
“Being tracked by a corporate for profit making purposes is different to being tracked by a government with the ability to use that information combined with law making and enforcement power to make your life as difficult as they desire. That aside this would be a hackers dream to attempt to funnel of the contact details of 40pc of the country (identity takeover galore!). At the local level Bluetooth isn’t secure at the aggregate level encryption and can be cracked.”
PerfidiousRex’s points:
“Firstly, the app is not a tracking app. Secondly, the app can be deleted. Thirdly, we can vote out the government and go to court if they overreach. Fourth, quarantine/self isolation is worse than contact tracing. Fifth, the government can already make your life difficult. Sixth, the rights and liberties you imply are concepts, CV-19 is real. Seventh, the contact tracing app is about citizens not trusting citizens. Eight, when Google and Apple release a private version would you be downloading?”
What, said Wal:
“I find it astonishing that people let it all hang out on Facebook and other social media platforms then refuse to take up a tracking app on the pretext they want to keep their movements secret, especially when the app has the potential to save lives and get the economy back on its feet again sooner.”
Sarah surmised:
“Maybe now that we have an app we can trace flu and other infectious diseases as well. It’s a new tool that will help health authorities protect us. Download it to help them help us.”
John again:
“By the time this is finished even the cold may be a thing of the past.”
Ray’s say:
“As for trusting the public to keep social distance, just watch what a sunny warm day and open beaches does to social distance, and just a wake up call for what may have been if we had just trusted everybody.
“I just googled flu deaths in Spain For Feb 2018 (one of their worst years) and 472 people died. Now compare that to coronavirus deaths to date: 20852. That is not a typo. Last 24 hours, 399 more Spaniards died, so all you risk takers out there just imagine if we had reached just say 10pc, or 2082 deaths is that OK?
“Our 71 deaths is pretty good, we can all argue the right or wrongs of lockdowns, but while you are whingeing just consider the number who have died in Italy, Spain and France. At Spain’s deaths per million population we would have had 11,596 deaths. Just be thankful we dodged a bullet. I am one who is at risk by being over 70 but I am willing to take my chances but not if I infect my children or my grandchildren, by ignoring sensible restrictions.
“As to the app, I will download it and then when this is over remove it, but just remember people if you have Google Maps on your phone Google knows where you have been 24/7.”
A blast from Brett:
“The exit strategy, Plan A, is also flawed because the entry strategy was so badly flawed. The lockdown has been far more draconian than was ever required and the lockdown remains too tight based on incorrect assumptions about infection rates, death rates, hospital demand and capacity and so on. The exit strategy is based on the same incorrect assumptions.
“If we relax the shutdown measures, we are constantly told, then we will be smashed by a second wave unless we have this Plan A. Problem is we never got smashed by the original wave, not even close. Plan A is supposed to get us out of a problem that never existed in anywhere near the degree it was predicted.
“The bigger problem is how to get out of the disaster — that does exist in reality — the government has created by the overreaction. Does Prime Minister Morrison have a silly app that can undo the damage created; millions unemployed, businesses destroyed, hundreds of billions of government debt incurred, and all the rest of it.
“The bluetooth inspired download and avoid an economic depression app? Download it and magically we are back to work, debt free and cruising. Doubt it. What we have now is a generations worth of repair work to complete.
“Australia is not NYC, London, Milan, Singapore or anywhere else. It is low density living Australia. Populated overwhelmingly by decent, sensible and responsible people who can make judgments, with appropriate advice from the relevant experts, about what is best for their lives. That is why we did not get smashed by the original infection. A silly app is not going to improve on that.”
Consensus, cried Chris:
“There’s ground in between political individualism and political collectivism. Problem is, if you’re a one-eyed ideologue, anything less than the extreme is a threat. National medical services are a threat to the individualist. Individual contracts not awards are a threat to the collectivist.
“Australia is built on a consensus that we’re more than individuals, and that the individual should be constrained as little as possible by the collective. That’s the sensible centre. People don’t want individualism at the cost of a rampaging virus. The large scale civil obedience to lockdown is knockdown evidence.
“An argument for individual freedom trumping all other voices is an argument for an ideology that people don’t want. But that’s not to say people are arguing for socialism. It’s just not an ideologically extremist position.
“I’m grateful we’ve got a government that’s willing to lead in this area rather than just caw ‘Nah. We’ve never done it like that’.”
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If you have a go, you get a go, and ScoMo had a red hot go at the banks for playing go-slow with struggling businesses waiting for JobKeeper to kick in. Riiiiight, said Reagent:
“It’s OK for JobKeeper to dribble out at public service speed but the banks have to move like greased lightning.”
Coal Face commented:
“As fast as Albanese was naming them the PM was releasing them. Stimulus packages galore. No wonder the banks couldn’t keep up. There are staff at my work unlikely to be rostered on due to hospitality lockdowns now on JobKeeper payments. More cash than they ever received when working. Heading off Albo was the ultimate goal of the government.”
Dionysius declaimed:
“I understand the argument about the banks’ fiduciary responsibility in guarding their (and their shareholders’) assets. But these are not ordinary times. Everyone is making a loss right now — you, me — few of us our making a profit from the shutdown. In our way we are all doing our bit for our country. The banks have always been studious at protecting their money but there is a time when they have to join in the national effort. Churchill said: ‘If we don’t hang together then we shall surely hang separately.’”
Roderick reckoned:
“Policy on the run with no real direction it seems. Let’s pay staff the $1500 a fortnight for some that is more than the normal wage. Make the banks take on subprime loans for poor businesses. Does this a ring to it? A GFC we had to have.”
Helen hollered:
“The government’s behaviour towards the banks borders on dysfunctional. How many mixed messaged can there be? Many of the issues that came from the royal commission, related to borrowers who lied to borrow money and then complained when it went wrong. From this the banks were accused of unsound or unfair lending practices. Now the government wants the banks to just open the tills. You are wrong on this one PM. Get the public service working more efficiently.”
Peter proffered:
“Let me get this right, the banks are being berated for being too slow to lend money to businesses who need money to tide them over while waiting for the government to distribute JobKeeper payments. Pot, kettle, black.”
Sean said:
This ‘Liberal’ government now has form for illiberal policies of loading compliance, cost and risk onto the private sector. Who was the (less than) bright spark who couldn’t work out the cash flow implications of paying the JobKeeper retrospectively when the payment itself is designed to allay commercial hardship?’
Last word to Bob:
‘Here is a news flash Morrison: the banks are their for their shareholders — they are not the government’s plaything. Your government delayed the payments NOT the banks. Your government panicked and caused the economic devastation we are witnessing. Stop blaming everybody else and start governing instead of posturing in front of a camera. I am a long time LNP supporter but I am losing my patience with you.”
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Biggest drag on our nation is ineptitude of government
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Sorry, Lord, there’s no way I’m loving my old neighbours
Right now, we live in a strata of six. It is a world of sympathy, co-operation and bonhomie. But you can move from having good neighbours to the entire cast of homicidal maniacs inhabiting Shakespeare’s plays.
Welcome to the column where you provide the content. Janet Albrechtsen said no thanks to the government’s mooted contact-tracing app to slow the spread of COVID-19, arguing: “The biggest hurdle to the Prime Minister’s plan A is that state and federal governments have shown they don’t trust the Australian people, and so many Australians may not be inclined to trust the government about this.” Jason agreed: