It’s every man for himself now. Leading us off today is News:
Victorians are being urged to try and claim cash compensation from the state government for the “unreasonable” lockdown in a shock move that could cost taxpayers millions of dollars.
Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson has revealed she is urging families and businesses to consider pursuing compensation after the Victorian Premier announced he will extend the state of emergency for a year.
It follows confirmation that Jim‘s Mowing founder Jim Penman is offering to lodge multiple compo claims for franchise owners who are now banned from mowing the lawn.
“For Victorians who’ve suffered loss from unreasonable state emergency restrictions, there’s the option to pursue compensation,‘’ Senator Henderson said.
“The Public Health and Wellbeing Act provides this important right. Proud to stand up for those who need support including in regional communities.”
Under a little-known clause of the Public Health and Wellbeing Act, Victorians can seek redress for decisions by Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton.
I can’t comment on the bona fides of the case. What I can say is another very rich man just copped a towelling for similar, via the ABC:
The Western Australian Government is claiming a “comprehensive victory” in a key legal battle with mining billionaire Clive Palmer, after the Federal Court ruled the state’s border closure was more effective in preventing the spread of COVID-19 than any other measure.
In a summary of his judgement, Justice Darryl Rangiah ruled the border closure did not eliminate the potential of importation of COVID-19 from other states and territories, because “exempt travellers” were still allowed to enter WA.
Justice Darryl Rangiah ruled the border was “very effective” at reducing the risk of COVID-19 being brought in from interstate.(Supplied: Federal Court Of Australia)
However, he said the border restrictions had reduced the number of people entering the state to about 470 people a day, down from 5,000 a day in 2019.
“The border restrictions have been effective to a very substantial extent to reduce the probability of COVID-19 being imported into Western Australia from interstate,” he said.
That is not to say that there are no community concerns about the state of emergency extension, via The Australian:
Daniel Andrews’ contentious bid to extend Victoria’s state-of-emergency powers by a year is facing defeat, as a growing revolt from civil rights and Labor figures, as well as crossbench MPs, looks set to force a backdown.
As former federal Labor leader Bill Shorten warned the proposed 12-month extension had Victorians “freaking out’’ and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the Victorian Premier had “a lot of questions to answer”, Mr Andrews was preparing to compromise with crossbenchers to curtail the extension of the powers.
Mr Andrews is in talks with a dozen independent and minor party upper house MPs who are rebelling against legislation that would enable the government to continue to impose stay-at-home orders, business restrictions, limits on public and private gatherings, and on-the-spot fines for a further 12 months.
Rule of Law Institute of Australia president Robin Speed said there had not been proper checks and balances applied to lockdown measures, such as the curfew and 5km travel limit in Melbourne.
But it is necessary in health terms, from Hynch:
Back to the state of emergency legislation, which ends September 13. Only several weeks from now. Sadly, but in the interests of our health, it must be extended. Otherwise, come September 14, the Chief Health Officer can no longer enforce the wearing of masks, the limiting of gatherings in private and in public. And our police officers will be neutered.
But that extension cannot be an endless piece of undemocratic string. Originally, I thought maybe six months would be sensible but now I believe it should be a rolling month-by-month situation with all our Spring Street politicians holding sway.
That seems pretty straight forward. We need it. Do it. Cut the proposed length to ease community concerns.
Meanwhile, Coalition screaming about autocracy seems all a bit partisan, at The Australian:
Scott Morrison’s bid to keep national cabinet discussions and deliberations of Australia’s chief medical officers secret is set to be challenged in court, amid claims the Prime Minister is “abusing” longstanding cabinet conventions.
Independent South Australian senator Rex Patrick has initiated legal proceedings by appealing to Information Commissioner Angelene Falk after two FOI requests for minutes of national cabinet’s first meeting and information relating to its rules and procedures were knocked back.
Here’s Morrison democracy inaction:
Last night @AustralianLabor agreed with @LiberalAus not to support some transparency LAWS proposed by the @Greens, instead accepting an UNDERTAKING that the Government would forthrightly answer questions at Estimates. Watch what happened next. #auspol #BothAsBadAsEachOther pic.twitter.com/pBAHseZZ3J
— Rex Patrick (@Senator_Patrick) August 24, 2020
Nor is all of the howling over states of emergency legitimate. Some is political, at the AFR:
Relations between the federal and Victorian governments have turned toxic, with the Morrison government accusing premier Daniel Andrews’ administration of unacceptable failures, and criticising his request to extend the state of emergency for 12 months when he had “questions to answer”.
The significant escalation in hostilities coincided with the federal government coming under increasing pressure over coronavirus outbreaks in federally-funded and regulated aged care homes in Victoria.
The death toll is mounting fast passing 549 today:
#BREAKING: Victoria has recorded 149 new cases of COVID-19, and a staggering 24 deaths. #9News pic.twitter.com/pbE0667lFO
— Nine News Melbourne (@9NewsMelb) August 25, 2020
We’ve already seen Morrison butcher the vaccine rollout to distract from this. Bernard Keane at Crikey has the scoop:
…the starkest issue that emerges from Newmarch House is the facility’s, and Anglicare’s, inability to secure enough staff to replace those either infected or quarantined because of infection risk.
The report shows that, despite a torrent of criticism of Newmarch House management and Anglicare at the time, both took pains to meet and exceed regulatory requirements. Newmarch had an “exemplary accreditation history” prior to the outbreak in April, meeting all 44 expected outcomes in the previous accreditation framework.
Anglicare thought it was ready: it had prepared a COVID action plan for its facilities, had a crisis management team and had begun training its own surge workforce to deploy if there was an outbreak. But its plan didn’t survive first contact with the enemy: “the plan could not have anticipated the scale of the outbreak or the sudden and extensive depletion of its regular staff (including two on-site managers and its surge workforce).”
It’s here that the federal government should have learnt a clear lesson. Two days after the start of the Newmarch House outbreak, Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck boasted that the Commonwealth had emergency response teams to help aged care providers deal with a residential facility outbreak. Colbeck was unequivocal: “as unlikely as it might be, we have plans in place for worst case scenarios where an outbreak in aged care facilities mean local staff are unable to continue to provide care … while it’s unlikely, we need to ensure we’re planning for parts of the workforce being unable to work.”
“There’s every chance these extraordinary measures won’t be required in full,” Colbeck assured us, “but it’s vital we are ready.”
They weren’t ready. At all. Anglicare, as per Colbeck’s media release, exhausted the usual channels, and had prepared its own surge workforce. But after half of that was wiped out by infection and its other recruitment channels began to fail, it turned to Colbeck’s plan. When it did, it discovered “Mable was unable to meet the urgent requirement to identify appropriately credentialed staff … of 64 “expressions of interest”, there were just four suitable staff.”
…Colbeck assured us that the federal government had a workforce plan to cover even the extreme case of local staff being removed. But the plan failed, despite the best intentions, hard work and preparation of the provider and one of the sources of staffing. Anglicare struggled to cover losing half its staff at Newmarch.
For Scott Morrison to say, as he did on July 29 in reference to St Basil’s in Melbourne, which lost all its staff, leaving residents to starve and dehydrate, that “this was a new situation that had not been anticipated or foreshadowed at a state level or considered at a federal level”, reflects quite remarkable ignorance. His own minister had insisted that that scenario had not merely been anticipated but planned for. Problem was that that planning had been demonstrated to be woefully inadequate.
That is an awful lot like a repeat of Victoria’s failed quarantine mistakes: out-sourced, under-resourced, under-trained, blow-ins that ticked a political box but were designed to fail in the real world.
Both failures cost lives, the new low benchmark for Morrison and Andrews, death-dealing peas in a pod.
