Australia

[LFC]

The U.S. had Trump. Great Britain is still stuck with Johnson. Is the PM of Australia as big a joke as these two? This is an "interesting" way to try to divert attention away from one's poor handling of the pandemic.

Australian Prime Minister Says He Didn't Shit His Pants at McDonald's in 1997
The announcement came as Australia's covid-19 crisis gets worse thanks to low vaccination rates.

[andydp]

Jul 15, 2021 15:19:58 GMT LFC said:

The U.S. had Trump. Great Britain is still stuck with Johnson. Is the PM of Australia as big a joke as these two? This is an "interesting" way to try to divert attention away from one's poor handling of the pandemic.

Australian Prime Minister Says He Didn't Shit His Pants at McDonald's in 1997
The announcement came as Australia's covid-19 crisis gets worse thanks to low vaccination rates.

Was it Burger King then ?

[LFC]

Jul 15, 2021 15:30:22 GMT andydp said:

Was it Burger King then ?

Or maybe Taco Bell?

[pnwguy]

Jul 15, 2021 15:30:22 GMT andydp said:

Jul 15, 2021 15:19:58 GMT LFC said:

Was it Burger King then ?

They are called Hungry Jacks down under

[goldenvalley]

Australia called in the military.

Australian soldiers are joining local police in New South Wales to enforce a coronavirus lockdown in and around Sydney as authorities try to tamp down the latest outbreak of cases linked to the more infectious delta variant.

Starting Monday, some 300 unarmed soldiers will begin patrols in Sydney — a city of 6 million people. They will be knocking on doors to ensure that residents are following strict stay-at-home measures, the Australian broadcaster ABC reported.

On Wednesday, Sydney extended a lockdown by a month — until Aug. 28 — as cases there continued to rise. Despite those measures, New South Wales, the state where Sydney is located, is reporting 170 additional cases traced to a man who caught the virus but failed to self-isolate, ABC said.

Australia's vaccination rate is low.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has come in for heavy criticism in recent weeks over the slow pace of vaccinations in Australia, where about 14% have been fully dosed — one of the poorest records among any member country of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

[llewop]

The more news that comes from the east, particularly Sydney, the more I realise that WA is an idylic isolated island. I am ashamed and appalled at my fellow countrymen. So far they have had it easy. I dread what will happen when things actually get tough. It is highly toxic and getting worse. I am sure not crowing any more. Australia is rupturing.

[LFC]

Looks like Australia is getting nuclear submarines in response to China's continued aggressiveness in the region.

China on Thursday denounced a new Indo-Pacific security alliance between the United States, Britain and Australia, saying such partnerships should not target third countries and warning of an intensified arms race in the region.

Under the arrangement, dubbed AUKUS, the United States and Britain will provide Australia with the technology and capability to deploy nuclear-powered submarines.

France, which loses its own submarine deal with Australia, called the plans brutal and unpredictable.

The United States and its allies are looking for ways to push back against China's growing power and influence, particularly its military buildup, pressure on Taiwan and deployments in the contested South China Sea.

U.S. President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison did not mention China by name in the joint announcement and senior Biden administration officials, who briefed reporters ahead of time, said the partnership was not aimed at countering Beijing.

But Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the three countries were "severely damaging regional peace and stability, intensifying an arms race, and damaging international nuclear non-proliferation efforts".

Shorter Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman: "Pushing back on our destabilization is destabilizing!"

[LFC]

Dafuq? This sounds downright Trumpian!

Ex-Australian PM Secretly Appointed Himself As Five Different Ministers

Then-Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison secretly swore himself in as health minister, finance minister, home affairs minister, treasury minister and industry minister between March 2020 and May 2021, current Prime Minister Anthony Albanese revealed yesterday. And that came as news to some of the actual ministers, who were unaware that they had been sharing their jobs with Morrison.

Morrison, who’s still a member of Parliament, went with the classic “whoops-I-forgot-to-tell-the-country-I-illegitimately-granted-myself-extra-power-my-bad” defense during a local radio interview on Tuesday:

“Sometimes we forget what was happening two years ago and the situation we were dealing with. It was an unconventional time and an unprecedented time.”
– a guy invoking that defense very convincingly