Markdun

Glen, agree. Potential higher currents (& reduced voltage drops) just more likely to show up wiring faults. But wouldn’t an isolation relay just do two things: (a) enable the pilot to isolate the battery after the blue smoke emerges (a good thing to be able to do); and (b) prevent a runaway burn out, short when the plane is shut down, ie. no live wires going through the firewall or elsewhere for rodents to chew through etc (also good). I don’t get how they would stop, say, a VR or stator windings in the alternator catching alight because a lithium battery has a lower resistance than a lead acid battery and may allow charging currents to exceed the capacity of the wiring, connectors or the VR and stator, or indeed a wire glowing red hot because it has shorted out going through the firewall.... with no fuse or circuit breaker protection at the battery? The lithium batteries we use are intended to be drop in replacements for lead-acid batteries in cars and motorbikes and have a BMS that is meant to handle the differences. How many fires do they have in cars and bikes? In my view, if someone wants to drop a lithium battery in their plane they should, in order of priority, do the following: (a) eliminate wiring faults and review capability of the wiring to handle higher currents; (b) ensure adequate protection with fuses and/or circuit breakers at the battery terminal and in the charging circuit as an absolute minimum (applies equally to lead-acid batteries); (c) install a current limiting device in the charging circuit (either integrated in the VR or the various DC-DC lithium charging controllers now available for 4wds); and (d) install a cockpit controlled battery isolation device. People with electronic ignition or EFI may want something a bit different too.

Bruce, that’s all fine, but do you have unfused wires from the battery going through your firewall; is there a fuse in one of the wires (AC) from the alternator to the VR, or in the wire from your VR to your switch to turn charging off? It’s not whether it works when everything is working but what happens when there is a failure. I’m cautious because I’ve had an inflight ‘blue smoke’ cockpit in a Jab powered plane I was delivering caused by the standard VR outputting to much current caused by a failing lead acid anchor battery, the VR allowing the bus voltage to exceed 15.5V, and the fool in the pilot seat (me) toggling the charge switch every 5 minutes to keep the bus voltage between 11.5 and 14V. Glenn raised the issue with my setup in that the lithium batteries’ BMS will isolate or disconnect the battery if voltage drops below 11 volts, in which case my 12V bus would be powered by the VR with no battery and this could fry my avionics. Worth thinking about.

My guess that instead of blaming the battery, the more likely culprit is the absence of adequate circuit protection in many Jabiru powered aircraft, including factory made. How many have unfused wire cables from the battery going through the firewall to the circuit breakers and master switch on the panel? No battery fuse! How many have no fuse or circuit breaker in the AC circuit from the alternator to the voltage regulator? And how many installations have yet to ditch the plastic Voltage regulator connector which has a pretty consistent burn/melt rate caused by corrosion and poorly fitted connections, not to mention that some lithium batteries and their BMS just weren’t designed to cope with the standard voltage regulator output. I’ve got lithium batteries in my Jabiru powered aeroplanes..... saves heaps of weight, cranks engines over really fast; don’t lose charge when not used regularly; and the battery is not wrecked if flattened. But i do have a 20A fuse in the alternator AC circuit; I do have a 150A (starter motor) and a 50A (12v bus) fuse on the battery terminal, and I have a voltage regulator that regulates voltage and current and doesn’t need a huge capacitor or lead acid anchor battery to temper the avionics killing voltage spikes produced by standard voltage regulator.

Me too. Because that is exactly what i did when i first used the ADSB....I called Canberra Approach (& it’s not like they are busy with only a handful of flights all day) and asked whether they could see me on ADSB at 5000’asl. And yes the SE2 is low power but I’m all 25nm from YCBR, maybe further from wherever they have their base station. But that’s irrelevant, I was told they don’t look. Area controllers seem to use every bit info they can get,including Ozrunways GSM phone positions, for example, when chasing people up for Sartime log offs (that is not from my own experience).

OK. I’m fine with ADSB. I have a declaration though. My brother, now semi-retired, was Australia’s (& one of the world’s) top engineer on ADSB. He has been awarded the Hargrave Award from the Royal Aero Society for his work. He has recently been working with the SpaceX guys getting global coverage by sticking ADSB base stations on their satellites. Some years ago Airservices proposed that ADSB transponders be fitted to all aircraft, including RAA, for free, fully funded by the fuel savings of RPT aircraft. This was vigorously opposed by RAA and others because of fears of the govmt tracking your movements etc. I too, like the SE2, but I don’t find it reliable .,, the WIFI bit. As I said before I originally got it to better avoid conflict with military Helios.,,& it does that. What I found surprising is that ATC (Canberra approach) don’t monitor it (I’ve called them on the VHF). On one occasion at 4500’ over Lake Bathurst I heard a GA aircraft request clearance into Canberra reporting their position as 4500’ over Lake Bathurst. I couldn’tsee them. I immediately contacted ATC and of-course they couldn’t see me on either primary or ssr (as I didn’t have a transponder). They asked what I wanted, and i told them safe seperation from the other aircraft. They then directed the other aircraft to a higher altitude. This is all in Class G. Since then I’ve often heard them give clearance to aircraft at Lake Bathurst for 4500’ to Canberra, but the CTR at that altitude doesnt begin for another 10nm. And this is why I’ve installed a mode C transponder. On another occasion flying in to Caboulture through Oakey airspace with an aircraft with a mode C we werehurrying to depart Oakey as they were broadcasting they were re-activating the restricted airspace (unplanned) and we inadvertently went into Brisbane CTR (due to an error in the electronic map). ATC contacted us and we were able to rectify the problem without the shit hitting the fan. Another reason for the old ssr. Another reason i went for the little ADSB SkyEcho is that I sail a yacht with an AIS transponder (marine equivalent of ADSB). That has been fantastic. Previously if on a possible collision with a ship you would call them up, ‘motor vessel at approx lat. long. on my port bow, this is sailing vessel Tom Terrific’. And you would get zero reply. Now AIS shows you their name, so you can call them, ‘Motor vessel Yashin Maru near NewcastleHarbour this is sailing vessel Tom Terrific 1nm off your port bow. Do you see me? What are your intentions to avoid collision? I will attemptto pass you port to port.’ And you always get a reply. And if you dont, you can always send an alarm message via DSC VHF radio which will make an annoying alarm ring in their bridge. Very nifty. The AIS data gives you their speed over ground, course, bearing and rate of turn....so it’s easy to compute how close you will get.

I’m told by experts that the GPS position and the ADSB out are working if the little leds are not red. The WIFI connection for ADSB ‘in’ is another matter. The point, i think, of the SkyEcho is more to make you reliably conspicuous to the heavies than to provide you with reliable info, afterall you are in Class G or E if you have just the SkyEcho and responsibility to avoid conflict is based on the unreliable mark I eyeball and neurons and uncertified brain software. Still its nice with the SE to notice the odd aeroplane in the sky nearby.

Like Kiwi, I have two Raa planes; one has a mode C ssr transponder, the other the ADSB on/out SkyEcho which goes from one aircraft to another. So I voted yes and no. I got the SkyEcho mainly to maintain better separation from military helicopters which often overly my airstrip at less than a 1000’agl, which is disconcerting when landing and taking off. A few things with the SkyEcho. Its low power, so the ADSB satellites don’t pick you up, & ATC (at least at Canberra) don’t see you. If your wives want to track you via Flightradar, then its hit or miss depending on whether some local amateur radio operator picks you up and plugs that data into the web. The LEDs seem to fail. And the WiFi connection with my ipad (& using Ozrunways) unpredictably drops out about 3 or 4 times every flight. I’d be keen to put a mode C xpdr in my Corby, but there is no panel realestate available. The EFIS (MGL XTREME) on the panel can work as a xpdr control head via RS232 but only for a $5000 specific brand remote one. Yet a remote mode C can be picked up for a couple of hundred dollars. Problem is they use different RS232 proprietary protocols and no-one publishes them. If only the regulator required them to.

Nev, I’m well aware of that. But ownership and registration (or safety) are totally different things. I once contemplated buying an ex RAN Vampire jet for a few thousand dollars, complete with spare engine cans etc. Probably some dry rot in the wood. However, the RAN had lost the aircraft log books.... nothing on total hours etc. it would have required disassembling and reassembling the wings etc to even get close to being approved for registration. ‘Static display’ only.

A couple of legal issues raised. First, false advertising is not fraud. Secondly all photos are old, it’s just how old. But that aside there is nothing legally wrong with using an old photo. Most advertising is what is called in Iaw as an ‘invitation to treat’ and not an ‘offer to sell’. For example a pawn shop had a pistol in its window with a £10 price tag attached. The owner was charged with the offence of offering a hand gun for sale. He was acquitted as the court found the display of the gun with the price tag attached was not offering the gun for sale, but an invitation to people to come into the shop to offer to bargain or to make an offer to buy the gun. In Australia, thanks to Gough Whitlam’s reforming government, it is unlawful to engage in false and misleading conduct in trade and commerce. This is reflected in both federal trade practices and consumer law as well as State and Territory fair trading legislation. But these statutes dont cover all transactions. They dont apply to government sales (like railways, buses, etc); they dont apply to selling by people not engaged in ‘trade and commerce’, like buying a secondhand car or aircraft from some guy on eBay or gumtree; and they dont apply to goods or services not normally bought by household consumers, say like an old aircraft carrier or Darwin’s port. The other thing that Gough Whitlam’s trade practices law codified was the the law of equity on ‘unconscionable conduct’ which I think in Australia includes the legal doctrine of ‘equitable estoppel’. What this means is that if a seller make a false representation (or fails to declare a known defect) about something they are selling, and knows you are relying on that representation, and fails to disabuse you of it (say by saying that buyers should make their own inspections etc), they can be liable. But this is quite hard for you to prove in court. I have only tried this once in court and it wasn’t looked at by the judge because I won on an easier to prove ground. in general the courts are pretty soft on false advertising as in their view a person of average intelligence expects ‘huff and puff’ in advertising, and therefore a lie in advertising is unlikely to mislead people. Hence, telcos for years got away with clearly false advertising of ‘capped’ mobile phone plans when in fact they were the exact opposite of what was advertised ie. instead of payments being capped to a certain maximum amount each month the ‘capped amount’ was actually the minimum monthly payment.

Ummm. The worst I’ve been in was on tow in a Schleicher K6 behind a supercub in NZ. At about 1500agl the tow disappeared from view below my nose, as I went to bung off I was then flung downwards, and my hands were ripped off the controls (I didn’t get a chance to release the tow) and flung upwards with the negative G (along with several years of dust and crap) just as the tug reappeared, rising rapidly from downunder to go upover, and which I quickly followed. Oh, the joys of rotor. But when i bunged off a very short time later I was in ultra smooth wave giving about a 1kt vertical climb. since then I’m inclined to believe turbulence isn’t severe unless you get dust and grit in your eyes, and perhaps you see that pencil you lost s year ago go sailing upwards and around the cockpit. I remain nervous of iPads and phones being dangerous projectiles off left on seats or laps unrestrained!

Octave, I know this is not your piece, but it’s this sort of incorrect logic that really gets my goat....particularly as it purports to be supporting the argument to get vaccinated, when actually it doesn’t, it undermines it. My father used to ask us kids whether white horses ate more than brown horses in Australia. We of course dutifully always said, horses all eat the same....their colour doesn’t matter’. And he would always respond with the fact that, in Australia, brown horses eat substantially more than white horses, because there are substantially more brown horses in the country. If we have only 5% of the population vaccinated, then even if the vaccine is totally useless, the overwhelming majority of hospitalisations will be of the unvaccinated. And vice-a-versa, if over 90% of the population are vaccinated and the vaccine is 90% effective, vaccinated people are going to be showing up substantially more in hospital admissions. And it then follows, using the same flawed argument above, that those opposing vaccination will use the same wrong and seriously flawed argument to counter the benefits of vaccination. People should learn the stats on horse eating. Or consider the fact that lawn bowls is the most dangerous sport in the country....the percentage of people dying while playing lawn bowls (or recovering in the clubhouse afterwards) is far more than any other sport. I say let’s ban lawn bowls or require participants to prove their fitness to play! I know, why not allow old guys who agree to never play lawn bowls or golf have more freedoms, for example being exempt from CASA or RA-Aus rules? two other points. First, people DO equate vaccines that are almost 100% effective, like smallpox, diphtheria, polio, with Covid. Even my sister, a very experienced triple certificate nurse does so. And the circumstances of the UK with their ‘freedom day’ which was followed by lots of partying by mostly young vaccinated people (with reduced transmission, but transmission still), resulted in a further wave of Covid with increased hospitalisations and deaths (hello NSW). Second, I raised the onus of proof as a serious question. The analogy with a drivers licence is wrong. If you fail to show your licence to a police officer, the onus is still on the police to prove in a court of law you didn’t have a licence (if you are charged with that), or that you failed to hand over your licence when asked. I’m not against reverse onus of proof per se, but there needs to be a substantial case to justify it. Indeed, I have proposed it in legislation I’ve been involved in drafting. Why not have to prove you haven’t been charged or convicted of spiking someone’s drink to enter a club? What about when you first register a vehicle....they usually ask for ‘proof of ownership’, but (and putting aside that being an owner and registered operator or not the same), they accept a receipt or statutory declaration from yourself, ie. I declare I own the car. And I’m not sure where the ‘duty of care’ comes into it. Does this mean a dodgy nightclub is liable when a patron is injured from laced illegal drugs sold inside the club? I for one have absolutely no trust in any government database system from personal experience. I was once advised in relation to my top secret security clearance that ‘I failed to disclose my criminal conviction’. I advised them that there was a good reason for that...I didn’t have one. But evidently the AFP reckoned I did. I demanded the reference to the court proceedings that recorded the conviction.....answer, ‘sorry someone made a mistake’. A person I know was declined a job offer on a police record check because CrimTrac unlawfully and outrageously disclosed to the company a juvenile offence (juvenile offences are meant to be sealed). I have more examples. Sorry about the 3 posts....not sure what went wrong. I’ll blame it on the NBN satellite, or too many tin foil hats in this place. Another great morning for a short flight around the local area today....strong 40 to 50kt northerlies above 5000’, but nice and warm at 12C, and an interesting very rough approach until below the trees and over the airstrip. Southern Tablelands NSW.

Jack, so it seems I’m not the only person with a perfectly good smartphone that’s more than 5 years old! I’d like to know why the reverse onus of proof, ie. why isn’t it up to someone enforcing the regulations to prove you are not vaccinated? If it’s good enough for murder, rape etc that the onus is on prosecution, why not for breaching health regs? Isn’t this one of those freedoms, innocent till proven guilty?

Jack, so it seems I’m not the only person with a perfectly good smartphone that’s more than 5 years old! I’d like to know why the reverse onus of proof, ie. why isn’t it up to someone enforcing the regulations to prove you are not vaccinated? If it’s good enough for murder, rape etc that the onus is on prosecution, why not for breaching health regs? Isn’t this one of those freedoms, innocent till proven guilty?

Jack, so it seems I’m not the only person with a perfectly good smartphone that’s more than 5 years old! I’d like to know why the reverse onus of proof, ie. why isn’t it up to someone enforcing the regulations to prove you are not vaccinated? If it’s good enough for murder, rape etc that the onus is on prosecution, why not for breaching health regs? Isn’t this one of those freedoms, innocent till proven guilty?

Bull, a couple of points about the ‘facts’. Yes, vaccinated people still get infected and pass the disease on....but much less (around 50%) than vaccinated. Yes, vaccinated people also get sick and die from Covid, but a great deal less than unvaccinated....around ten times less (this is the 90% efficacy of the vaccine. And yes, if vaccinated people behaviour changes significantly they can spread the disease more than say unvaccinated person who stays isolated, wear masks etc. so on this point only you are mostly correct. On your claim of a 1% death rate you are just wrong....where does that figure come from? The infection fatality rate, or case fatality rate is somewhere between 2 and 4%. But this hides a lot. For the over 70 year olds the infection fatality rate is around 20%.....so for every 10 people over 70 who get the disease, 2 will die. For over 60 year olds it over 5%. And it’s not surprising that in populations with high vaccinated rates have high numbers of vaccinated people sick and dieting in hospital....remember that 1 in 10 vaccinated will succumb to the disease just like an unvaccinated person. And in a densely populated city like Singapore with lots of high rise apartments it would not be surprising to see Covid infection rates high despite high vaccination rates and a more educated and intelligent population, because vaccinated people still get infected and spread the disease albeit less than unvaccinated. The question for us in Australia is whether to use the public health benefit (reduced transmission) from rising vaccination rates to reduce the incidence of Covid circulating in the community and reduce deaths substantially, or to piss this dividend away to open up for business and travel, accepting a significantly high ongoing death rate of around 40 people per day (again remembering that this would be a death rate of 400 people per day for us if we weren’t vaccinated)? Someone else mentioned the view of Covid being like influenza....it’s not. The medicos are learning it’s quite different....unlike the flu, Covid damages other organs than the lungs (heart and blood clots are examples) and also unlike the flu, Covid somehow interferes with gaseous exchange in the lungs. All this tells us is that it is just plain bull shit that there will be ‘post Covid’, or coming out of Covid, or snap back to normal. It will become endemic, and will need to be managed forever more. The question is how is it going to be managed, and like climate change, how will people adapt and the economy restructure to be viable into the future?

I’ve been busy finishing the second hanger’s doors, and filling in the soft spots on my runway before the next rain. I’ve done a few local flights and the Area Frequency is very quiet and there are all these bitumen runways (highways) with not a car or truck in sight available should the iron thermal call it quits. Flighty’s person A vaccinated versus person B unvaccinated does have some merit, but it is wrong.....stay with me Flighty. Let’s take a population pre-vaccine and no lockdowns. The R0 of the Delta variant in such a group exceeds measles R0.....around 8. So for every infected person...they reinfect a further 8. Introduce lockdown ‘lite’ NSW style and the R0 drops to 2. Introduce vaccination and the R0 drops to 1 (50% reduction in transmission). Give vaccinated people more freedoms, and the R0 will jump back towards 2, ie. the same spread for unvaccinated in lock down. This is the reason or logic behind giving greater freedoms to the vaccinated (ignoring their less, in proportion, hospitalisation than unvaccinated)....it is treating them differently to achieve similar outcomes (passing on the contagion) for the two groups. My R0 numbers are just my guesses, but they are roughly correct.....it’s very hard to determine because so many factors influence the number, particularly people’s behaviour. I would also add that in some European countries travel by ‘fully vaccinated’ still requires two recent negative Covid tests....as does WA. The challenge for Gladys is to strike a defensible ‘loosening of restrictions’ for vaccinated people that doesn’t see R0 going above 1 for this group....unfortunately her rhetoric, and experience in the UK and Israel, suggests it will.

Turbo, not only do you misrepresent what I said, the information you provide is not inconsistent with my assertion. Australia has helped PNG, but it has done the bare minimum. Other than extract vaccines from the WHO’s Covax program for poor countries, what have we done....very very little. The issue about vaccine availability is both price and supply on a global scale. Rich countries queue jumping (the queue of need) with dollars both drives the price up and directs supplies (which are scarce) away from those in most need AND has and is contributing to thousands of deaths. You used the word ‘stealing’; I didn’t, but morally I think it is much the same. Because Morrison spectacularly failed quarantine, vaccination has become a disorderly mad race for us. And yes Morrison did fail quarantine spectacularly. He even boasted that at 98% effectiveness quarantine was good......and this is with thousands of inwards travellers each week. This would be like saying aircraft safety is OK when there is a crash and burn of one in every fifty flights. At an effectiveness of 98% quarantine (a federal constitutional responsibility) was designed to fail (but I doubt anyone in government or the Dept of Home Affairs actually even thought about it). I have had a lot of experience in government both in Australia and NZ and been on first name terms with PMs and Ministers....most of whom’s political persuasions I disagreed with. I can’t recall any I’d refer to as evil...most were idealistic and doing what they thought best for their country, state or territory. However, I do consider Morrison extremely evil. What person with a scintilla of compassion or moral fibre would suggest that a policy to open the country up for international travel and reduce other public health measures (except vaccination) will result in increased deaths of loved ones, but that’s OK because you can go to their funerals and to church? And to boot he tries to moral wash his evilness with his religion. Morrison’s evilness extends beyond the moral. His prime ministership is increasingly fracturing not only the federation but also democracy and the rule of law. This is a PM who accepts his ministers spending our money contrary to parliament’s legislation. This is not just the rorts programs, but also Robo Debt. They knew Robodebt was unlawful, but they did it anyway and are continuing with it. Rex Patrick won his FOI case, but has the government handed over the documents or appealed the decision? No, they are just refusing to comply with the law. There are, or were, many good people in the Liberal Party who are now despairing in how it’s been taken over by the reactionary right that has a veneer of acceptability and civility, but isn’t.

Jack I don’t disagree. Some countries have tightened up their borders and quarantine so they can have a longer period, better managed, not so desperate vaccination program, buy vaccines at a lower price and reduce demand so more is available to poorer and more afflicted countries....like NZ, Taiwan, South Korea. Other governments have squandered their country’s geographic isolation, deliberately sabotaged their borders & quarantine, thought nothing about bidding up the price of vaccines (hey, because it’s the public’s’ money not mine who cares what the price is’) and reduced the amount of vaccines available to poorer nations...oh that’s us, Australia. It’s not just commercial and money, it’s also plain bad and selfish governments. I used to think Morrison just had no moral compass. I no longer have that view. He has a moral compass, not ‘amoral’, but immoral and decidedly evil.

This is not what I read earlier but nevertheless it says much the same. https://theconversation.com/most-covid-deaths-in-england-now-are-in-the-vaccinated-heres-why-that-shouldnt-alarm-you-163671 I’m not sure where they get the twenty fold reduction in hospitalisation (of vaccinated people) as the tested efficacy of the AZ vaccine is a tad over 90% and this correlates pretty well with the ten fold reduction in deaths that countries like the UK are experiencing (& which is a compelling individual benefit from vaccinating). But it becomes very muddy and complicated once you start breaking the data down by age cohorts. Regarding Israel and lesser extent the UK, keep in mind the testing and measurement of vaccine efficacy is NOT immunity to Covid infection but avoiding hospitalisation or death as a consequence of infection. Infection (& transmission) of Covid by vaccinated people is still very much a thing. Earlier research indicated infection and transmission was reduced by 50%, but this has effectively been wiped out by the increased R0 of the Delta variant AND the behaviour of vaccinated people....ie. ‘I’m vaccinated so I can go to the nightclub, travel and shop’. I don’t think it’s the waning effect of the vaccine yet....but I could be wrong on that....lots of vested commercial interests wanting booster shots for rich developed countries!

I was with you all the way till this Skip. The ‘not-for-profit’ gambling dens/so-called football clubs, Catholic club, Labor club, in the A.C.T. get tax free on the basis of them spending dollars on community programs of ‘their choosing’. So it ends up being a mates’ rotting of who gets funding. Sure there are lots of deserving community grants made, but those aren’t necessarily the priorities I, or even the broader community (in the form of an elected parliament) would make. Why can’t I then decide to spend money that would otherwise go to public funds via tax to my pet priorities, eg. I don’t want my tax money going to subsidise mining companies, agriculture or the military. I say make em all pay tax and have our elected representatives decide the priorities through appropriations laws....of-course this fails when ministers don’t comply with laws on spending public money (like McKenzie) or when parliament abrogates their responsibility by purporting to delegate to the finance minister the power to shift funds from one appropriation to another. (I say ‘purport’ because in my view that provision of the FMA is invalid as an impermissible delegation because under the Cth Constitution only parliament can make an appropriation, not the executive.)

Here is some data....might help when comparing proposed policies for Australia like get population vaccinated and let it rip, or as ScuMo said in Parliament last week, ‘yes, people may die but you can go to their funeral and to church’. UK daily death rate is now tracking around 1.6 deaths per million per day and many of these deaths are of vaccinated people (last I read on this it was just over 50% vaccinated). And this is after they have had Covid kill the most vulnerable. That means if we follow this approach....vaccinate, ‘freedoms’ and open up borders sans quarantine etc we can expect 40 deaths per day or around 15,000 deaths per year. This is still roughly in accord to my previous ‘back of the envelope’ estimate and is consistent or less than estimates of some expert epidemiologists. It is of-course much more than annual flu deaths, road deaths, or estimates by experts like Doherty which were based on low incidence of infection with ongoing TTIQ (track, trace, isolate, quarantine) and lockdowns. Second graph is vaccination rates. I haven’t included a graph of daily infections...but that graph does show infection rates doing the usual up and down waves, including in vaccinated populations. The big difference in vaccinated populations is that the death rates and hospitalisations are greatly reduced, but death rates and hospitalisations remain significant nevertheless. I agree fully with previous comments about us having to change our behaviour, like fly-ins to private airstrips, avoiding mass transportation (trains, large passenger planes, quarantine and negative Covid tests for international travel...as many European countries now do) ongoing into the future....ie. no back to the way it used to be. Covid with climate change is making it all very depressing....it feels very much like Neville Shute’s ‘On the beach’, with us here in Oz just waiting for the inevitable environmental disaster to roll on down from the north. And we also appear saddled with a completely incompetent government which is becoming less democratic by the second. I feel for my children and grandchildren.

Onetrack, like a confirmed liar or perjurer in the witness box, anyone who believes anything uttered by a politician without independent corroboration, is on pretty shaky ground. In any sort of crisis, truth from government is the first fatality. And to that extent Flightrite might have a point. However, we do have good, trusted and reliable sources of information.....like the World Health Organisation’s twice weekly press conference pandemic updates, our expert epidemiologists, virologists at universities, etc etc. Thus, it may be true that governments lie, but this does not mean the pandemic is any less real. As to the ‘rest of the world is opening up’, I can only guess what that means. Australia’s economy has been doing relatively good compared to other countries. Most economic activities and trade continue...albeit not trade based on movement of people across borders like tourism and commercial airlines. But that is just some economic restructuring (like increased working from home) that needs to occur to enable us to ‘live with covid’ without large numbers dying from covid. And I’m glad Australia’s is being left behind other countries in the Covid death league tables (though it seems there is a growing view we should join the other loser countries like the USA and the UK). I must say I’m pretty disappointed in the so-called ‘freedom marches’.....the idea that ‘freedom’ is a right to go to mass gatherings, nightclubs etc, but not freedom from arbitrary detention without trial (law just passed in federal parliament yesterday), or that people can be charged, convicted and gaoled in secrecy, or that our federal parliament has time to amend voting laws to establish a barrier for small political parties to fairly participate in election (mainly to noble the New Liberal Party), but no time to provide laws so citizenry can vote electronically. Spacey’s also got a valid point about curfews.....but I think the rationale is not infection control but police resource management. A person out bushwalking, or flying their single seat plane is similarly not a great risk of being a super spreader. I’m caught in the NSW lockdown because I’m at my airstrip, which ought to be in the ACT border zone, but because the ACT govt defined the border zone by where the postie does their run (postcodes) instead of LGAs, we are technically outside the zone.

There is quite a bit of published research on the effectiveness of the Covid PCR test. False positives are very rare...probably less than 1%. False negatives are more common....maybe 10% (a fair amount of variability in the research). So getting a positive Covid PCR test result when all you have is the common cold would be very rare, less than 1 in one hundred tests.

And here is Morrison dog whistling people to go against State governments and not giving a fuck about deaths. Not a lot difference between him and Trump. ’Our goal must be to help people overcome those fears and not give in to them, because this cannot go on forever. This is not a sustainable way to live in this country, without those freedoms that we all cherish. We understand, all sensible Australians understand, that there’s had to be restrictions, there’s had to be curtailment of what we can do during the course of a global pandemic. The virus doesn’t respect ideologies, it doesn’t respect any of these things. It’s just a virus, and we have to deal with it, and Australians get that. But equally, they also know there has to be a plan out, there is a plan out, and we need to move forward with that plan.’

Like I said, the current convention is that military use in domestic civil actions is that they (a) only do so on request by a State government; and (b) are under direction of State authorities. But the law is unclear....the call out of the military in the Hilton bombing was without a request from NSW and was without NSW State command. The question is the extent of federal Executive power. And yes the Federal Executive (ie. ministers and civil and military etc) ought to be subject to Acts of Parliament, but as we have seen in the various ‘rorts’ funding programs, and the Robo debt debacle, they don’t seem to care about complying with the law of the land. Most people are aware of the divisions of powers in our Cth Constitution between the States and the Cth, and that any ‘residual’ powers are with the States, ie. the Cth only has the powers given to it under the written constitution. But the Federal Government has asserted fairly recently that it has the residual powers of Crown discretion. If I recall correctly this was raised in the High Court on the chaplaincy program, along the lines that even if the federal parliament couldn’t make a law to fund religious activity, the Cth could use the Queen’s discretionary powers to do so anyway. The Cth lost that case on other grounds so it wasn’t tested. But Cormann still gave the Constitution the big finger by effectively overturning the High Court decision that recipients pay the money back, by ‘forgiving the debt’ to the Cth. As to Spacey’s comment....the UK is not a constitutional democracy, nor is it truly a federation of states as Australia is. The UK also doesn’t have separation of powers between parliament, the judiciary and the executive, nor constitutional sharing of power between member states and federal government, all of which were very deliberate elements in the framing of Australia’s commonwealth to protect citizens from absolute power. Yes, I know the UK claims to have some separation of powers, and has divulged some power to parts of the disunited kingdom like Scotland and Wales, but this is all at the discretion of Westminister.