Ignoring COVID Lessons From The Past And Who Is The Real Prime Minister?

Australia has become lockdown central, with its two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, going into two different types of lockdowns – Sydney has a modified version where shops are still open and people seem to be able to freely move about (except for those migrant-working-class-Labor-voting-sub-classes in Fairfield), and Melbourne – a city which takes this process far more seriously – instigating a short sharp five-day lockdown. Professional. Not that it's a competition, but we suggest Melbourne will be the winner in this COVID battle because the NSW Government seems to be on the verge of a ‘live-with-the-virus’ anti-lockdown strategy. At least Sydney will be receiving the $500 million-per-week federal government support that was denied to Melbourne.

And could the real Prime Minister please stand up? Business leaders, frustrated with the slow progress on the supply of vaccines, asked Kevin Rudd – out of office for eight years – to lobby Pfizer to fast-track the delivery of one million vaccines. Whether or not Rudd was responsible for this delivery is immaterial: the fact business leaders saw Rudd as someone who could get this done, rather than Scott Morrison, speaks volumes. But it does beg the question: aside from blaming everyone for his mistakes and faults, what exactly does Morrison do with this time?

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tony Smith, is retiring from politics. What does this mean? After 20 years in Parliament, he’s had enough? Does he believe he won't be able to retain his seat of Casey? Or that he believes the Liberal Party won't win the next federal election? Perhaps he reprimanded Morrison too many times during Parliament Question Time. And that might have been his biggest mistake.