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Comment by __john | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if they're using the current crisis to push through an agenda?

I couldn't find any information on which Australian states are in lock down but I'd bet the Northern Territory isn't one of them. Relatively few people live there. Do you see where this is going?

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The federal government is screwing many things up, but I don't get the impression they're pushing through an agenda that takes advantage of COVID. They've been taking advantage of every other opportunity already.

Northern Territory has recently had minor lockdowns. There is not much of a current lockdown in WA, SA, NT or Tasmania. Probably a limited one in Queensland if at all.

> I did find this map from 5 August,

5th August 2020. This is from last year.

> I wonder if they're using the current crisis to push through an agenda?

Seems like baseless speculation.

> I couldn't find any information on which Australian states are in lock down

Wikipedia or google news have the answers you’re looking for. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=COVID-19_pandemic...

As others have pointed out, that map is from last year, and additionally only one of the six states there were in lockdown at that time (Victoria).

Right now only two states are in lockdown (NSW and Victoria), with Queensland being the only other state with active locally-acquired cases.

    Do you see where this is going?

If you want to make a point, make it explicitly. This isn't useful.

i suspect diversion from the humiliatingly bungled vaccination procurement effort plays into the calculus, shifting anger towards something nominally defensible instead of protracted incompetence

I recently flew to Australia, and from experience I can tell you virtually nobody knows about these laws being changes. The one discussed here, the new "hacking" powers given to the government, the money being paid to Murdoch by FB and Google.

The very vast majority of Aussies have no clue about any of it, and the media is keeping silent.

Yes, this is the key point that people are missing when they wonder why there isn't an uproar. Most Aussies don't have a clue what the government is really up to. The media here is complicit and extremely consolidated - essentially all commercial media companies are sympathetic towards a single (conservative) party, Murdoch's media is openly partisan and has a dominant market share, the public broadcaster has been gutted and the board stacked with LNP stooges. The end result is all media narratives in lock-step pushing a pro-LNP message.

The media boardrooms are a popular revolving door for politicians to get the post-politics payday, and the media has been known to give politicians favourable treatment when they want legislation in their interests to be passed. [0]

The whole time, the media is telling the public not to worry, everything is ok - unless a Labor government is in power, in which case the messaging is that the sky is falling, tax and debt is skyrocketing, and they want to steal pensioner's benefits.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/28/business/dealbook/austral...

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