So, the Prime Minister's popularity has dropped?

This is hardly surprising. You see the Prime Minister is to blame for the Covid19 virus and all the mistakes that have been made. It is not the fault of the virus or any official or any worker or any partying teen or anyone else. The Premier of the hardest hit state on the other hand is doing a brilliant job. He has done everything right.

Yes, I am being sarcastic of course. Over the past few weeks the media has been hard at it. At first the situation was too serious and there was too much else to report but then "stories" which seemed too good not to use started to surface. Questions over who allowed the passengers from the ill-fated "Ruby Princess" to disembark started to emerge.  Then more started to emerge about how people were being quarantined in hotels.

Sections of the media, well known for bias, started to get fired up. Here were issues that would allow them to get back to undermining the government. It didn't, and still doesn't, matter if the commentary was and is unjustified. The important thing is to "sell news" and "increase the ratings".

Now I happen to know that the Prime Minister, the Minister for Health and the Minister for Aged Care - to name just a few - have been working for more than eighty hours a week. Even when he was "on holiday" the Prime Minister was working more than forty hours a week. They are exhausted and there is no end in sight. They are not being thanked or supported. They are simply trying to get on with the job.

    "They should have had a plan" and "They should have known what to do" and "They had the example of the rest of the world". We are being told all this. The reality of course is that no pandemic can be planned for and so little was known that they could not have known what to do. The rest of the world could not be used as an example of what to do.  We have done far better than most, not well enough perhaps but still far better than most. That said we are not China where the CCP could order people to stay indoors and even forcibly restrain some from leaving their homes.

The Opposition, sensing victory at the next election, is naturally going in as hard as it can.Of course mistakes have been made. Of course things, especially with the benefit of hindsight, could have been done differently. Every slip up is being blown out of all proportion. Not able to answer a question about statistics? You are incompetent. Not able to say who was in charge? You aren't running the department properly. Blame is being placed wrongly and unfairly on people who are not responsible for decision making. Others who have made poor decisions are being protected  in the interests of getting a change of government at the next election.

Yes, they are likely to succeed. It doesn't matter to these people if others lose their lives in this "game". This is "politics". It is brutal. 

I am reminded however of the story I was told by a now former Senator. She was a Minister at the time of the incident. Something needed to be done. She asked that it be done. It was not done. She sent an order that it be done. It was still not done. She had the head of the relevant government department in and asked why it had not been done. He said he had ordered it be done. This situation went on for some time. Eventually the person who should have overseen that this something should have been done was asked again why it had not been done,

    "It's not policy."

    "You were asked to do it. It is government policy."

    "It isn't departmental policy. It can't be done."

What was happening was that the person who should have been overseeing the implementation of the policy saw an opportunity to undermine the government. They were simply refusing to implement a policy, one on which the government had been elected. 

This story was later confirmed to me by one of the "public servants" involved. Like some sections of the media they were trying to ensure a change of government at the next election. They didn't even see this as undemocratic.