Why anybody is surprised by this surprises me:
The decision to exempt the states from the long-awaited inquiry into Australia’s pandemic response has been slammed by business, health experts, economists and non-Labor politicians, who say the country will fail to learn the lessons needed for next time.
Despite arguing before the election there would need to be a royal commission or something similar, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Health Minister Mark Butler announced a three-member, 12-month, non-judicial inquiry with no coercive powers.
In other words, it is worse than pointless. It is a cover-up, most notably for Dan Andrews and the most locked-down city in the world.
This is a pattern of behaviour in Albo that is well entrenched. He plays the Game of Mates at great cost to the nation:
- energy cartels were pandered to, resulting in the utility bill shock;
- business lobbies were pandered to, resulting in mass immigration-driven rental shock;
- Qantas was pandered to, resulting in the airfare price shock and various frauds;
- miners were pandered to, resulting in national interest subordination to China grovelling.
- AUKUS is also a cesspit of interests as Albo pretends it offsets the China crawling.
Now, Australia’s preparedness for any future pandemic will be utterly compromised by Albo protecting his ALP political mates from accountability.
The more important the issue, the more likely Albo will allow it to be captured by the Game of Mates.
This is his history as a numbers man in the ALP’s NSW left where he was little more than a backroom butcher.
As such, he knows how to roll out a patsy to take the bullets for him. Albo’s go to liar, Treasurer Jim Chalmers, is back with more untruths:
Well, I said earlier, that there’s nothing preventing the states from participating but our primary focus is on the Commonwealth role. You know, I think your listeners Hamish, they want us to take responsibility for our part in of all of this, and we are, you know, we’re not doing it in a partisan way. It’s not about taking cheap shots at predecessors. It’s not about any of those sorts of things. This is a comprehensive and genuine effort to work out how the Commonwealth can do better in the future.
There is nothing to prevent the states from participating other than the terms of the inquiry.
