October depaNews

The NSW Liberal Party this morning conducted a ballot to choose between two highly religious white men to replace Gladys Berejiklian following her resignation on Friday 1 October. Ms Berejiklian resigned in anticipation of an investigation by the ICAC and isn’t the first person to complain that an ICAC investigation into their behaviour was poorly timed.

In a contest that takes us back to the sixteenth century, there were two candidates to become Premier, the current Treasurer, Dominic Perrottet and Planning Minister, Rob Stokes, with Perrottet defeating Stokes 39 votes to 5. Dominic has more children than poor Rob had votes.

Dominic Perrottet is a conservative, white male Roman Catholic, and is seen as a religious extremist opposed to progressive agendas, who welcomed the election of Donald Trump as “a victory for people who have been taken for granted by the elites in the political establishment for too long”, defended those who question “man-made climate change”, and as an opponent to gender equality.

A little like Gladys, as Treasurer he was able to survive the fiasco of the government’s Workers Compensation Insurer (“I (don’t) Care), and establish the Transport Asset Holding Entity, TAHE, described by former NSW Auditor-General Tony Harris as “a vehicle designed to own Sydney’s rail assets and to hide government rail transport expenses“.

Mr Perrottet has six children, which is a lot by any measure, and if you go to the Liberal Party NSW site for a profile on the Member for Epping, you find that “Dominic is married to Helen and they are the proud parents at Charlotte, Amelia and Annabelle". That must be a bit of a bummer for the other three kids.

His opponent, former Minister for Planning and Open Spaces, Rob Stokes, is a conservative white male Anglican, with, amongst other things, a Degree in Theology, and is also seen as a religious extremist opposed to progressive agendas. Both voted against decriminalising abortion and will oppose a vote for assisted dying in a Bill being brought before the NSW Parliament by Independent member for Sydney, Alex Greenwich. John Barilaro, the resigning leader of the National Party, experienced the misery of an agonising inevitable death for a loved one, and realised the importance of assisted dying for those who choose it, neither of the candidates are prepared to provide that option, choosing the miserable, lingering agony of death. Lovely.

Hard to distinguish between the two candidates, in the sixteenth century cheeky Catholics took the Pope on and started the Reformation, and while there was a time back in the 1950s and 1960s when careers in the New South Wales Public Sector were affected by whether you were a Catholic or Protestant (or more accurately, a Catholic or Protestant bloke) those days are now well behind us - with the clear expectation that when this year’s Census results are released, we will see fewer than half Australians ticking Christianity. Ours is a changing society, but there was no evidence of that in the Liberal Party meeting this morning - more a choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Last week in the US, President Joe Biden mourned “the painful milestone” of 700,000 American deaths from COVID-19 - with the worst statistic being that the last 100,000 deaths occurred when the vaccines, which, described by the SMH on 5 October as “overwhelmingly prevent deaths, hospitalisations and serious illness”, were available to any American over the age of 12.

In the National Mall in Washington, 700,000 white flags commemorated those deaths.

The Herald reports, “The Milestone is deeply frustrating to doctors, public health officials and the American public, who watched a pandemic that had been easing earlier in the summer take a dark turn. Tens of millions of Americans have refused to get vaccinated, allowing the highly contagious delta variant to tear through the country and send the death toll from 600,000 to 700,000 in 3 ½ months.” And it shows no sign of stopping.

In lessons for us, if we needed more evidence, 70% of the deaths were in unvaccinated people, “and of those vaccinated people who died with breakthrough infections, most caught the virus from an unvaccinated person.”

The last issue of depaNews should not have been confronting or surprising. Everyone was sick of lockdown and we’ve all had five more weeks of it – now over 100 days in Sydney and surrounds. Infection numbers are slowly coming down, we’re all getting desensitised and it’s a positive sign that in NSW Health figures on 5 October, there were “only” seven people who died and we’re down to 608 cases.

NSW Health also announced that 88.5% of the state’s eligible population 16 and over have had a first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, while 67.5% are fully vaccinated - tantalisingly close to the 70% fully vaccinated to allow the relaxation of restrictions.

We had a few members unhappy with the message, wanting to reserve their rights to remain unvaccinated and have depa advocate for them when the inevitable mandatory vaccination restrictions are imposed at work. Overwhelmingly the response was supportive. Members from all over the state with one responding, “thank you for your support of mandatory vaccination and for the no fuss no-frills clarity”. “No fuss no-frills clarity”, that should be on the depaNews masthead.

Even an unprecedented thank you and congratulations from one GM who, to be kind, has shared a mutual psychopathic antagonism with us for decades. Odd bedfellows, indeed.

There was lively debate, someone who should have known better defended their position by saying “I note the NSW Health Orders don’t currently allow local governments to require the whole of our workforce to be vaccinated” (which was wrong), some flimsy defence of the right to remain unvaccinated, “I know people with side effects from jabs, I am yet to meet someone whose (sic) had Covid”, some confusion about what our role was, emphasised like this “ Are you for real, you represent me, not the Council. I pay YOU the union fees. NOT the Council!” Noting the employer’s onerous obligations under the Work Health Safety Act, and what that will mean for employees, is not representing the Council, it’s recognising the reality.

And some sensible discussion as well, with one poor person complaining that already in social situations they’re being asked about their vaccination status and finding it uncomfortable - so life was going to get increasingly more difficult for that person.

Councils are well-advanced in how to deal with the inevitable return to the office. While we’re not briefed on all councils, there are substantial steps being taken with surveys of staff to test their attitude on mandatory vaccination and their anxiety about allowing unvaccinated people to mix freely with those who are vaccinated. It’s only a matter of time now before councils, based upon overwhelming support from their workforce, lock the unvaccinated out.

The NSW Supreme Court last week heard arguments from a mixed bag of opponents of mandatory vaccination and a decision is reserved. But the argument in favour of mandatory vaccination is increasingly compelling.

It’s all about the law, about safe workplaces, and last issue we provided a copy of our barrister’s legal advice to us, and here you can see his compelling and overwhelming presentation circulating in the legal profession, councils and unions, providing even more support.