Horse 2890 - You Won't See Me

 

https://amp.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/greg-hunt-rejected-covid19-jab-hub-request-from-canterburybankstown-mayor/news-story/09c78ebb87653615a5d96f6812aaedfc

A Sydney mayor at the epicentre of the NSW outbreak warned federal Health Minister Greg Hunt in May the pandemic was causing “significant social and economic disruption” in his community and complained that the vaccine rollout was progressing “as slowly as Botswana’s”.

- The Australian, 21st July 2021

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-01/sydney-news-premier-wont-meet-with-hotspot-mayors/100422538

The NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian is being accused of "turning her back" on the leaders of Sydney's COVID-19 hotspot areas, after she refused a request to meet with them to discuss their concerns about the impact of the lockdown on their local communities.

Ms Berejiklian was invited to meet with the 12 mayors of the locked-down local government areas across Sydney's west and south-west to hear some of the issues residents were struggling with.

But the Premier declined the request, with an email from her office, seen by the ABC, suggesting the mayors instead pursue a meeting with Local Government Minister Shelley Hancock.

- ABC News, 1st Sep 2021

As it stands, I have now not been to work for 40 days. Not only is there exactly zero plan by the NSW State Government on how, when, or if, the LGAs of concern will exit our military enforced lockdown but to add insult to injury, the Premier of New South Wales has refused to speak with the Mayors of Western Sydney.

I am tucked away safe in my ark, of Blacktown City Council; safe in the knowledge that if I stray outside of the area, I will be fined at least $10,000 or whatever the current jackpot amount is. The only people allowed outside of LGAs of concern like mine, are 'authorised workers'; who work for government departments, major retailers who run 'click and collect' services (which are incredibly difficult to get authorised), as well as construction workers. The rules have been deliberately left unclear as to whether or not people within the LGAs of concern can leave to visit mass vaccination hubs; the reason why I suspect is so that the option to fine people remains open.

I originally thought that the Premier of New South Wales made the request to the Federal Health Minister's Office for mass vaccination hubs in Western Sydney but it appears as though that was wrong. Those requests came from the Mayors of Western Sydney; which were refused.

The news earlier this week that the Mayors of Western Sydney tried to arrange a meeting with the Premier and were also refused, kind of leads me to conclude that the reason why the very hardest of lockdowns were imposed on Western Sydney, was always purely political. Practically all of the areas within the 12 LGAs of concern fall within Labor voting areas at both Federal and State level.

Vaccination rollout also appears to have been purely political. We know that private schools in the Eastern Suburbs jumped the queue for vaccination of their students for the Pfizer vaccine, we know that rural areas and even some parts of Western Sydney had their allocations of both the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines redirected to the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney (which probably explains why my booking for the Pfizer vaccine was cancelled by NSW Health and I had to make alternative arrangements), but actually refusing to even speak with the people who your policies affect is some next level political knavery.

Don't get me wrong. I want what's best for both the Federal and State Governments. I want them to succeed in governing fairly and justly and I want them to be wise in doing so.

The Federal Government under Section 51 of the Australian Constitution Act 1900 has the power to "make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth"; likewise the State Government under Section 5 of the Constitution Act 1902 (NSW) had the power to "make laws for the peace, welfare, and good government of New South Wales in all cases whatsoever".

I need the governments to succeed in their responsibilities of making laws for peace, order, good government, and welfare of the people who they govern. When good people who mean to do good rule, the people are enriched but when unprincipled knaves are in charge, people suffer, groan and in times like these, die. Nations and states are girded and established by justice but the products of bribery and corruption are waste.

I need Mr Morrison's Government to rule well and we as a Commonwealth need it to rule for everyone, whose wealth and prosperity is held in common by the good functioning of the nation. I need Ms Berejiklian's Government to rule well, for precisely the same reasons. I also understand that it must be incredibly difficult to govern people who number in the millions, some of whom don't like you, some of whom even within your own factions and parties are gunning after your job but even with the difficulties of the job, we all need our leaders to rule well for all of us.

We need our governments to listen to us, to listen to our complaints and to act. We need our governments to listen to us because people who are worse off than I, are genuinely suffering.

They way that I see it in my reading of history, democracy resolves itself in only two ways. Either poverty bands together to overcome the interests of property and does so through the instrument of democracy; or property in fear of accidentally catching poverty as though it were a disease, destroys the instrument of democracy. The first and best note that needs to be played upon the instrument of democracy, is ironically listening to the people. By both the Federal Health Minister and the Premier's refusal to even so much as listen to the people, democracy itself is being destroyed and in the process, a proper response which should follow as the result of the responsibility of government which is peace, order, good government, and the welfare of the people.