Australian state border restrictions

[Jmrocky]

Yes, but those people decided to live in NSW and work in QLD (or reverse) and maybe we didn't foresee those risks, but that's just how it is.

It's a very different prospect to split families who are both completely within NSW, or people from their jobs etc.

Not to mention the smaller towns like Kingscliff who rely on Tweed for their major services.

Interestingly, I haven't heard Victoria ask to move the border north of Albury?

Of course that's how it is, but reducing the issue to "har har AP" is ignoring the reality of the situation.

Splits will happen regardless, it's what makes most sense socially and economically.

It's not interesting, just a completely different context for Albury Wodonga, if there was a Gold Coast hanging on the other side of the Tweed River it would be a moot point, but there isn't.

 

[Must...Fly!]

Yes, but those people decided to live in NSW and work in QLD (or reverse) and maybe we didn't foresee those risks, but that's just how it is.

I wonder why they didn't foresee the risks.

It's almost like that in living memory, short of a different looking license plate and drivers license, it didn't matter where you were from. Because you were Australian before anything else.

 

[justinbrett]

Of course that's how it is, but reducing the issue to "har har AP" is ignoring the reality of the situation.

Splits will happen regardless, it's what makes most sense socially and economically.

It's not interesting, just a completely different context for Albury Wodonga, if there was a Gold Coast hanging on the other side of the Tweed River it would be a moot point, but there isn't.

I mean, AP could not declare Tweed a hotspot... just spitballing here.

Even Steven Miles who I can't stand said it's understandable why NSW would refuse. NSW has got to think about the entire state and long term consequences of that action (and yes there definitely would be some). People in Tweed can move to the Gold Coast if they are that upset by it.

This needs to come from Geoff Provest, who is dead set against it. Not AP.

 

[Jmrocky]

I mean, AP could not declare Tweed a hotspot... just spitballing here.

I mean, Gladys also could have done a number of things as well.

I wouldn't expect any less from a NSW Nationals MP.

Nonetheless, we'll let politics get in the way.

 

[justinbrett]

I mean, Gladys also could have done a number of things as well.

I wouldn't expect any less from a NSW Nationals MP.

Nonetheless, we'll let politics get in the way.

Amazing that a Nationals MP would want to keep an electorate in one state and not split off smaller towns and rural areas from the city....

Do people not read the voting cards?

 

[Jmrocky]

Amazing that a Nationals MP would want to keep an electorate in one state and not split off smaller towns and rural areas from the city....
Do people not read the voting cards?

OK, this will be my last post on this because this isn't my day job, but if you honestly think that small area of people north of the Tweed / south of the border is celebrating because Gladys and the local MP are standing up for NSW sovereignty and the ability to travel to Ballina, for a temporary moving of the checkpoint to the Tweed River to allow them to attend school / uni / work / services, hats off to you.

 

[justinbrett]

OK, this will be my last post on this because this isn't my day job, but if you honestly think that small area of people north of the Tweed / south of the border is celebrating because Gladys and the local MP are standing up for NSW sovereignty and the ability to travel to Ballina, for a temporary moving of the checkpoint to the Tweed River to allow them to attend school / uni / work / services, hats off to you.

What about the people in the Tweed south of the river.. didn't think about them did you?

 

[Seat0B]

As for compliance, I see widespread low level breaching, from people who rigidly obeyed it six months ago.

Data point - my 87 year old mum, fully vaxxed is not following the rules closely this time. She is seeing my household officially as her singles bubble (we both have 1 AZ and due for 2nd in 2 weeks and 4 weeks respectively). But she is also seeing my 59 year old sister (also with 1 AZ), which is outside the current lockdown rules for ACT. She is avoiding her grandchildren -all in their 30s and only one of them (in the ADF) with any shots yet. The other three are booked in for Pfiiiiiizer in early September, and she is also avoiding her 2 infant great-grandchildren. More for fear of her infecting them than the other way around. It is definitely the younger households that are more vulnerable this time. As soon as they are shot up, she plans to see them too.

She is suffering consequences of a serious melanoma and is realistic that she may not have much longer to go. She says that family is everything, and the only thing she really has left, and she is willing to take the risk that we partially vaccinated ones infect her given it’s a low risk as she is fully vaccinated. And she said it is our call if we want to take the risk that she infects us who are not yet fully shot up. Given the reality of how an ill, elderly woman lives, she is no risk to us at all, or to the community. We shop for her (allowed). She does Telehealth appointments. We get her prescriptions for her (allowed). We pop in and have a cup of coffee and a chat with her, take her for a turn in the garden (not allowed - ACT does not recognise this as essential care). We invite her over for a meal to be sure she eats something other than cheese on toast (allowed for us as her singles bubble, but not for my sister who does it too, at mum’s request). She sees no one except us family members. All her other enjoyments in life have been stripped from her - seniors gym closed, no coffee with her friends and neighbours, no visits to the national library to pursue her passion for family history, could not attend her U Tas graduation held last week, no visits from her grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and her other surprisingly wide network of young friends - children and grandchildren of people she knows. Her life is very small and very constrained. Thank God she is not in residential aged care, where things would be so stultifying, I reckon she would just give up.

When law-abiding people like my mum and goody two-shoes girls like me stop complying, it’s fairly clear that the government has lost the support of a wide slab of the populace. The rules are harsh and simplistic, and no wonder people have stopped listening. The governments, all of them, are speaking from a position of very diminished moral authority.

Edited to fix up my emotional typos so you can understand what I was meaning.

 

[mviy]

The lack of proportionality in the rules certainly discourages people from following the rules.

In VIC, kids are not allowed to go to playgrounds, but if they are kids of essential workers and allowed to go to childcare/school that somehow makes it O.K. to use the ones there!

Victoria has a curfew again for a second time something no other state had done until I think maybe NSW announced something today?

It's the inconsistency in the restrictions in the different states that encourages skepticism that the rules are based on health advice. How could the health advice be so different from one state to the next on what restrictions are needed in similar situations?

If they weren't enforcing the state border bans I'd probably be willing having had one AZ jab to travel interstate tonight. I would have travelled overseas last year unvaccinated if they weren't enforcing that ban too. Now, I'd travel overseas once fully vaccinated if that ban wasn't enforced.

 

[RooFlyer]

Another case of ‘Good.’ A portion from the Australian on-line.

 

[bcworld]

In VIC, kids are not allowed to go to playgrounds, but if they are kids of essential workers and allowed to go to childcare/school that somehow makes it O.K. to use the ones there!

Victoria has a curfew again for a second time something no other state had done until I think maybe NSW announced something today?

Clearly there is check in and record keeping at childcare.

And the less said about only Vic having curfew the better.

 

[PineappleSkip]

On the radio this morning they reckon with the state election next March and our doona brigade here that we won't be opening to anyone even at 80%.

Yep, I can see it going that way elsewhere, the doona brigade has branches in Qld and WA too.

I see people making a big deal about detail in the national plan. On 30 July the plan was only agreed in principle. It doesn't bind anyone.

cheers skip

 

[justinbrett]

Yep, I can see it going that way elsewhere, the doona brigade has branches in Qld and WA too.

I see people making a big deal about detail in the national plan. On 30 July the plan was only agreed in principle. It doesn't bind anyone.

cheers skip

Again, you're wrong, it was later (6th Aug) agreed in full.

QLD (as recent as this morning) have said they still fully support the national plan.

 

[openseat]

Police powers are now out of control with their effective take over of power using the health orders (but no health advice is given as proof or accountability!) as their leverage. I think it's a disaster for the long term.
The amount of dobbing and shaming (usually by journalists (who shouldn't be considered essential workers) is appalling, particularly with an undercurrent of race baiting (people in those suburbs). Great damage is being done and it's hard to see how as a nation we come back from this.

 

[PineappleSkip]

it was later (6th Aug) agreed in full.

All the detail in that plan is in dot points and headed “measures may include”. The “national plan“ agreed to was that there would be four phases, with a broad statement of approach in each of those phases. For example phase B “Seek to minimise serious illness, hospitalisation and fatality as a result of COVID-19 with low level restrictions”. That is its sum total. AFAIK, none of the dot points are agreed.

And yes I listen to the Premiers, including Gladys and Dan today, and see they all say that things will happen at 70% and 80%, but not specifics. Because they aren’t agreed. In any case, National Cabinet is an Intergovernmental Forum. and it’s decisions don’t formally bind anyone.

I mulled over your last assertion of wrongness and it seemed we were arguing similar stuff, with different emphasis. So I moved on.

cheers skip

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

Had to check whether this is the Australian state border restrictions thread.

 

[justinbrett]

That is its sum total. AFAIK, none of the dot points are agreed.

And yet I've heard Anna, Mark, Dan and Gladys quote the dot points.

I do agree with you that some premiers will want to weasel their way out of this. I just said they are going back on the plan, PM has already said as much.

In any case, National Cabinet is an Intergovernmental Forum. and it’s decisions don’t formally bind anyone.

Agree there, it's a waste of time.

 

[nutwood]

My concern is that domestic travel is only mentioned in "A". No mention in "B" and then only implied relaxation in "C" ; "Exempt vaccinated residents from all domestic restrictions".
The mention in "A" that domestic travel restrictions should be directly proportionate to lockdown requirements is not the case at present even though it's described as the current phase.

 

[VPS]

Another case of ‘Good.’ A portion from the Australian on-line.


View attachment 255990
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lock him up

 

[jb747]

I wonder why they didn't foresee the risks.

.....Because you were Australian before anything else.

I see that you are correctly using the past tense.

Sadly, there seem to be some people who believe ICU beds should be sitting empty. Much like the dedicated COVID wards.

I think there was a 'Yes Minister' episode about this. They were happy to keep an expensive hospital empty, 'cos they didn't want patients mucking it up.