Those who self-righteously proclaim to act in the name of social justice are a boon for this column, and doubly so in the case of activists who do so from a pulpit. Take for example The Venerable Rod Bower, Rector of Gosford Anglican Church, Archdeacon for Justice, and former Senate candidate.
Last week he experienced something of an apocalyptic-inspired apoplexy, the catalyst being Freedom Day in NSW. It is only a slight exaggeration to say he believed Premier Dominic Perrottet was in league with Lucifer himself. “LetItRipDom will kill us all,” he tweeted, along with an image of his trademark billboard bearing an identical message.
That was last Thursday. Suffice to say that NSW residents are not dying of Covid en masse. The streets of Sydney CBD are not strewn with bodies. Today the state recorded a daily total of 372 new cases. Last month the daily case numbers were regularly in the four figures. If Perrottet really is trying to kill us, he is doing a lousy job.
Deleted tweet
This week Bower deleted the tweet in question. His Twitter feed provides no explanation as to the reason. Let’s unpack this, shall we? Perrottet’s gradual lifting of restrictions, which took effect on Monday last week, was based on 70 per cent of the state’s residents aged 16 and above being fully vaccinated. Predictably, this caused the lockdown dogmatists, particularly Bower, to go berko.
But on Sunday – just three days after Bower tweeted his end of days prophecy – Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced Melbourne’s lockdown would end today, citing that the state would soon achieve an identical vaccination rate. Today Victoria recorded 2232 new cases. Conversely NSW recorded 498 cases on the day lockdown was lifted. In Victoria, 1005 have died of Covid as opposed to 543 in NSW.
If Bower is true to his principles, he would have angrily declared this was a case of #LetItRipDan and that all Victorians were condemned to die. Yet his Twitter feed made nary a mention of this decision. He might say in response that his priority was local issues. But during Victoria’s second wave last year, that state was very much in his mind, so much so it featured in his sermon of September 6. “Honestly, if I was Daniel Andrews, I’d be saying … ‘If you’re alive at the end of my term to vote me out of power, then I’ve done my job.’ That’s what I’d be saying,” he told his congregation. And yes, the tweet that delivered his sermon to the wider world bore the #IStandWithDan hashtag.
All @DanielAndrewsMP needs to say to his detractors is that if they are still alive by the next election to vote against him, he will have done his job.
— The Venerable Rod Bower (@FrBower) September 6, 2020
Full reflection: https://t.co/GhmxHQw13A#IStandWithDanpic.twitter.com/9ZzGfXIc7m
Anyway, this week’s sermon should be interesting. I expect Bower will have to use all his creative talents to spin this one. Prime Minister Scott Morrison as the wicked Pharaoh, and Daniel Andrews singing ‘Let my people go’ perhaps? Or the good rector could instead warn the congregation about the dangers of vanity, hubris, and worshipping false idols.
You can never have enough lockdowns … or liberty
Writing in the New York Times last week, Guardian columnist Van Badham assured readers that anti-lockdown sentiment in Australia was virtually non-existent. “Unlike Americans, Australians are not politically inclined to demands for liberty and choice as much as we are for fairness and solidarity,” she wrote. “Even as some lockdown restrictions ease, Australians continue to comply with public health orders, which even now enjoy overwhelming public support.”
You can never have enough lockdowns or public health orders I say. I also agree with Badham that liberty and choice are overrated. Far better to have government officials dictate when you are allowed to leave your house, how far you are permitted to go, whether you can go to work, how many mourners can attend a loved one’s funeral, and so on. As for solidarity, sing it loud, sister. We’re all in this together, right?
Given her love of fairness, Badham surely would have welcome the decision yesterday by The Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner to release on freedom of information grounds confidential documents relating to the five-day lockdown in February. As the OVIC noted in its decision, the public interest warranted the release of “important information about the way the Victorian government responded to COVID-19, including the rationale for public health orders”.
The Department of Health had opposed the FOI application, claiming among other things the release would “jeopardise the trust and confidence between public officials and a minister”. The countervailing argument is it is equally important, perhaps more so, that the department earn the trust and confidence of the community it is supposed to serve, but admittedly we are talking about the great unwashed.
Pandemic premiers and political cattle prods
NSW is opening to the world, and we could not care less if that upsets the premiers of the less populous states and territories, which – come to think of it – is all of you. That is the guts of Premier Dominic Perrottet’s message to his counterparts. Like it or not, they must follow accordingly.
As expected, WA Premier Mark McGowan announced on Friday the duration of the state’s hard border would be extended given Perrottet’s decision to exempt fully vaccinated Australians entering the country from quarantine. But even McGowan is conceding the inevitable, having announced yesterday a vaccine mandate that covers 75 per cent of the state’s workforce. It is a desperate solution for a desperate problem, for only 57 per cent of West Australians are fully vaccinated – the lowest rate of all states and territories. Representing the Minister for Health at WA budget estimates this week, Minister for Mental Health Stephen Dawson would not say how many hospitalisations would be caused by an outbreak at present rates of vaccination. “It’s cabinet in confidence, so I’m not at liberty to release that at this stage,” he said. Sound familiar?
“I’m just very concerned that they’ve [NSW] jumped the gun; we’re all supposed to be working together as part of the national plan and the national cabinet,” said Queensland Premier Annastacia Pinocchio, I mean Palaszczuk. It took the political equivalent of a cattle prod to get her to do it, but by Tuesday she had committed to opening the state to fully vaccinated travellers from interstate effective December 17.
Queensland Deputy Premier Steven Miles felt similarly jilted. “We remain committed to the national plan; what you’ve seen in recent days is the NSW government have torn up that national plan,” he said on Sunday. This was the same man who in February filmed himself tearing up a hotel quarantine invoice for moneys owed to NSW, and who posted the footage on Facebook, saying “Scott Morrison has given the go ahead for NSW to send Queensland taxpayers a $30m bill for their quarantine program even though it’s 100 per cent a federal responsibility”. Yet earlier this month he demanded the federal government provide increased funding for Queensland hospitals. Incidentally, whose constitutional responsibility is health?
I wrote last week that of the premiers during this pandemic, McGowan had been the most obnoxious. Of the deputy premiers, Miles deserves that accolade. In carrying out his puerile stunts he has been oblivious to his hypocrisy. In May for example, at a function for unionists, Miles hailed Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese in order to criticise Morrison. “Albo’s here with us at Labour Day … while Scott Morrison’s charging five thousand bucks a head to have dinner with him,” he said. As The Australian reported, earlier this month the entire Palaszczuk cabinet dined with business elites who forked out between $5500 and $11,000 for a Labor fundraiser.
When he was Treasurer in the Berejiklian government, Perrottet was a strong advocate for NSW, even when it meant clashing with Morrison. Notwithstanding the animus between the two, he has not resorted to public rancour or parochial shenanigans. As for Miles, what a contrast.
Wake up, Australia! We’re a coin toss away from a mass casualty attack
People are planning it. They are itching to do it. It will finish off Albanese’s leadership as sure as it will harm the innocents among us.
Labor putting self-interest ahead of nation? Never
Blinded by ignorance and ingratitude, too many of us believe Albanese and his fellow careerists act according to self-interest instead of the national interest. This is both cynical and slanderous.