Something that I’ve considered but not done yet.
I want to acknowledge the First Nations people of all the lands we have been staying on and travelling through.
I haven’t been putting the names of country but will do so in another post.
It’s also called Kinjarling – place of rain.
NSW has reached 100 deaths this week from this latest wave of COVID-19. It will go to 200 before it gets better, is my bet. Seven deaths today. 1288 infectious people today and here’s why… ‘Maroubra partygoers fined after dozens of COVID-19 cases emerge’ is the Sydney Morning Herald headline. Nine men fined.
This is why we can’t have nice things and no more COVID.
Today was a big day for Victoria Dan, who finally declared that no, a zero COVID strategy was no longer possible. They had 176 infectious cases today. It’s going to go ballistic there again. He’s given the state to 70% vaccinated before opening up.
QLD which has had low to no numbers has a positive truck driver today. This is after they had a truck driver from NSW positive there yesterday. And South Australia has five active cases from truck drivers and even WA has two from those good old truckies.
Just exactly what the hell do truck drivers do? Apparently not just get in, drive, deliver and get out again! The lock out states have failed to lock out the bringers of Delta doom into their world because of toilet paper and cat food (note, I’ve no idea what the truck drivers were delivering).
The truckies, footy players, cricket players but not residents are able to get into QLD and it seems a bit shit to be locking out your own, vaccinated and COVID free citizens but OK. There are only 50 hotel quarantine spots and hundreds waiting at the border. These times are just crazy.
Meanwhile the anti vaxxers are spewing because slowly more and more businesses are saying yes to vaccinate their workers and yes to vaccinate their patrons. Qantas, Virgin, the QLD Police plus previously reported canneries. Get your vaccination and the certificate today – it’s going to be all about the haves (vaccinated) and the have nots (vaccinated).
As long as there is accommodation for those who are medically unable to get vaccinated – not likely the social media influencers and most of their followers – I have no issue at all with it. I imagine there will need to be some other way to prove that you medically can’t get vaxxed alongside the vaccination certificate to make this fair. Meanwhile, any doctor worth their salt won’t be falsifying anything – but the anti vaxxers have already been caught in the USA doing just that (with paper certificates).
In Australia, ours will be linked to Medicare records accessed by individuals via their myGOV accounts. Even my parents have cracked that safe now, so if they can do it I reckon we all can. Meanwhile I miss them a lot! I must look up the rules (they change all the time) to see if we can do an outside gathering. They are within five KMs but is it allowed? This is definitely more restrictive than the last lockdown.
Overseas, shit called Delta is hitting the fan everywhere. The Phillipines health system is in crisis as the infections rise and rise and nurses leave. China is going to use COVID as a cover to monitor their people. I say it is, even though the headline says ‘May’ because I don’t have any journalism qualifications and therefore don’t have to report without bias. I really wish I could but China already is a human rights monster and so, I don’t know, where can I go from there?
Back to Australia and the posties are in iso so people will have a four day delay to deliveries to NSW, Victoria and ACT from this weekend. Poop. But hey, I hope they are all OK and back to work soon, because they are one of the businesses reaping in the cash during the pandemic.
Talking of such – Jerry Harvey has finally been shamed enough and paid back $6m of $22m Jobkeeper his company got from the pandemic stimulus. I wonder if his wife still owns Domayne and how much they got? The numbers of companies who have not paid the cash back to the government but made massive profits last year is still pretty high, but the ATO has been chasing people down. Services Australia has been concentrating on the little people, which is a bit shit when we are all still in the middle of a pandemic.
The situation with First Nations communities is pretty dire Australia wide, with low vaccination rates around the country. I said to my lovely wife if I was in the lock out states I would be quietly getting that rate up very quickly. Frankly, it is a monumental stuff up that regional and Indigenous communities were left behind when they were so vulnerable. The ABC reports that organisations have been warning the government for more than a year that they needed to get this sorted. They’ve now sent a bunch of caravans (about 80) up to Wilcannia so that infected people can actually isolate. The vulnerability is due to housing overcrowding, remoteness and poorer health outcomes. 80 cases in far western NSW and most in Wilcannia – it will devastate the town.
On the plus side, Australian Medical Assistance Teams that usually go international to help out are out in western NSW to assist with vaccination. They are going house to house to chat. This will help because there is hesitancy here – see below for rant. Dubbo has almost 500 cases as the epicentre of the biggest regional outbreak. There are high numbers of Indigenous people in the community. The other problem out in the country is testing rates, which remain low. Partly access because testing is usually done in major centres and in cars.
In more stupid news about desperate people willing to believe anything because they may have education and language disadvantage and therefore are susceptible to being led by dickheads, people are overdosing themselves with horse worming paste. Ivermectin is the new cure all for COVID-19 according to those special influencers, including anti everything Joe Rogan, who turns out, has COVID. He’s raided his medicine cabinet to help himself but wait, what’s that? You don’t believe in vaccines Joe? I can’t even with these people. It’s just shitty that they influence others that are vulnerable. And yes, ivermectin has been flying off the shelves here too.
Globally we have now crossed 4.5million deaths and 217.5 million infections.
And then there’s Texas, who just voted in draconian anti abortion laws. Seriously bad for people of colour, poor and vulnerable women in that community.
Or Survival Day. Or Invasion Day, depending on who you ask.
I have to confess I was never very thoughtful when I was younger about why this day would upset so many people.
However, I have lately listened to many different voices on what it means to them.
Stan Grant’s ‘Australian Dream‘ speech should be required listening in school. It tells us why it’s almost impossible for Indigenous Australians to move past the hurtful part of being ‘conquered’. The injustices were still happening to his family right through to his own birth.
It would seem a little non-compassionate to expect someone to just get on with it when the generations have barely moved past the trauma of violence, abuse, discrimination and disrespect.
Somehow I did not connect 26 January with the First Fleet landing and why this was a bad thing for Aboriginal Australians. I’m not sure how this had moved from my memory somehow, but it had. I confess my association had become completely from my white privilege perspective. It was all about the cliches that are put out there – beaches, beer, the British inspired flag, white blonde girls, handsome white men in uniform, Vegemite, koalas.
Sometimes my own life issues prevented me from seeing the issues, as I was too caught up in my own.
Of course I was aware and horrified by the treatment of the local Indigenous people and the lie of terra nullus. I have advocated against discrimination many times.
However this year, on this Tuesday, it has been like a clearing of the fog in relation to Australia Day for me.
I believe that we, as a nation, should not be celebrating a day when people landed, some of whom were sent there without wanting to be there, and took not only the land, but the lives and dignity of the Indigenous people who lived there.
I now believe that the date of Australia Day should be changed.
Would it be logical for your family to celebrate something on the day when they were all murdered? Doesn’t seem that it would be to me.
I’m sorry that it has taken me so long to connect the dots on this. I can only blame my white privilege and my distraction for not seeing it sooner.
Let us perhaps ask the Indigenous people of Australia to choose a day to celebrate their culture, and where we can then join them in celebrating Australia since occupation. We should always start this day remembering that there was no terra nullus, that these people had been here for 40,000 years and were very much custodians of the land we all now call Australia.
No, I don’t think any of my ancestors killed any Aborigines. But that’s not the point. I have benefited from being here, born here as a white person.
I am proud to be Australian, although there are many things that have happened in the last few years that have made me pause.
This is indeed a lucky country and it takes nothing away from me to say that we were wrong to celebrate this landing day of 26 January, and while we may have all been ignorant once, we can no longer claim that now.
Change the date. It’s that simple.
Wishing you all the happiness the Universe can bring,
Tanya
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