Lockdown for lockdown’s sake
Mark McGowan may have won the recent WA election by the length of the Randwick straight, but surely Perth locals aren’t buying his BS around last weekend’s three-day lockdown.
“The short three-day lockdown has done the job it was designed to do,” the Premier said on Monday.
“It was a circuit-breaker we needed to limit community spread and keep our community healthy.”
But the lockdown didn’t limit spread, because there was no unlinked spread to limit.
In fact the only way McGowan could claim throwing people’s lives into chaos for three days was the right call is if there was a spike in cases over the weekend, as it would have proven a lockdown was necessary to stop a potential outbreak getting out of control.
But as the “zero new cases” sign kept going up in WA, it became obvious that McGowan got it wrong – again.
To still have Premiers shutting down their entire states every time the pandemic says boo after 12 months of knowledge, experience and lessons is nothing short of ludicrous.
How will these bed-wetting Premiers survive when we see an inevitable rise in cases once the world opens up again?
The way McGowan and co act, those in Perth can expect to be locked down time and time again. They don’t trust their own systems to handle an outbreak so the solution is dictatorship from a power-hungry Premier, and of course trying to shift the blame to those nasty Liberals in Canberra while convincing their constituents they’re “keeping them safe”.
Meantime McGowan this week said people shouldn’t be able to leave the country to attend funerals for their closest loved ones overseas.
What a heartless bastard.
We have a user pays hotel quarantine system that works, as long as your state doesn’t screw it up, to ensure people can continue to travel in extraordinary circumstances.
McGowan is all about deflection, blame and playing the hero.
Leader or loser? I know which box I’d be putting him in.
Official: The Oscars are cooked
The glorified woke convention that is now the Oscars is surely close to being done and dusted as a legitimate reflection of our film tastes and celebrations of acting performances and creative excellence.
Monday’s ceremony resembled a comedy skit as actors dressed to the nines and showing off their privilege lamented the world around them, as everything from George Floyd to poverty and equality rated a mention in speeches.
These celebrities get paid millions of dollars to star in films, live outside of the real world in gated communities, get dressed and accessorised by famous designers and then lecture the rest of us about the way things should or shouldn’t be. We’re all tired of it, and the disastrous US television ratings prove it.
Go woke, go broke.
Meantime the disconnect between the films nominated for the big awards and the general public’s movie tastes is getting bigger.
This year’s Best Picture winner ‘Nomadland’ generated a paltry $6.5 million at the box office. That doesn’t mean it’s a not a good movie or even a worthy winner, but it does show you there’s a significant gap between what we’re ‘supposed’ to like, and the reality of what we do.
Between films nobody’s ever seen leading the nomination pack and actors pointing their finger at us, it’s no surprise that most people have turned the Oscars off, preferring to avoid the wokeness.
A call last year to introduce quotas into the nomination process was just part of what’s been a gradual decline of what was once a prestigious event loved by movie-goers the world over.
A sporting miracle, Penrith style
We’ve been reporting on the Penrith Emus for a long time in the Weekender, sometimes with our tongue firmly planted in our cheek but always with a legitimate hope that their fortunes in rugby union’s Shute Shield competition would turn around.
After seven long years, the Emus broke through last weekend by beating the Western Sydney Two Blues 11-7, recording their first victory in 2,471 days.
Long the competition’s easybeats, the Emus are one of Australia’s real hard luck stories when it comes to sport.
Try as they might, they are no chance of seriously competing in a competition that favours the elite and treats Penrith like a bit of gum stuck to their expensive shoes.
Last week’s win means more to the players and the club than you could ever imagine. Up the Emus!
Troy Dodds is the Weekender’s Managing Editor and Breaking News Reporter. He has more than 20 years experience as a journalist, working with some of Australia’s leading media organisations. In 2023, he was named Editor of the Year at the Mumbrella Publish Awards.
