Aussies: NSW Politicians, keeping ICAC in business

[The Drunkard]

20 hours ago, Jeor said:

Once they stop all the local cases, NZ basically have to call a complete halt to anyone going in or out of the country, and that could last over a year. They could become a literal island sanctuary.

I'm curious if Australia could pull off the same, if the economic effect of the international working/travel restrictions are relatively minor vs the effect of the internal restrictions. Tourism and universities would be screwed but, in the case of the latter at least, the status quo was already fairly shit and in need of some sort of solution. 

[Impmk2]

Very very small increases in NSW and Vic today which is great news! Unless that's just an artifact of the diagnostics labs taking some time off over easter.

OTOH, sounds like there's a big outbreak in Tas. They're shutting a couple hospitals and putting 1000 people in isolation. Hope they can get it under control. Tas was always a bit of an outlier with a far lower testing rate, and by far the highest postive rate. Hopefully this'll be a bit of a wake up and they can get it sorted.

[karaddin]

Yeah personally I'm hoping we can largely go the same way you said for NZ Jeor. I don't think you have to prevent international travel completely, but you do have to have mandatory quarantine for all arrivals for 2 or even 3 weeks. Functionally that's going to mean very little travel but not none, and I think with full quarantine and decontamination you could maintain a warm zone for cargo arrival to continue some trade.

[Paxter]

Yeah reducing imported cases needs to be the priority now. Places like WA could be nearly COVID free before too long.

[Jeor]

The reopening is going to be the tricky question.

If the federal government was playing it completely safe, you would wait until you had no new cases for two weeks, and then gradually relax things while keeping the borders shut, although you could probably open up interstate travel again once individual states have no new cases. Maybe individual states could open up first.

But although the numbers are definitely encouraging, I don't know if we're ever going to get to zero for two whole weeks. Plus I don't know if the whole "no international travel for 2020" thing is going to have any long-term implications for any industry? (apart from airlines and tourism of course)

[brook]

1 hour ago, Jeor said:

Plus I don't know if the whole "no international travel for 2020" thing is going to have any long-term implications for any industry? (apart from airlines and tourism of course)

Well depending on if it is a hard ban or a requirement that anyone who comes must do several weeks quarantine it would absolutely destroy the higher education sector.

Most of the discussion I’ve seen has focused on the hit to universities but I suspect the private colleges are going to be even more exposed. I won’t pretend to be upset about that - the way international students are used to prop up our universities is shameful but at least they are buying something of value which is less true for the colleges - but they are a huge export market all the same.

[Jeor]

Turnbull releasing his memoir next week. Don't know how long it'll take me to get a copy but I'll be interested to read it. Apart from his republicanism, which I view as a minor issue in the grand scheme of things, I think I agreed with his political views more than most any other PM we've had in recent times. There are some news articles going around with the usual salacious excerpts where he badmouths ScoMo and so forth, all books have those to drum up interest but it will be interesting to see his views about politicians on both sides of the aisle.

 

[karaddin]

So Morrison is now suggesting that they'll make the contact estimating phone app mandatory if Australians don't "do the right thing" and accept that we need to install it, so hooray. We're going to go full police state "papers please" only in this case the papers require a mobile phone and grant both the government and almost certainly hackers access to large amounts of our personal information.

And I guess that gives him an excuse to really go after arresting homeless people who don't have phones since they can't possibly comply.

With Dutton again going to be the one that would be in charge of a lot of enforcement, this genuinely scares the shit out of me. This is a dark path we're on.

[Jeor]

The government is starting to overreach - there were changes to the Fair Work act as well such that changes to enterprise agreements only need 24 hours notice instead of the usual 7 days (although employees can still vote to reject the changes). Hopefully Albo will be able to cut through some of the noise and keep ScoMo and his crew accountable.

All that being said, we seem to be doing really well (whether it's because of, or in spite of ScoMo is another matter - probably somewhere in between). It will be really interesting to see what gets relaxed in four weeks' time.

 

[karaddin]

Yeah I'm pretty much on the same page with all you said there. 24 hours of notice period is an absolute joke and cannot possibly receive any genuine level of review, but I guess it's the same time period they like to use when rushing through contentious legislation so they've had success with the number.

I understand the need to support business as well during this period, but that doesn't strike me as something which actually helps the businesses that are struggling but is ripe for abuse by those that aren't. I'd really prefer we just accept that we're going to pile on debt for the next year or so and have more direct government funding to struggling businesses and organisations.

The higher education relief package is also a joke and makes me wonder if they actually want to kill off some of the unis, there is no way they could actually believe it's sufficient unless they're utterly incompetent and ignoring the universities.

But all this aside, Australia is tracking well though the pandemic so far still.

[Impmk2]

11 minutes ago, karaddin said:

The higher education relief package is also a joke and makes me wonder if they actually want to kill off some of the unis, there is no way they could actually believe it's sufficient unless they're utterly incompetent and ignoring the universities.

Not sure how things are there, but there's a lot of very very worried people here. Casual staff have already been let go, and the rest of the support staff are expecting to have layoffs. Was chatting to the woman who manages our food safety / micro practical lab yesterday and she was almost in tears. The amount of talent that will be lost, it'll cripple the sector for years, and that can't help but bleed through into teaching and research standards.

It's disgusting. They've set up the unis to be so dependent upon overseas money, despite the sector warning of exactly this kind of situation, and now the whole thing will fall over. And all they've got to offer to replace that funding is 'how about you put on some 6 month courses for jobs which don't exist right now'.

I'm very worried about our research funding too. I'm betting it'll be on the chopping block with the amount of government spending that's happening. Personally I might have to bite the bullet and do a PhD to keep some money coming in... Though that's probably doubling down on a failing industry.

[ithanos]

Looking at the daily infographic pdf from the Govt website, the Manhattan table of Daily Number of Reported Cases is looking promising. There is a tail developing so we shouldn't get complacent, and in that respect the extension on the current lockdown is probably the right move.

Although it's not a good idea to compare across countries for numerous reasons, its interesting to look at South Korea's respective Manhattan table which shows a 36 day tail! And thats just to get from 114 daily cases down to 22! Even looking at Taiwan's progress, with even lower daily case numbers, it appears elimination is a very tough nut to crack. I'm having doubts whether its at all practical.

[Jeor]

1 hour ago, ithanos said:

I'm having doubts whether its at all practical.

I think complete elimination is going to be very, very tough. But whether we eliminate or not, I think they're going to try a tentative, gradual reopen and keep the caseload manageable. The borders will be effectively shut for a lot longer, but if they can relax some of the restrictions without causing an explosion then it'll be worth it.

I am guessing that some of the restrictions that will stay will include general social distancing (4 square metres per person), still no large events and no pubs/clubs. But they may begin to allow private gatherings (say up to 5 people) and allow people back in workplaces where social distancing is feasible. Where they will start to get some economic benefit is when places like restaurants can open up again, which may be a line-ball decision.

On the higher education sector, I can tell there's a lot of fear. Some of my friends who work as lecturers are saying that not only have all the casuals been cut, but they've been asked to take pay cuts to help save student support services or other sessional staff. While at first dip it sounds common sense, as my friend pointed out it really is trying to turn people against each other and guilting them into taking a pay cut when they're already not that well paid to begin with.

[The Drunkard]

Labor leader Anthony Albanese - who found out about the app in the newspaper - is concerned about the prospect of forcibly being tracked.

"One of the things that would occur if that was the government response would be people would simply stop taking their phone to places," he told reporters.

"It's up to the government, frankly, to explain exactly what it has in mind with this app and to be very clear with the Australian public about whether it is going to be voluntary or whether it is going to be some level of compulsion involved."

Albanese is genuinely such a useless opposition leader. The government proposing to forcibly install location-tracking malware on the entire population's phones offers so many easy attacks and Albanese responds by asking for more detail. 

[Paxter]

I know it’s easy to say at a distance...but these are all great problems to have TBH. We just had a new peak for daily fatalities and will be in lockdown well into the summer. Australia is doing ridiculously well.

[karaddin]

On 4/17/2020 at 2:57 PM, Impmk2 said:

Not sure how things are there, but there's a lot of very very worried people here.

Its a bit of a weird blend - people are very worried because we're obviously taking a very large hit, but at the same time there is a real collective spirit I'm seeing among my colleagues and the wider uni with real dedication to getting real improvements in place rather than just stop gaps. We're a bit of a dinosaur in terms of accommodating the needs of online students and have heavily favoured in person teaching, but I think the massive improvements we've made in this case are going to at least somewhat stick.

So there's a wariness about how we're viewing the executive, but there is also belief in ourselves as an institution with the capacity to be a force for good.

[Jeor]

On 4/17/2020 at 10:25 PM, Paxter said:

I know it’s easy to say at a distance...but these are all great problems to have TBH. We just had a new peak for daily fatalities and will be in lockdown well into the summer. Australia is doing ridiculously well.

Yes, I think Australia and New Zealand are fast becoming the poster children for controlling COVID-19, especially since Singapore has now fallen from grace. Hong Kong and South Korea are still doing pretty well too.

When ScoMo said four more weeks of this, that takes us to May 11 I think. So it will be interesting to see what measures are put in place then. At the very least, we have now had the time to adequately prepare so that if a second wave hits, hopefully our hospitals should have enough PPE and beds to be able to absorb any potential increase after the restrictions are relaxed.

[Paxter]

10 hours ago, Jeor said:

Yes, I think Australia and New Zealand are fast becoming the poster children for controlling COVID-19, especially since Singapore has now fallen from grace. Hong Kong and South Korea are still doing pretty well too.

When ScoMo said four more weeks of this, that takes us to May 11 I think. So it will be interesting to see what measures are put in place then. At the very least, we have now had the time to adequately prepare so that if a second wave hits, hopefully our hospitals should have enough PPE and beds to be able to absorb any potential increase after the restrictions are relaxed.

I’d add Taiwan to your list of good performers. Some smaller European countries are also faring well or at least significantly better (Austria, non-Swedish Nordics).

[Paxter]

It looks increasingly likely that VA (Virgin Aus) is going to head into VA (Voluntary Administration).

I can see why ScoMo doesn't want to get the chequebook out here (personally I am very 50:50 on shelling out taxpayer $ to overly indebted companies), but I do worry about the consumer outcomes. 

I'm also selfishly happy that nearly all of my frequent flyer points are with Qantas!

[Jeor]

8 hours ago, Paxter said:

It looks increasingly likely that VA (Virgin Aus) is going to head into VA (Voluntary Administration).

I can see why ScoMo doesn't want to get the chequebook out here (personally I am very 50:50 on shelling out taxpayer $ to overly indebted companies), but I do worry about the consumer outcomes. 

I'm also selfishly happy that nearly all of my frequent flyer points are with Qantas!

I, too, have all my frequent flyer points with Qantas, although maybe I'll have to use them a lot more for flight redemptions if the ticket prices go up...

I understand the government's position on this one, they were in a tough spot. If they were going to help the airline industry, they needed to do it in a way that was fair to both companies (Qantas and Virgin).

At the same time, Virgin has been a badly run company and has been losing money for quite some time. They pursued the wrong business strategy of trying to gain market share at the expense of profits and that was nothing to do with the coronavirus. I suspect they would have had to do a big capital raise or borrowing even before COVID-19 hit, and then when it did it just was not viable.

Investors knew what they were getting, too, and they didn't like it. The share price peaked at just over $2 in 2007, but since 2010 it's basically stayed below 50 cents, and in the past two years it's been below 20 cents. It was already a failing business and it's fair that the foreign shareholders (Singapore Airlines, China Eastern etc) get wiped out. Coronavirus just hastened what was already on the cards.

All that being said, I think the government does need to give some help to reviving a 2nd airline. They've committed to a two airlines policy, so hopefully Virgin can be taken over by another buyer and start again to save all those jobs.