Songs from the south

Photos exposing Victoria’s ‘shambolic’ hotel quarantine have one thing in common — a street named Rona Walk.

What’s in a name? A hotel quarantine skipper on Rona Walk in Melbourne’s South Wharf.

If life imitates art … can life imitate a pandemic?

Grainy pics showing Victoria’s “shambolic” hotel quarantine have one novel thing in common — a street named Rona Walk, around the corner from the Pan Pacific Hotel.

That’s right, the bungled breach that led to Melbourne’s second wave and second lockdown centres around a 150m-long concrete lane that houses an Ugg boot shop and shares its name with the virus.

The story goes that a former police officer (name redacted) wrote to Victorian Police Commander Tim Tully with Bond-esque eyewitness accounts of Pan Pacific guests skipping iso.

“Tim, we have quarantined people out again this morning, you will see one has tried to enter the convenience store,” the ex-cop said, attaching the snaps with the unfortunate street sign in South Wharf.

“I happen (sic) to see one guest go down Rona Walk and stand in front of the Urban Hub (grocery store). The guard went and spoke to him and he went back into the exclusion area.

“We even saw what looked like someone with a takeaway coffee.”

Quick, someone call Craig Kelly — we smell a conspiracy theory!

What’s in a name? A hotel quarantine skipper on Rona Walk in Melbourne’s South Wharf.

Before too long

Is Craig Kelly the most influential member of the Canberra Bubble™?

According to the outspoken Liberal MP: “Over the past week alone, my Facebook page has had 1,800,000 interactions — that’s comments, shares and likes — and close to four million views” … despite only 58,000 people “liking” his profile.

The analytics don’t count the times Kelly’s content was shared in private messages or emails, but show he received three times the engagement of Scott Morrison (576.3K likes, 12 posts, 609.5K interactions) with only 10 per cent of the followers.

And after 75 posts in seven days, Kelly’s cabal grew by 10.5 per cent.

Which means more Quiet Aussies are seeing Kelly’s debunked ideas about Hydroxychloroquine than the official advice from Health Minister Greg Hunt (20.9K likes, 16 posts, 13.5K interactions).

St Kilda to Kings Cross

While the Prime Minister refuses to chastise his backbencher’s dangerous comments, Deputy Chief Medical Officer Nick Coatsworth made it very clear Australians know “which Kelly should be listened to in COVID-19 and that is Paul Kelly”.

Hang on — which one?

The musician, the former Sydney Swan, the editor-at-large of this august organ?

We’ll assume acting CMO Paul Kelly, who has repeatedly explained Hydroxychloroquine “doesn’t work”.

It’s also been labelled “potentially harmful” by the country’s peak COVID research body.

But we guess that doesn’t matter come campaign time when ScoMo needs to get his marketing (and attack ads) out.

As Paul Kelly himself sings — from little things big things grow.

Last night, Deputy PM @M_McCormackMP came under fire for linking the Black Lives Matter protests to Victoria's second COVID wave.

Today, Federal Health Minister @GregHuntMP refused to be drawn on those comments. pic.twitter.com/LuUStxgjBZ

— News Breakfast (@BreakfastNews) September 7, 2020

Stolen apples

If you ask Bob Katter, he is federal parliament’s No 1 influencer.

The maverick MP is wondering whether the PM is holding cabinet meetings in his office after hours, given numerous KAP policies have been adopted — acquiring the rights to the Indigenous flag, an inquiry into foreign interference at unis and draft legislation to prevent the sale of fake Indigenous art.

“We have been pounding the table on the issue of the Indigenous flag copyright for two years and the ban of fake Indigenous art for nearly five years,” Katter said.

“It’s extraordinary that it has taken the government this long to see the commonsense approach on these issues, but we thank the government that it has happened.”

He estimates nearly 300 jobs will be created if 80 per cent of the fake art made in China and Indonesia was replaced by the real thing.

Darling it hurts

A shorter tale of two cities.

Canberra-based former CMO now heath department boss Brendan Murphy has described NSW as “the exemplar” for contact tracing, compared to their southern neighbours.

The ABC’s Sydney-based COVID guru Norman Swan’s response: “NSW isn’t the gold standard. NSW is lucky.”

To her door

Are Victorian police the arbiters of intimacy?

A COVIDiot male was fined when cops discovered him cycling down Dorcas Street, South Melbourne, after curfew “going to visit his semi-intimate partner”.

Is that the Millennial relationship version of smart casual?

You could say he was, ahem, cop blocked.

Roll on summer

Here’s a plan to fill the backpacker void from Liberal MP John Alexander — get prisoners to pick fruit.

“I have … raised whether there’s any chance of giving people who are in jail some sort of work release as some sort of scheme,” the backbench member for Bennelong told a committee into working holiday-makers.

“If I were in jail and there were an opportunity to get out and work, picking fruit and possibly getting some of that share of the income, I think I’d go for that. There’s a huge population of young, active people in jail.”

Alexander also floated the possibility of “grey nomad travelling” where seniors could “make some money and sustain yourself a little bit more on your trip by doing, you know, a number of days of work a week … it would be great exercise.”

Top Ryde Tailoring & Formal Wear Hire are doing it tough, with the COVID-19 downturn their revenue went over a cliff....

Posted by John Alexander on Friday, 21 August 2020

How to make gravy

Bill Shorten must have high hopes he’ll be out of lockdown soon.

The former Labor leader updated his register of interests last month to note a “renewal of complimentary member of Qantas Chairman’s Lounge”.

Noice work if you can get it!

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