January 13, 2023
Australia Not The Envy Of The World
James Doogue
When asked if mistakes were made during the pandemic, Australian politicians commonly respond, "In hindsight, some things might have been handled differently, but we saved lives and protected our economy and now Australia is the envy of the world."
I suppose they think if this claim is repeated often enough, and not challenged by the compliant media, the people will believe it. And that's true! I've heard people parrot the same response. The problem is, we aren't the envy of the rest of the world.
The response to Covid-19 saw our freedoms stripped without barely a whimper. Australians endured authoritarian rule only rivalled by China and a handful of other countries.
We had extended lockdowns and business closures. Not only were our international borders closed, but our state borders were closed to all but 'essential' traffic.
Most of the population were compelled to get vaccinated and boosted, or be excluded from employment and attendance at public events and food and entertainment venues.
Police used special powers to enforce Covid-19 regulations and to put down any protests or dissent. For the first time ever, Australians lived under curfews. Rubber bullets, tear gas, brutal force, arrests and massive on-the-spot fines were used to put down peaceful protests. Some people who posted anti-lockdown material on social media had their homes raided, electronic devices confiscated and were arrested in front of their children. Often these people were detained in jail if they didn't agree to bail conditions requiring them to stay off social media.
The claim that we are now the envy of the world is demonstrably false.
Economically the forecast GDP growth for 2023/24 of just 1.2% places us 168th in the world. Hardly an envious position. https://tradingeconomics.com/forecast/gdp-annual-growth-rate
Of course the population will be hard hit by the resulting decline of the $A because we manufacture very little in Australia. So imported goods including processed foods will be more expensive adding to the increased cost of living for individuals and inflation problems for businesses.
Given our very high forced vaccination rate, you might expect that being the envy of the world would place us at the bottom of the list in terms of Covid-19 infections per 100,000 population. In fact with more than 44,000 cases per 100,000 population, Australia ranks 30 out of 227 reporting countries and territories. That's well within the top 15% of the most infected countries in the world. https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2020/health/coronavirus-maps-and-cases/
It's probably only our excellent hybrid public/private health system which kept the number of Covid-19 deaths to 70 per 100,000, keeping us only just outside the top half of the world. That death rate certainly doesn't place us in an envious position compared to most of Central and Southeast Asia and Pacific nations with which we share a similar climate. https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2020/health/coronavirus-maps-and-cases/
If you needed more evidence that Australia is hardly the envy of the world post Covid-19, you need only look at the precipitous decline of our cities in the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), and 2022’s Global Liveability Index. https://7news.com.au/sunrise/on-the-show/australian-cities-fall-significantly-in-list-of-the-worlds-most-liveable-cities-for-2022-c-7280395.amp
'Despite having topped the list in the past, Melbourne fell to 10th place in 2022.
In 2021, Australia dominated the EIU index, with Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth all joining Melbourne in the top 10.
This year, they rank 27th, 30th and 32nd respectively.
The index cited a slow lifting of COVID-19 restrictions as the reason for those state capitals losing ground.
The top 10 cities were among those with few COVID-19 restrictions, the report noted, with shops, schools and restaurants reopening, and pandemic-led hospitalisation declining.'
We need to hold our politicians to account for the unjustified measures and outrageous spending which they undertook without proper cost benefit analysis. They claimed they were acting in the best health advice but shut down any advice which disagreed with them. We shouldn't now let politicians get away with the false claim we are the envy of the world.
When asked if mistakes were made during the pandemic, Australian politicians commonly respond, "In hindsight, some things might have been handled differently, but we saved lives and protected our economy and now Australia is the envy of the world."
I suppose they think if this claim is repeated often enough, and not challenged by the compliant media, the people will believe it. And that's true! I've heard people parrot the same response. The problem is, we aren't the envy of the rest of the world.
The response to Covid-19 saw our freedoms stripped without barely a whimper. Australians endured authoritarian rule only rivalled by China and a handful of other countries.
We had extended lockdowns and business closures. Not only were our international borders closed, but our state borders were closed to all but 'essential' traffic.
Most of the population were compelled to get vaccinated and boosted, or be excluded from employment and attendance at public events and food and entertainment venues.
Police used special powers to enforce Covid-19 regulations and to put down any protests or dissent. For the first time ever, Australians lived under curfews. Rubber bullets, tear gas, brutal force, arrests and massive on-the-spot fines were used to put down peaceful protests. Some people who posted anti-lockdown material on social media had their homes raided, electronic devices confiscated and were arrested in front of their children. Often these people were detained in jail if they didn't agree to bail conditions requiring them to stay off social media.
The claim that we are now the envy of the world is demonstrably false.
Economically the forecast GDP growth for 2023/24 of just 1.2% places us 168th in the world. Hardly an envious position. https://tradingeconomics.com/forecast/gdp-annual-growth-rate
Of course the population will be hard hit by the resulting decline of the $A because we manufacture very little in Australia. So imported goods including processed foods will be more expensive adding to the increased cost of living for individuals and inflation problems for businesses.
Given our very high forced vaccination rate, you might expect that being the envy of the world would place us at the bottom of the list in terms of Covid-19 infections per 100,000 population. In fact with more than 44,000 cases per 100,000 population, Australia ranks 30 out of 227 reporting countries and territories. That's well within the top 15% of the most infected countries in the world. https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2020/health/coronavirus-maps-and-cases/
It's probably only our excellent hybrid public/private health system which kept the number of Covid-19 deaths to 70 per 100,000, keeping us only just outside the top half of the world. That death rate certainly doesn't place us in an envious position compared to most of Central and Southeast Asia and Pacific nations with which we share a similar climate. https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2020/health/coronavirus-maps-and-cases/
If you needed more evidence that Australia is hardly the envy of the world post Covid-19, you need only look at the precipitous decline of our cities in the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), and 2022’s Global Liveability Index. https://7news.com.au/sunrise/on-the-show/australian-cities-fall-significantly-in-list-of-the-worlds-most-liveable-cities-for-2022-c-7280395.amp
'Despite having topped the list in the past, Melbourne fell to 10th place in 2022.
In 2021, Australia dominated the EIU index, with Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth all joining Melbourne in the top 10.
This year, they rank 27th, 30th and 32nd respectively.
The index cited a slow lifting of COVID-19 restrictions as the reason for those state capitals losing ground.
The top 10 cities were among those with few COVID-19 restrictions, the report noted, with shops, schools and restaurants reopening, and pandemic-led hospitalisation declining.'
We need to hold our politicians to account for the unjustified measures and outrageous spending which they undertook without proper cost benefit analysis. They claimed they were acting in the best health advice but shut down any advice which disagreed with them. We shouldn't now let politicians get away with the false claim we are the envy of the world.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
09:46 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 654 words, total size 5 kb.
25kb generated in CPU 0.1685, elapsed 0.3883 seconds.
35 queries taking 0.3719 seconds, 182 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
35 queries taking 0.3719 seconds, 182 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
