The Eunuch Premier
Someone must surely ask the Premier of New South Wales, what the hell? (Yes, I realise that a number of us have been asking this for some time now).
In a recent radio interview, the Premier said two things, both, in their own way, astonishing.
https://www.2gb.com/vaccines-do-not-stop-transmission-dominic-perrottet/
First, he admitted that the Covid vaccines do not stop transmission of the virus. I believe he is the first leader in Australia to do this. His candour comes at a time when Australia has just recently announced the campaign for us all to get a fifth – yes, a fifth – booster. Several responses spring to mind. One, you have only just realised this? Another, when did you find this out? How long have you known? Did you know, for example, when your Government stopped the unvaccinated from going to Kmart and Big W, and the all other places? When your Government sacked tens of thousands of your own staff, at a time of drastic labour shortages? Yet another question, do you not also know that the vaccines do not stop hospitalisation, nor even death? This was the hang-out position of much of the political class in Australia and elsewhere, when it realised that its initial position – “safe and effective” – had been demonstrated to be palpably false. And dangerous. For it is now widely known that the vaccines cause lethal harm. There is hardly an unvaccinated soul in the Premier State now in hospital for Covid. Virtually all those who are/were hospitalised for Covid had been vaccinated. The Perrottet Government’s response to this emerging reality was to suspend data on hospitalisations by vaccine status. Well, that’s one way to staunch the embarrassment.
Now, the Premier’s defenders will say, well, he DID end the vaccine mandates for shoppers. And he got the National Cabinet to can the self-quarantine rules. His critics – and the number on the right must surely be growing – will retort, far too little, far too late. And you are ignoring unfinished Covid business.
His second gob-smacker in the radio interview was the virtual admission that he did not have the power, as Premier of New South Wales, to end vaccine mandates for his own public sector employees. You say what? Please explain. This is what he said:
Emergency Services personnel, including nurses and paramedics, lost their jobs during the pandemic if they failed to get vaccinated.
Many are now fighting to regain their positions – as the government offers sign-on bonuses to lure retired staff back.
Dominic Perrottet told Ben Fordham, he’s repeatedly told the public service to end vaccine mandates.
True enough. He told them to ages ago. It is just that they didn’t take any notice of him. Or, at least, many didn’t. The Premier stated:
In the areas of the public service that I can make that direction, I have it and it has been enacted.
I’ve also worked very closely with the private sector who have followed my position.
Yes, but again far too late, and with no sign that any employers (public or private) will entertain the idea of compensation for sacked workers or automatic reinstatement to their old positions. Their initial decisions to punish the unvaccinated were always unconscionable and without foundation. Morally bankrupt. The Premier’s take on this was feeble, putting it at its kindest. After all, his Government had the power to enforce the mandates. And the masks. And the lockdowns. And the curfews. And the use of the army. Oh, and the power to, in effect, prorogue the Parliament. Power to enforce didn’t seem to be a problem back then.
This is what one listener had to say:
John a paramedic, told the Premier that both he and his wife, an emergency nurse, lost their jobs due to the vaccine mandates.
Both are still unemployed.
“We are down in Sydney at the industrial relations committee trying to get her job back,” John said.
“Police are still mandated out of jobs, SES volunteers. Doesn’t it seem disingenuous you are offering $10,000 sign-on bonuses to nurses to get them back into the industry, and me and my wife can’t work, my job still hasn’t been replaced as a paramedic. It’s an absolute disgrace.”
The Premier was “frustrated”. Oh dear. He seems simply to have confirmed what James Burnham saw coming in the 1940s when he penned his classic The Managerial Revolution, and what many since have seen as the rise of technocracy. Rule by the experts. In which elected politicians of whatever hue are rendered mere bystanders, simply standing at the back of the stage and letting unelected officials take the microphone. And make the calls that matter, as they did during Covid. Dominic Perrottet has shown himself to be a political eunuch, without so much as a position to defend as he faces the electorate. Love him or hate him – and it seems there is no middle position – it is inconceivable that Daniel Andrews could have uttered the defeatist words of his mate north of the Murray – I told them what I wanted, and they ignored me. VicPol? Danny says “jump”. They reply, “how high, Mr Premier?”
Strangely, as Lismore commemorates one year since the big flood and ponders afresh the sinking feeling that we were monumentally ignored, the CEO of the State Emergency Service, which stopped unvaccinated volunteers from helping to save the lives of flood victims during the crisis, still has her job, and apparently, the confidence of the Premier. I cannot imagine that too many desperate septuagenarians and older, clinging to their rooftops for grim death as the floodwaters grimly rose, would have inquired of their rescuers, “oi, are you Covid safe?”. (The less said about the response of governments to the flood, the better).
Not good enough. A mere matter of weeks out from the NSW election, and facing the inevitable uphill climb of a tired, incompetent, scandal-ridden government appealing for a fourth term, you might think that a premier in these circumstances might have shown some spine at least, in relation to the greatest failure of governments (not just his) in Australia’s history. Interestingly, the Premier’s capitulation on 2GB coincided with the release of Ron DeSantis’s book, ironically titled The Courage to be Free. The manual for conservative leaders is now simply, “do what Ron does”. A manual that those on the right of the aisle would do well to absorb and follow. No such luck here. The Governor of Florida has shown that courage is infectious. Even the President of Madrid wants to make her city “the Florida of Europe”. “Fresh from freeing Madrid from lockdown, Isabel Díaz Ayuso is waging a war on woke … in a campaign that could ultimately lead to her becoming Spain’s first female prime minister.”
There are others, in Italy and Hungary, for example.
And we have gone over a thousand words without even detailing the NSW Government’s oversight of the destruction of NSW education and parental rights, the Premier’s Aboriginal flag-on-the-bridge moment, the wasted billions on vanity projects, the rail blunders, his noted absence from the Pell funeral, his failure to defend conservatives against feminist factional plays in the Liberal Party, his oversight of the Kean-led war on the energy sector, with all of the prospective power blackouts that this will ensure, and his MIA performance on life issues. So, I won’t.
Paul Collits
3 March 2023
Well said Paul. The premier needs to grow a spine and make the call- get out in one of those interminable press conferences without HealthHazzard and don’t talk to your neighbours Chant and announce the end of mandates for everyone. He needs to just do it! End of! No questions! Ask his department heads to explain why by the end of day why they haven’t done and rehired with compensation all those sacked workers!!!
Your NSW election will probably see a swap of factions in the Uniparty into the ministerial leather comfy chairs. Be comforted, suckers , there will be zero significant change in anything that matters.