Well it's 96% to 4%, 96 being for tight borders in the recent poll.
Opinion Politics (warning, may contain political views you disagree with)
- Thread starter Cesoir
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Well it's 96% to 4%, 96 being for tight borders in the recent poll.
I don’t know why you are giving me the attitude you were the one who conflated immigration with state borders.
you may wish to treat other states as other countries but they are not. It is that simple. You are again conflating the argument to try and back up your initial silliness and superior attitude to ‘libs’ and attitudes on the border.
if you think the border should remain closed because of the pandemic - fine that is enough reason by itself. It may or may not be legal but it is enough of an argument without bringing in partisan rubbish. Make sense?
great - good info. Still doesn’t address what he was saying or the original argument you made and your superior attitude over a matter that wasn’t correct.
Inveigh Slang
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Most likely
We have no idea how bad it is in NSW. They have lowish numbers however community spread could be growing with little detection. The state is hugely populated and the human traffic across state borders is huge compared to WA.
It's no wonder that covid has been so hard to contain.
I guess you wouldn't vote for WA to break away and be its on nation.
No idea I would want to see the argument. At face value, no I wouldn’t. But like everything I am willing to be persuaded by a strong argument. I just haven’t heard one. Not that there isn’t, I just haven’t heard anyone argue for it.
If that happened then the leader of WA would have the legal right to keep non-Western Australians out of Western Australia.
Currently he does not have that right, which is why Palmer is challenging the policy in the high court. He would have to prove that the border closures are actually accomplishing something. And that's going to be impossible to prove since they quite obviously are not. They are a policy for politics' sake and nothing else.
Pretty simply, the policy will at the very least have to be amended to only block travel from states with high rates of Covid infection. There's no legal basis for blocking visitors from SA or NT etc.
- Apr 16, 2014
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The big mining companies gave out of state FIFO workers the option to stay in WA (at the companies expense) during the pandemic. If this didn't suit then this is a risk with working in a different state to the one you live in.
Unfortunately that's the risk of running your own business. Conditions change. Same with all these landlords crying poor, again it's unfortunately a risk you take when investing.
It's not going to be perfect but would prefer us to be over-cautious to avoid what is happening in Vic/NSW and US, etc. This is why I support a strong safety net so in times of need people are still somewhat secure and we can put health/safety first.
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People like this can throw the spanner in the works.
Not sure if you're based in WA, but it's pretty good here right about now. Pretty much the majority of us like the strong borders and there's a s**t load of people i know who have zero level of interest in politics prior to this pandemic..who are now championing McGowan and the WA strong border resis
I can't emphasize enough how many neutral/don't care voters out there I know who are posting regularly about Mcgowan. It's a Kevin 07 feel about it and it's not even campaign season.
Thanks for the chat throughout the day. Go freo and go WA.
Yes it is a risk starting a business. My post was in response to people saying not many people had been affected outside of tourism etc. I was simply saying they were. I also mentioned that many non business owners (employees) have and will lose jobs to demonstrate the impact.
- Apr 16, 2014
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Yep and that's why it's important to have a strong safety net. Something the right wing is forever trying to break down.
So because starting a business involves risk, then that makes totally ineffective policies that do nothing but harm the economy just fine?
Zero logic there, just like most of the actual covid policies.
All government policies should be subject to a cost/benefit analysis so that policies like this with no discernable benefit could never come into being in the first place. If the government wants to introduce policies that will hurt business or employment, then they would first have to show that the policy in question would accomplish something beneficial.
Nothing
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I believe there was something early on that indicated the WA government thought it unconstitutional to have different policies for different states, hence the blanket rule.
The high court will decide and we will live with the consequences. Personally, I think it will find that the hard border is permitted.
The high court will decide and we will live with the consequences. Personally, I think it will find that the hard border is permitted.
- Apr 16, 2014
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Which economy is going better at the moment, Vic or WA? which state has Covid running rampant? Which states hospitals are struggling to cope at the moment.
100% you have selfish reasons as your main driver to wanting open borders.
Neither.
Victoria has 300 people in hospital of which 41 are in intensive care. The state has 800 ICU beds available.
They are not struggling to cope in any way, stop wetting your pants.
I know it's a difficult concept but some people actually have opinions on things that don't affect them directly. I am self-employed and work at home, so the border closure doesn't affect me at all. It does however affect the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people and I don't see any reason to celebrate a policy that accomplishes nothing while hurting so many.
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Why isn't there a covid state set of rules & a non-covid set of rules. Non-covid state as in no community transmissions in 4 weeks being able to travel between each other?
Because politics is broken. Labour are campaigners, liberals are campaigners, the greens are campaigners. Whoever is in charge is king of the campaigners.
And once in a while the Westminster system throws up an absolute campaigner like fatty mcpalmer.clive..
Because politics is broken. Labour are campaigners, liberals are campaigners, the greens are campaigners. Whoever is in charge is king of the campaigners.
And once in a while the Westminster system throws up an absolute campaigner like fatty mcpalmer.clive..
This is exactly my point. That would at least be logical. Stop people arriving from areas with high infection rates. Stopping people coming from places like SA NT or Qld which have rates similar to or lower than WA is illogical, it accomplishes nothing at all.
Wtf? The border closure affects hundreds of thousands of people? Where did you pluck that nugget from?
I'd love to see evidence showing the real impact of the border closure on the economy. Palmer isn't doing what he is doing for the betterment of all btw (or to defend our constitution) - it's a completely selfish act. I'm really not sure what ScoMo is doing? He's just going to make the Libs struggle to win seats in WA at the next election irrespective of the court's decision.
Regardless of whether you think McGowan is keeping the border shut for political reasons, health reasons or a combination this conversation should be one based on facts and evidence. Take the politics and exaggerations out of it and weight it up based on risk vs reward.
The concept that our economy would be so much stronger if the border was open is very likely BS based on everything I've seen/read. I'd like to know how the domestic economy has benefitted (eg people spending locally) versus what we've missed out on so we have a true picture of the economic impact (I expect it is pretty close to neutral just based on economic indicators amongst states). Reports in the media that WA's economy is suffering because of the interstate border closure is not based on any evidence. We need to know some real numbers - not just biased exaggerations.
This economic impact then needs to be weighed up against the risk of Covid-19 crossing our borders, if the border was opened up again. And that really depends on what restrictions are and aren't allowed. Fundamentally if it is unconstitutional to have State borders shut then all State borders should be opened. If State governments aren't allowed to make their own calls to close borders to protect their citizens then it should at least be universal shouldn't it? Who gets to decide which borders are unconstitutional and which aren't? What are the criteria for assessing it? I hate this finger in the air crap.
What is happening in Vic clearly didn't start in front of our eyes. It was festering in the background and then we got a big shock when it revealed itself. That's the risk here. Nobody can guarantee that opening the border won't put us at far higher risk of an outbreak. As we've seen it only takes one or two morons to do the wrong thing. Those idiots that travelled around Australia on flights and refused to get tested could be here soon. Fun times.
The problem isn't even so much that the real risk may indeed be higher. It's that unknown. People are anxious when things are unknown and that tends to mean the economy suffers as a consequence. It also forces the State government to be more conservative with things happening within the State - meaning we will likely have less freedom as citizens within WA than we would with a hard border in place. At the moment we have confidence with our borders shut and therefore almost 30,000 people can go to Optus together to watch footy for instance. Border open, I'd expect them to revise that (just one example given the forum we are on obviously).
I think there are a few aspects the McGowan government need to sort out - like ensuring people are allowed to return to WA if they are citizens (yes, many should have come back earlier) or on compassionate grounds (been some horrible anecdotes around but they also aren't limited to WA). But overall they've clearly (JLo likes this) done a good job handling something very complex. You'd have to be a very one eyed Lib not to see that. So many of my staunch Lib friends have been glowing of our Premier. He's not infallible but he's been a good communicator when we've needed him to be (and as a Freo supporter he understands suffering, so that helps).
- Thread starter
- #969
People do realize this thing is not going away in a hurry and it is very likely we will not develop a vaccine? It is a virus, like AIDS, SARS, herpes, Spanish flu - no vaccine for any of them.
We point the finger at Vic, but it will infect the community here at some point. Just look around you at the lack of social distancing and think what will happen when it does.
Border closures at best postpone the inevitable and they can't stay closed forever. They will open and when they do everyone will be at the same risk as they would be now.
We point the finger at Vic, but it will infect the community here at some point. Just look around you at the lack of social distancing and think what will happen when it does.
Border closures at best postpone the inevitable and they can't stay closed forever. They will open and when they do everyone will be at the same risk as they would be now.
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- Thread starter
- #970
This shows that hard lock downs can slow the spread of infection, but as soon as countries (even the best managed) slacken restrictions, the infection rate rises - the "second wave". Lock down again and you will get a third wave. WA as a state is not exempt from this, no matter what we would like to hope.
I don't know the answers, but I think it is simplistic to think that just holding infection rates down will fix things in the long term.
There will likely be a vaccine but as it's a coronavirus and not something like Chicken Pox the vaccine will probably only be 30-50% effective. So it's never going away and we will eventually have to go back to normal at some point, which is why many people consider the entire thing to be so pointless.
The only real argument for the lockdown to begin with was to allow us time to prepare (develop a treatment process and increase hospital capacity). Well it's been 4 months now so we are as prepared as we are going to be. Staying locked down until there is a vaccine is a pipe dream. It could be years and even then it won't eradicate the virus.
Like Cesoir says, people are learning the wrong lessons from Victoria. The lesson shouldn't be "stay locked down forever", the lesson should be that lockdowns only postpone the inevitable. Eventually quarantine will fail at some point, as it did in Victoria, and then we'll be back to square one.
I don't think anybody is claiming lockdowns will fix the long term (has anyone ever said that?). But it is saving plenty of lives at least in the short term. And it is giving scientists time to not only create vaccines but also better understand the virus so measures can be based on educated decisions rather than the ridiculous cross your fingers and hope strategy that many of the world's stupidest leaders seem to be using.
The problem is we've done such a good job preventing the spread here that (a) people aren't exposed to it and therefore don't understand how serious it is (it's not just about dying, it's about the permanent damage it is causing to many more people than die from it); and (b) people have become more and more complacent lately so if it does find its way in then it could spread quickly (like in Vic).
So many people guessing and making assumptions - just look at the posts in this thread for example (like the one directly above this one). We need time to have the data to make sure the strategy we implement has a good chance of being effective. Of course lock down isn't forever but we have shown it can stop it at least for now, and nobody is still willing to answer my question about what is it costing our economy more so than not locking down? It's not like the places that haven't locked down are doing any better economically - plenty of them are doing far worse.
The economy is screwed everywhere because of the lockdown. Even if your country didn't lock down your economy is screwed because all your trading partners did. But generally the countries that didn't put draconian lockdown measures in place are doing better than the ones that did.
Graph here
Ranking the global impact of the coronavirus pandemic, country by country
How Covid-19 has affected health and economics around the world
www.politico.com
Actually you can't show that. There's basically zero correlation between lockdowns and public health outcomes. Many countries that had no lockdown (Taiwan, Japan etc) were barely affected at all. We had a lockdown in Australia despite barely any community transmission. It was completely pointless.
What does definitely work is quarantining arrivals - that is why Taiwan only had 6 deaths total. But that is not the same thing as "lockdown" (closing down businesses etc) which has not been shown to do anything much at all except put people out of work.
Exactly. In that chart you showed we are classified as 'light restrictions'. We've locked down our borders but still 'light' - that should tell you something, yes?The economy is screwed everywhere because of the lockdown. Even if your country didn't lock down your economy is screwed because all your trading partners did. But generally the countries that didn't put draconian lockdown measures in place are doing better than the ones that did.
Graph here
Ranking the global impact of the coronavirus pandemic, country by country
How Covid-19 has affected health and economics around the world
