Albanese blocks inquiry from investigating Labor governments

No decisions taken by state and territory governments will be examined by the Covid-19 inquiry.
This entry was posted in Federal politics, Legal affairs. Bookmark the permalink.

54 Responses to Albanese blocks inquiry from investigating Labor governments

  1. C.L. says:

    Inquiry to exclude ‘unilateral decisions’ by states.

    Unilateral decisions taken by states and territories have been officially carved out of the Covid-19 inquiry, according to terms of reference released by the government on Thursday morning.

    The scope of the inquiry, detailed on the Prime Minister and Cabinet website, include the vaccination program, broader health supports for people affected by Covid-19, international policies to support Australians at home and abroad and financial supports provided to individuals.

    While the role of the commonwealth, national cabinet and responsibilities of state and territory governments were within the scope of the inquiry, decisions made by states during the pandemic were not.

    “The following areas are not in scope for the Inquiry: Actions taken unilaterally by state and territory governments (and) international programs and activities assisting foreign countries,” the terms of reference read.
    ————————–
    Sarah Ison in The Australian

  2. NFA says:

    Not much point to holding a ‘cover-up’ then.

  3. Buccaneer says:

    All politics, all the time.

  4. C.L. says:

    The Gillard play book. She banned a Royal Commission from investigating state school rapists. This is what corruption looks like.

  5. Lee says:

    So, the Morrison Coalition government (admittedly bad as it was) may be investigated and possibly held to account for its role, but not state governments – mainly Labor – which were just as egregious in their handling of Covid (especially in Victoria), if not more so?

    This is definitely a political stitch-up by Albo.

    How surprising!

  6. cuckoo says:

    Wasn’t Andrews in a hard hat and hi-vis only the other day celebrating the groundbreaking of a new Moderna facility in Victoria? Why does it feel like more shots are coming, whether we want/need them or not?

  7. Fat Tony says:

    What it really means is that next time, and there will be a next time, we are on our own.

    There will be no justice through the Courts so any justice will have to be delivered in person.

  8. Buccaneer says:

    The Gillard RC was always a get square for the DLP split. They never forget and never forgive, just bide their time and exact retribution when they can.

  9. twostix says:

    The only thing Morrison really needs to be caned over are:
    – Abandoning the Commonwealth to an unelected junta called “National Cabinet”
    – Opening up the immunisation register to any tom dick and harry in Australia who wanted to use it to coerce people into taking drugs because they felt like making them.
    – Abandoning citizens of the Commonwealth to the insanity of state governments banning them from moving around their Commonwealth and then states going on a crazed rampage against us, up to the police literally fencing people into apartment buildings (Vic), and creating ‘zones’ where there were too many non compliant people and punishing them collectively for not getting a medical procedure done (NT).
    – Banning Australians from leaving this shithole during the depths of the Jonestown style madness
    – Turning his back on the Commonwealth privacy laws that literally class medical and biometric data at the highest class of sensitive data – and so banning companies from asking for or collecting it for almost any reason

    Hmm actually there’s really quite a lot when you think about it.

  10. Fat Tony says:

    Hmm actually there’s really quite a lot when you think about it.

    Like I said – we’ll be on our own come the next “crisis”…

  11. C.L. says:

    Phillip Coorey, Fin Review:

    The imposition by state governments of lockdowns, school closures, vaccine mandates and state border closures will be exempt from the Albanese government’s long-awaited inquiry into the COVID-19 pandemic.

  12. C.L. says:

    Same article:

    Opposition leader Peter Dutton said Mr Albanese had broken a promise by not holding a Royal Commission and had been “rolled by the premiers”.

    “If we don’t learn the lessons of what happened during the course of COVID, good and bad, by every level of government, how do we expect to go into the next pandemic not understanding what had happened in the previous one?

    “It should be a royal commission, there’s no question about that.

    “It should cover every state and the Commonwealth. That’s what the Prime Minister promised. And now he’s gone back on his word again.

    “It’s witch hunt against Prime Minister’s predecessor with whom he’s obsessed.”

  13. C.L. says:

    People understand that this inquiry has to be all-encompassing.
    Albanese’s sneakiness on this will hurt him.

    Dutton would be pleased with the growing number of differentiating wedges he now has at his disposal – on the Voice, energy, inflation and covid accountability.

  14. Rabz says:

    The imposition by state governments of lockdowns, school closures, vaccine mandates and state border closures will be exempt from the Albanese government’s long-awaited inquiry into the COVID-19 pandemic

    Politics 101 – Never set up an enquiry unless you know in advance what its findings will be.

    From Yes Minister.

  15. Buccaneer says:

    I think you’ll find Rabz, they always, always appoint someone to head the enquiry they think they can rely on. It’s the reason Dumgeld asked for an enquiry and the reason so many heads exploded when Sofranoff revealed he had more loyalty to the law than to the cause.

  16. C.L. says:

    I think you’ll find Rabz, they always, always appoint someone to head the enquiry they think they can rely on.

    Confirmed:

    Two of the three experts hand-picked to lead the government’s Covid-19 inquiry publicly supported Victoria’s hard lockdowns, fuelling Peter Dutton’s concerns that Anthony Albanese has been “rolled” by Labor premiers in excluding state and territory pandemic decisions.

    – Lead story at The Australian

  17. Ragu Namatjira Bennelong Schwab says:

    All covid decisions started in National Cabinet, right?

    What will be the testimony? “That horrible man, Morrison, pinned us down and gave us typewriters until we agreed to do everything his sick, demented mind dreamed up.”

  18. Buccaneer says:

    How can one publicly support something, then run an enquiry about it?

  19. Christine says:

    It’s already known that the “experts” panicked; already known how much damage they inflicted. And the main players are to be protected.
    Every day, Albanese looks more and more sinister.

  20. NFA says:

    Every day, Albanese looks more and more sinister.

    A dyed in the wool communist and his ‘gang’ leading Australia?

    Nah! Nothing to see here… move right along please… no loitering in place… things to do.

    Meantime, September 20 USA NY time, communist Penny Wong was at the UN to make sure the vote went through for WHO(?)…
    The UN’s New Political Declaration on Pandemics

  21. Mantaray says:

    Yes Christine, we all know how sinister all of them are…not just Albanese…. which is why none of us accepted being gene-jabbed. Facts are that Albanes is a fella like Orwell predicted….

    Recall that when he was asked about 1984, GO made the point that he was as interested in what made people comply with…and rabidly support….tyranny, as he was with the drive to apply and enforce tyranny.

    So…we know that Andrews is still the boss of Victoria. We know Anastascia is still Princess of Qld etc etc (with mad-lady Jeannette as Governor). We know they are mass-killers of human beings…and that a large 5 of their ‘victims’ want more pf them. Anything to be done about it?

    it’s kinda like being at the scene of a mass-shooting. Best you can do if not armed is find a hidey-hole… Which, if you are outgunned regardless is maybe all you can do even if armed..

    Wotcha reckon?

  22. twostix says:

    Yes well the problem for Morrison is that he created the National Cabinet, in fact he was so retarded and insane that he tried to create a new government entity inside the Commonwealth literally called National Cabinet where him and his premier mates were trying to run Australia junta style from a corner of Parliament House under Cabinet protection.

    Fortunately they were booted out figuratively and – kind of literally, by the administrative tribunal who ruled that the PM and state premiers can’t just go creating an entirely new arm of executive government inside the Commonwealth Govt because they simply feel like it, and had reverted to meet Rotary / Ted Talk style as just a bunch of influential bozos mouthing off to each other on Zoom.

    This is all thanks to a single SA Senator seeing it for what it was at the time: a coup.

    So there may be a witch hunt…but there was a witch running around at the time.

  23. Lee says:

    If state premiers (and possibly state bureaucrats) were part of Morrison’s Covid national cabinet, how can the states’ role in the whole schemozzle simply be ignored?

    Much as I despise him, this looks like a “get Morrison and his Coalition government” witch-hunt out of spite.

    It could also make fodder for Labor to use in the next federal election campaign.

  24. twostix says:

    Two of the three experts hand-picked to lead the government’s Covid-19 inquiry publicly supported Victoria’s hard lockdowns

    They supported this:

    Residents in the towers, who were not given any notice or warning before being locked inside their homes for two weeks, claimed they were falsely imprisoned by the government and were threatened with physical harm if they tried to leave.

    were given no notice. Instead, it was police who swarmed in their hundreds in the wintry dusk, bathing the estates with flashing blue lights as the premier, Daniel Andrews, was on TV announcing the lockdown.

    The residents thought there must have been a mass shooting. Then they discovered they were not allowed to leave their flats – not to shop, not to collect children who were on play dates with friends. There were visitors who were not allowed to go home.

    Even some Victorian bureaucrats are ashamed of themselves:

    In February I watched television showing the Chinese police nailing up apartment doors in Wuhan and welding people into their buildings to stop the spread of corona. I thought we would never do anything like that here. Then a few months later, I was part of doing pretty much exactly the same. It made me question everything I had given my life to.”

    All this and nothing to enquire about.

  25. Franx says:

    Acting unilaterally was a starting point yet decisions needed the national cabinet, if not for input, then for imprimatur, no?

  26. C.L. says:

    At times like this, being the vindicated man who was principled all along really pays dividends. Unfortunately, the Liberals – at best – quibbled a smidgen as the population was terrorised by state and territory gestapos. Like a few media personalities who are now critical of the episode, their enthusiasm for liberty increased in increments as the beatings, shootings and renditions died down. By the time it was safe again, they were Milton Friedman.

    I won’t name media names. Suffice to say that nobody at Sky News went out in sympathy when Alan Jones was disappeared for calling out the nazism.

  27. Fat Tony says:

    Are they going to investigate the purchase of 250 million lots of ” vaccine” by the government?

    Ten doses for every man, woman, child, tranny, intersex etc in the country – and the conditions of that purchase – warranties, indemnity….

  28. C.L. says:

    Acting unilaterally was a starting point yet decisions needed the national cabinet, if not for input, then for imprimatur, no?

    The purpose of national cabinet was to shield its members from democratic retribution for the crimes they were committing against the population. All of them were able to say, “twasn’t me; twas the national cabinet.”

  29. NFA says:

    Australia’s Shame!

  30. Ragu Namatjira Bennelong Schwab says:

    Catherine Bennett

    “People are the most important part of our public health response in a pandemic of this kind, so it is critical that they have access to the information and the interpretation needed to allay fear and help focus on the joint effort required to contain transmission,” she says.

    Barf

    I’ve got my turban on and have contacted the future, the enquiry will end with “all measures taken were necessary at the time with the information we had”

    Major recommendations;

    Online policing of mis/dis/mal-information
    More vaccines
    More strident measures to force vaccination
    Streamlined internal passport system
    The LNP are wankers

  31. Fat Tony says:

    Ragu Namatjira Bennelong Schwab says:

    Don’t forget massive fines & imprisonment for anyone fighting against your list of “Major recommendations” …

  32. If National Cabinet has not constitutionality, does that mean it could be subject to FoI requests?

  33. C.L. says:

    Nelson, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal ruled in 2021 that ‘national cabinet’ documents were accessible via FOI. Former independent senator Rex Patrick pushed that cause and won.

  34. Old Lefty says:

    Never forget that Albanese has, apart from a very brief period with the pre-privatisation Commonwealth Bank, never had a real job and has never had any serious interest in public policy. His whole life has centred on playing political games to do down his opponents.

  35. Tel says:

    Unilateral decisions taken by states and territories have been officially carved out of the Covid-19 inquiry, according to terms of reference released by the government on Thursday morning.

    The whole rotten lot of them were playing handsies in each other’s pockets at the regular meetings of an illegal organization known as “National Cabinet”.

    There were no unilateral decisions by the states … the whole lot was planned by central committee but we still don’t know who was there and what they discussed when giving these instructions.

  36. Tel says:

    Acting unilaterally was a starting point yet decisions needed the national cabinet, if not for input, then for imprimatur, no?

    Exactly … any issue that in any way touches up against National Cabinet meetings cannot have been “unilateral” and therefore fully within scope of this inquiry. That doesn’t mean they will bother to look at anything, but they are not significantly constrained by scope restrictions … regardless of what they claim.

  37. Fat Tony says:

    Well they not gonna make the same mistakes with the next pandemic/crisis – the mis/mal/dis-information bill plus general censorship will ensure that we will only know what’s going on in our immediate vicinity – that’s if we’re game enough to stick our heads out the window…

  38. C.L. says:

    Paul Murray spent a good 30 minutes on this tonight but neither he – nor guest Michael Kroger – acknowledged that the Morrison government did a single thing wrong.

    the mis/mal/dis-information bill

    First proposed by the Liberals.

  39. Fat Tony says:

    First proposed by the Liberals.

    Given their behaviour during the Scamdemic (as outlined by twostix at 1:52 pm), it’s pretty obvious the Bill was to be for their protection. The replacement scum are no better. Like the USA, AUS has a Uniparty.

  40. C.L. says:

    AMA slams Albanese cover-up:

    “I am scratching my head as to how you can run an inquiry and come out with recommendations for next time that don’t include a lot of the state and territory stuff,” Professor Robson said.

    Even the HRC:

    Human Rights Commissioner Lorraine Finlay welcomed the probe but attacked the Albanese government’s terms of reference for “not having a specific focus on human rights impacts and for excluding the unilateral actions of state and territory governments”.

  41. NFA says:

    kroger is a kommunist shill

  42. twostix says:

    Paul Murray spent a good 30 minutes on this tonight but neither he – nor guest Michael Kroger – acknowledged that the Morrison government did a single thing wrong

    Didn’t ole Rupert just hand over to properly to Lachlan?

    Would explain why I keep seeing people extra annoyed at Sky news retards being extra mealy mouthed about everything at the moment.

  43. Petros says:

    Interesting that Phillip Coorey in the AFR is unhappy about the limited terms of reference. He is usually an ALP stooge.

  44. bollux says:

    The HRC are a joke. They said nothing and hid under their doonas like everyone [almost] else. Should be scrapped.

  45. twostix says:

    Pro lockdown lunatics are only unhappy because they want everyone of them and their mates to be included in it so the whole period can be whitewashed by a group that they know they’re in control of. “Case Closed” they want to declare.

    Being left out means the door is open for a future investigation and also, in the mean time, we get to keep reminding everyone of what utter psycopaths they are and what they really do with power. Contrary to the vain fantasy they spun for themselves and everyone else as they ruthlessly seized power over the last 30 years, which was that in the critical moment, if they with their soft, tolerant enlightened ways, if they ever had unlimited power that unlike all the ignorant bad people that came before, they’d be responsible and limited and sober with it because Our Democracy and Human Rights and Rule of Law all that other faggy gayness bullshit that we now know is a complete lie.

  46. NFA says:

    what twostixsays: 22 September, 2023 at 9:30 am

  47. Lee says:

    Listening to the car radio while I was out this arvo, I hear Albo is copping even more flak from unexpected quarters over the very restricted nature of the inquiry.

    Pass the Kleenex, please!

    LOL.

  48. C.L. says:

    Our Democracy and Human Rights and Rule of Law all that other faggy gayness bullshit that we now know is a complete lie.

    Which is why when a Liberal/Republican/Tory government wins, they must repeal and demolish what the other side did. This is critical. Western conservatives instead accept what they inherit because they think repealing it will damage their fresh image in the eyes of the public. That’s why we now have a mentally deranged energy policy that is bipartisan. The LNP had one job: selling cheap electricity. That was too hard for them. Ponder that.

  49. Cassie of Sydney says:

    “C.L. says:
    22 September, 2023 at 2:47 pm”

    Which is why I can’t vote for the Liberals, and I’m not alone. And watch the NZ Nationals win next month and change NOTHING.

  50. SydGal says:

    Have been calling a few MP offices about this yesterday and today. The staffers keep telling me the states are conducting their own inquiries. All the premiers were lined up for their daily press conferences on TV! That Victorian Hotel Quarantine Inquiry cost millions but no one knew who engaged the private security guards. The money must have been spent on the lawyers for each Govt Dept/individual within the Dept.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *