Aussies and NZers: Jabs, Jobs and (grounded) Jets

[lessthanluke]

1 minute ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

That is pro sport star biased speculation in your part and not in line at all with his pro-covid puplic personality. 

Also you can get test results in hours if you are willing to pay for it anyway.

But as this is getting too off topic let us agree to disagree. Us arguing will not change anything. 

Very true.

He's a dick anyway so I've got very little sympathy for him but I just think it's better to stick to the facts than speculating.

Let's talk shit about him for his general views instead.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Saw one Australian legal expert state that he will likely be allowed to play, even if he eventually loses the appeal.
 

Meaning the judge will likely postpone the trial until after the tournament, and  in the meantime will rule that the potential loss to Djokovic of unjustly not being allowed to play outweighs the potential loss to the minister of unjustly letting him play.

The tournament will run its course, the trial will then wrap up afterwards, and the ruling will then be of academic importance only.

[Impmk2]

Judge so far seems very sympathetic to Djokovic's lawyers arguments. As this stage it looks like he'll win.

I still find his strategy of hanging his Australian open defense on a random covid infection mid-December to be... interesting to say the least. But that's life. He's not going to be getting a warm welcome on court. As I said previously he's probably going to need some pretty heavy security once he's released.

[The Anti-Targ]

They should settle the matter the old fashioned way: trial by combat, with a tennis twist. If he wins the Australian Open he gets a written apology from the Australian PM, if he doesn't win the open he is banned from all ATP tournaments for 2022. Surely the gods will give a strong arm to whomever deserves justice.

[The Marquis de Leech]

19 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

But he won some big tennis tournaments so special treatment is owed to him by right, and who are we to deny him his rights.

I wish she had spoken out about it almost 2 years ago, perhaps the govt could have been steered onto a more humane course that allowed citizens and residents into the country much more easily without risking a COVID blow out. She may have had some unique and inciteful perspective to offer. But she is only now speaking out about it when it affects her personally, when it is too late to turn that ship around. A shame people did not come forward with their good ideas much sooner.

Any relation to Matthew Ridge?

I believe she is his daughter.

[rotting sea cow]

I've never liked to comment on other countries internal issues but I was reading about the shitshow about a famous tennis player and this comment taken from the BBC cracked me up.
 

Quote

 

Abul Rizvi, a former official in Australia’s Department of Immigration, told the BBC that even if Djokovic is allowed to play, "the Australian public will be angry at what’s happened here", and angry that the star "did not get himself vaccinated".

“Assuming that the Australian government doesn’t try to cancel his visa again and he is actually allowed to play at the Australian Open, I think there will be a lot of difficulties for Djokovic from the Australian crowds," he said.

“I think if Tennis Australia and Mr Djokovic were to think this through, they would announce some very significant health measures to ensure that there is no risk to public health from the tennis tournament more generally and from Mr Djokovic in particular."

 

What level of mental contortionism is required to state something like that?

Australia is currently having an uncontrolled Omicron outbreak and as far as I can tell, they aren't doing anything in particular to try to control it. Stating that a single unvaccinated represent a "threat to public health" in that context is laughable and reflects a high level of mental dissonance.

 

[The Anti-Targ]

Interesting stat, the day Australia had its largest number of recorded deaths in one day (59) there were 87 new cases of COVID-19 announced. This was 4 Sept 2020. I think we can thank vaccination, and only vaccination for delta and now omicron not getting above 27 deaths in a single day, despite these waves having really got going in September and having over 1000 cases per day at least, and now 100 cases in a day barely registers on a graph that shows the cases that are being seen now.

[Impmk2]

It really does - but I'm not sure if that 59 was a reporting anomoly. Would've been during the Victorian outbreak when the aged care homes were being hit hard. I guess if you look at the 7 day average we haven't hit those levels again (yet).

Still the current numbers are certainly only the tip of the iceberg. Testing capacity has gotten so overwhelmed the people have just given up. And given the lag between diagnosis and deaths the numbers will certainly go up.

[The Marquis de Leech]

14 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Interesting stat, the day Australia had its largest number of recorded deaths in one day (59) there were 87 new cases of COVID-19 announced. This was 4 Sept 2020. I think we can thank vaccination, and only vaccination for delta and now omicron not getting above 27 deaths in a single day, despite these waves having really got going in September and having over 1000 cases per day at least, and now 100 cases in a day barely registers on a graph that shows the cases that are being seen now.

The 59 was a backlog in reporting, during the disaster in the Melbourne Rest Homes. 

[Jeor]

Hard to get visibility on the virus especially in NSW with the testing issues and the fact they still haven't got their act together on reporting RATs.

The self-imposed lockdown shows economic activity has fallen to the lowest since the pandemic began, so having this "light touch" policy in NSW isn't exactly working. It's probably worse for most businesses given there is no government support anymore (and perhaps why they haven't ordered a lockdown - the social contract being that if the government orders a lockdown, it's morally obligated to economically support businesses).

I think schools are going to be woefully underprepared. Much like businesses, there will be short-staffing, student attendance will be patchy, and I think it's going to be a pretty bad look all around. Without widely available RATs, there's very little chance of controlling the virus spread. Kids getting sick isn't even the main problem as they're not really an at-risk cohort, it's more that if it spreads a lot through schools that means a whole lot of parents are going to have to isolate and the staffing shortages in various industries may well get worse.

[Paxter]

11 hours ago, Jeor said:

Hard to get visibility on the virus especially in NSW with the testing issues and the fact they still haven't got their act together on reporting RATs.

The self-imposed lockdown shows economic activity has fallen to the lowest since the pandemic began, so having this "light touch" policy in NSW isn't exactly working. It's probably worse for most businesses given there is no government support anymore (and perhaps why they haven't ordered a lockdown - the social contract being that if the government orders a lockdown, it's morally obligated to economically support businesses).

I think schools are going to be woefully underprepared. Much like businesses, there will be short-staffing, student attendance will be patchy, and I think it's going to be a pretty bad look all around. Without widely available RATs, there's very little chance of controlling the virus spread. Kids getting sick isn't even the main problem as they're not really an at-risk cohort, it's more that if it spreads a lot through schools that means a whole lot of parents are going to have to isolate and the staffing shortages in various industries may well get worse.

On the flip side, having parents stay at home to assist with remote education is not helping with staff shortages.

No right or wrong answers though - omicron seems largely impervious to different combinations of restrictions. Ontario’s ICU numbers are starting to jump like crazy, and we’ve been in (mandated) lockdown for a while. I haven’t seen the same spike in Aus, but perhaps there is a lag.

[karaddin]

There was a comment last night about the majority of NSW hospitalizations still being Delta amongst the unvaccinated which is really saying something given the huge amount of omicron going around. We may still be having the disease wash through our community, but those ~20 months of delaying it accomplished a lot and saved a lot of lives.

[Impmk2]

It's interesting here in SA it doesn't seem to have taken off as much as in the eastern states. I guess we're semi-shutdown (self imposed) as it is, and you'd have to imagine we're missing a lot of cases, but the PCR positive rate is yet to breach 20% (now watch it happen today). Even Tasmania is reporting consistantly far higher PCR postive %.

The only major difference I can think of is close contact isolation. SA didn't adopt the national definition and still considers someone you work or socalise with (for 15mins+) to be a close contact. Of course a result of this is half the state seems to be in iso.

[Impmk2]

Oh wow I did not expect them to actually pull the trigger and try to deport him again. Unless they have something really solid (proof of a falsified test or something) I can only see this backfiring. Terrible move.

[Maltaran]

1 hour ago, Impmk2 said:

Oh wow I did not expect them to actually pull the trigger and try to deport him again. Unless they have something really solid (proof of a falsified test or something) I can only see this backfiring. Terrible move.

He’s already confessed to making a false statement on his declaration 

[Impmk2]

1 minute ago, Maltaran said:

He’s already confessed to making a false statement on his declaration 

Yep I get that. I'm not at all sympathetic to Djokovic and wish he wasn't let into the country in the first place. But this is a complete circus and is just dragging out what is already an international image disaster for Australia.

Anyway from what I've read I don't think that false statement alone would be enough. The ministerial cancellation is on the grounds that this is in the public interest. Taking a flight to Spain and not declaring it may not pass the muster there. If Novak gets another sympathetic judge the government may very well end up with another embarrassing loss in court on their hands. They'd want to be very sure they can win this...

I am reading though that the timing (after the courts close) makes it very hard for him to get the various injunctions that he'd need in order to play on Monday.

[Loge]

On 1/9/2022 at 1:04 PM, Free Northman Reborn said:

Saw one Australian legal expert state that he will likely be allowed to play, even if he eventually loses the appeal.
 

Meaning the judge will likely postpone the trial until after the tournament, and  in the meantime will rule that the potential loss to Djokovic of unjustly not being allowed to play outweighs the potential loss to the minister of unjustly letting him play.

The tournament will run its course, the trial will then wrap up afterwards, and the ruling will then be of academic importance only.

If he is found guilty of entering the country illegally, there will be a penalty. I heard something about being banned from entering the country for three years. 

[Impmk2]

Ok so the Minister is attempting to deport him on public interest grounds - that his continued presence 'excites the antivaxxer community' inside Australia. Djokovic's lawyers are arguing that his deportation will excite them too.

However apparently the law is written to give the immigration minister extremely broad powers - the minister has to be satisfied that Djokovic 'might be' a risk to the health, safety or good order of the Australian community. That... isn't a high bar to cross.

The judge (same one who heard the previous case) seems intent to handball this to a different court. Can't say I blame him. The fallout whatever happens will be immense.

 

1 hour ago, Loge said:

If he is found guilty of entering the country illegally, there will be a penalty. I heard something about being banned from entering the country for three years. 

If his visa is cancelled by the minister and he's deported he's ineligible to enter for 3 years. There is ministerial discretion which can be applied to allow him to enter earlier.

[Impmk2]

So the court has to be satisified that the minister is satisfied that 'he might' ... that seems circular as he just cancelled his visa...

Oh and then apparently even if he wins this appeal, which seems far far less likely than the last one, the minister can simply recancel under a different section of the immigration act on the grounds that he filled out his entry form incorrectly (so that could still be a factor @Maltaran).

So he probably is going home. At this point I just hope this is over quickly.

Also the immigration laws here have even less judicial oversight than I thought. And I didn't think they had much.

[Derfel Cadarn]

24 minutes ago, Impmk2 said:

So the court has to be satisified that the minister is satisfied that 'he might' ... that seems circular as he just cancelled his visa...

Oh and then apparently even if he wins this appeal, which seems far far less likely than the last one, the minister can simply recancel under a different section of the immigration act on the grounds that he filled out his entry form incorrectly (so that could still be a factor @Maltaran).

So he probably is going home. At this point I just hope this is over quickly.

Also the immigration laws here have even less judicial oversight than I thought. And I didn't think they had much.

Getting into Australia used to be a lot easier.

Just had to get caught stealing bread