I check the news and once again hear Gladys whining about border closures. Even read an opinion piece where the author describes the border closures as hysterical and is surprised that other states are angry about NSW’s approach - and like, fuck’s sake.

Lemme break it down.

1/

Firstly, I’m not a person who thinks that each state should be governed like a tiny fiefdom (even WA, which would admittedly make a very large fiefdom), so I don’t come to these conclusions lightly, but I do believe that my stance is both logically and ethically consistent.

2/

Australia is a *large* country, in a geographic sense, with very sparse population distributed in dense clusters separated by extensive distance. We have a lot of rural communities, of course, but they are lower density and scattered.

3/

We don’t usually worry too much about differences between states, legally speaking, with a few exceptions. Traffic laws vary, and licensing. School curriculums vary a little bit. I learned the hard way that pharmaceutical management of restricted meds *also* varies.

4/

That’s when you need to care - but if you’re not travelling between states, you don’t have to worry that the traffic fines and pharmacy practices will affect you. Other states can manage that as they prefer. Not your problem.

So far, so good.

5/

When it comes to things that affect the nation as a whole, well, that’s where we want the federal government to step in. They have specific responsibilities (as I believe are laid out in our constitution, which to be fair I have not read).

This is all very straightforward.

6/

Here’s the problem:

(1) virus doesn’t give two gold-plated shits about state borders. The continent is an undifferentiated buffet of potential hosts

(2) how states manage their outbreaks DIRECTLY affects neighbouring states

(3) our federal government is fucking incompetent

7/

Because, see, quarantine is a federal Commonwealth responsibility. The big boss government is supposed to have a plan, and manage it.

Naaaaahhh, Scotty showed up with NO PLAN and state governments were left to enact hotel quarantine with 36 hours notice.

THIRTY-SIX HOURS.

8/

Federal are supposed to manage aged care. Did they have a plan? Nope! They claimed they “didn’t anticipate staffing shortages”.

fuck’s sake mate, it’s a pandemic and aged care is high risk - how the FUCK did you fail to consider that the nursing staff might get sick?!

9/

That alone is an indication of their utter uselessness.

Worth noting that here in Victoria we had terrible outbreaks in aged care, and I’m not absolving the state government of all responsibility but the few *state run* aged care homes did not have significant outbreaks.

10/

Scotty refused to limit gatherings until after his big Hillsong church gathering. He wanted to go to the fkn footy and was only dissuaded after he got dragged on Twitter by the Australian Medical Association.

These are not leaders.

11/

There are other examples - and please note I expect there are good people in the chain here, trying to do good work, but the ministers and executive apparatus didn’t want to do anything. They grudgingly stopped international flights.

12/

So the states had to step up. They had no choice. And most of them came down hard and took care of their people as best they could.

But each state had a slightly different risk profile, and thus they have distinct approaches.

And here’s my point at last.

13/

We shut borders with risky outbreaks because their choices directly affect us. We can see from our own experience and from global data that a small outbreak can take off *fast* if not managed.

And yes, we criticise other states if we think they’re fucking this up.

14/

The reluctance of NSW to so a proper lockdown or to mandate masks (they dragged their fkn heels on that), the determination that they won’t “burden” their citizens with harsh lockdowns, the determined pursuit of suppression when EVERY OTHER STATE has achieved ELIMINATION...

15/

That fucks with our lives. That directly affects what we can do. I missed out on seeing my closest and most beloved friends on New Years Eve - and let me be clear: NYE is, for me, what Xmas is for other people. These are my chosen family and I have not seen them in a year.

16/

I was heartbroken but it was the right choice because the FUCKING northern beaches outbreak in FUCKING NSW had spread down here in the eastern suburbs.

It’s all well and good to say that we’ve all got to make sacrifices, etc etc, but in Melbourne, WE ALREADY FKN DID THAT

17/

We did the hard lockdown - one of the harshest in the world - and we did it for fucking months. We (as a region) lost jobs and businesses because the federal government failed to implement a proper support system (state cannot do this).

We spent the year on FUCKING ZOOM.

18/

WE DID THE FUCKING WORK.

We *EARNED* our covid-free Xmas and New Year, we worked for it, we suffered and cried and felt ourselves withering in loneliness, and we should not have had to take steps backwards because NSW couldn’t manage their fucking shit.

19/

The contact tracing is excellent, okay? But that is only one part of a management plan, and the rest is full of holes (which I won’t detail here, partly because this is too long already and also because there *is* good work being done and I don’t want to take away from that)

20/

The politicization of masks and lockdowns is fucking reprehensible. It is unforgivable. It is disgusting.

And it directly affects ME.

So yeah, I get to criticize NSW, and it’s not like the rest of the country cut us any fucking slack, either.

21/

We are very angry. We have every right to be. Because NSW is taking more international arrivals than anyone else, which means there’s increasing pressure on their hotel quarantine system, which means it needs to be fucking airtight and it just *isn’t*.

22/

So don’t whine about closed borders to us, Gladys.

Don’t you fucking dare say we need to “have a conversation” when you didn’t isolate for a test or mandate masks.

Don’t you fucking dare tell us how MEAN we’re being, or wail about our lack of compassion.

23/

We are being compassionate- to Victorians who are traumatized and scared and need a break. We are compassionate to our vulnerable people.

The federal government left us to fend for ourselves, and that’s what we did and what we are still doing.

Stay safe, mask up.
-Doc out