exact same murdoch masthead MO was used to lie about Melbourne from July last year. Not just making shit up; but publishing made-up shit with complete confidence that supposedly more serious outlets will repeat the lies far and wide under the guise of “questions to be asked”. https://twitter.com/roberthoge/status/1349994678511259648

exact same modus operandi AND the EXACT SAME MADE UP SHIT STORY and what is the bet every ABC and ninefax political journalist will spread this murdoch masthead crap by repeating it ad nauseum because ya know QUESTIONS TO BE ASKED by arrogant and overpaid operatives.

incredible coincidence* that the murdoch mastheads publish the same made up shit about Victoria and Queensland but not SA and NSW.

we can all google a map but if anyone is puzzling over the politics of quarantine and borders I am going to post a couple of facts that determine and shape both policy settings and political.
First, both the national AND all state and territory borders are colonial.

Western Australia is massive, sparsely populated, has a huge coastal border and slightly smaller border with SA and the NT, both also huge and sparsely populated. The WA Labor government won the biggest margin in WA history last election. Solid mandate, low risk.

no WA outbreaks for media. The newsworthy items were “Liberal prime minister attacks Labor Premier [with massive margin]” and “Liberal Attorney General joins with [Liberal preferences buddy] Clive Palmer”. Both complete political failures for Liberal politicians. So, no news.

South Australia has borders with every mainland state plus the Northern Territory. A tiny outbreak saw its Liberal government (the Nats are a rump in SA) go early and hard with huge emphasis on cops and blaming a person of colour on a visa. Casual worker. Twenty Ds ffs.

all the heavy handed police and racist and casual-worker-hating bullshit in SA gave the media those stories, so the fact a Liberal Party government went hard and early - inconsistent with the Liberal Party/Morrison/Berejiklian let-em-die ideology - was obscured.

the Northern Territory. Where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations acted immediately and successfully and continue to stare down attempts by the Morrison government to militarise official responses with multi-track diplomacy.

the NT is also where the Commonwealth finally established quarantine facilities. Not a coincidence. Remember when the head racists were like Chinese returned travellers to Christmas Island; cruiseship boomers are free to disperse? Where do they turn next? The NT. Always the NT.

Tasmania. An island far away from the rest of the world off an island far away from the rest of the world. No land borders. Like western Sydney, federal Liberal politicians only care about Tasmania when it comes to buying votes in marginal seats during election campaigns.

the Tasmanian Liberal government (again, no Nationals) saw off an anti-gambling Labor opposition last election and keeps its head down to avoid Morrison’s bullying. Federal vote-buying in Bass and from disproportionately powerful cross bench senators is mainly what happens here.

to the eastern seaboard. Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland. And poor old ACT, with its Labor-Greens local government, completely surrounded by land borders with NSW and home to the national capital. With our federal government of let-it-rip bullies.

of these three “biggest” states - by population and economic figures, not geography - all are convict colonies (like Tasmania and WA) but Victoria and NSW have the most in common. Geographically smaller, more densely populated, global city capitals etc.

but wait. All is not smoothed paths for bullying by the Liberals and Nationals in these wealthy and populous eastern states, these dominant centres of money and power. Victoria and Queensland both have Labor governments. Damn.

I’m not going into specifics about border closures and hotspots and whatnot. This is just a context thread as to why Morrison and murdoch staffers go so hard on Victorian and Queensland government responses to virus outbreaks, regardless of policy and facts.