Episode description
Episode description
Australia could have been close to reaching herd immunity but a poor Australian government decision to turn its back on an excellent Pfizer deal means the national level of vaccination is at 3%, one of the lowest rates in the world. The anger in the medical community is palpable, but will the electorate blame the government for this error? And, for a government that was so keen to open up the economy as soon as possible, this foolishness is difficult to understand.The mainstream media wanted to position Scott Morrison as a key member of the G7 meeting, but he was anything but: Australia is not a member of the G7, it only had observer status at this meeting and it seems the US President, Joe Biden, was keen to let Morrison know about this. It was a ‘much ado about nothing’ kind of meeting for Morrison, he signed a few long-term agreements which are not worth the pen and paper they were created with, and a free trade agreement with the UK – which will negotiated over the next 15 years. And a sideshow to explore his personal ancestry, a visit to a church, and drinks all round for his personal staff at a few drinking holes in Cornwall. Something had to be retrieved from the G7 meeting and this provided for excellent photo opportunities.
The legal dispute between NSW National Leader, John Barilaro, and Jordan Shanks-Markovina (aka Friendly Jordies) has been ramped up and Barilaro has used anti-terrorism legislation to arrest the Friendly Jordies producer, Kristo Langker, all because he made a little bit of fun about him and exposed him for corruption. It’s so ‘New South Wales’ for a politician to want to lock up a journalist who gets in the way – but this is not just a battle between a politician and a journalist, it's a battle between legacy media and new media.
Australia has a new Deputy Prime Minister, same as the old one: come on down, Barnaby Joyce, alleged sexual harasser of women, philanderer, drunk, morally bankrupt and possibly corrupt. Only in Australia (and Britain, US, Brazil, Hungary, Belarus) would the public accept this kind of politician as a leader. A retail politician who tells the electorate what they want to hear, not what needs to be done – the worst and most dangerous kind of politician.
And it’s also so ‘New South Wales’ for the corruption of a Premier to be overlooked with soft media pampering and delicately placed stories about her new love life – who just happens to be the lawyer who represented her at the ICAC. COVID-19 cases are rising in Sydney and the NSW Government, far from the ‘gold standard’ we keep hearing about, has allowed complacency to set it and has mismanaged key aspects of this pandemic. Will it be as bad as the Ruby Princess disaster in 2020? But let’s not worry about that, all should be fine, because ‘Gladys is in love’.