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Self Employed Australia

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Covid-19

Justice and Not Above the Law: Class action to bankrupt Victoria?

May 24, 2023 by Self-Employed Australia

not-above-the-lawIt can take a long time for justice and the rule of law to hold people accountable (particularly powerful people), where such accountability is proven to be warranted.

We made our attempt in Victoria to require WorkSafe to hold people (powerful people) accountable for the failures of the 2020 Hotel Quarantine disaster which resulted in 801 deaths. The Victorian Supreme Court ‘knocked us out’ on a technicality which meant that the Court did not have to rule on WorkSafe’s refusal to do its job!

Discernable recently interviewed SEA’s Ken Phillips (Executive Director) and Nick Karamouzis (Chair) where we gave a full report (26min).

But this issue is not over—not by the (proverbial) long shot! A class action for damages is proceeding in the Victorian Supreme Court with considerable success so far.

Class action—Victoria

The class action by the international legal firm, Quinn Emanuel, is suing for damages inflicted on the thousands of businesses forced into lockdown during 2020. As with SEA’s application,  the state government attempted to have the application knocked out on technical grounds. But the Full Court of the Supreme Court has dismissed the government’s attempt. The action now progresses. Speculation is that a successful ruling could result in a payout to affected businesses in the many billions of dollars, even enough to bankrupt Victoria.

You can follow the class action here.

Michigan class action took nine years

It’s instructive to note the successful class action in the US state of Michigan where the ex-Governor and eight other government officials faced criminal charges, including manslaughter. This happened after a government-induced health crisis in the city of Flint in 2014. The crisis resulted in twelve deaths and some 90 cases of Legionnaires’ disease.

Just this month the Michigan Supreme Court awarded $US600 million ($A900 million) to finalise the class action for damages—a damages situation vastly smaller than that which occurred in the Victorian lockdown. But note that it took nine years to reach final settlement.

We’ll continue to follow the Victorian class action and keep you updated.

Filed Under: Class Action Victoria, Covid-19, Not Above the Law, Quarantine, Rule of law, SlugGate

Outcome: Victorian Supreme Court Action

January 20, 2023 by Self-Employed Australia

supreme-courtThis is a special email to update you on the outcome of our mandamus application to the Victorian Supreme Court over WorkSafe Victoria’s failure to prosecute individuals and entities over the 2020 Hotel Quarantine disaster.

On 2 December 2022, we informed you of the Court’s ruling (delivered that day) which declared that we had not lodged our application ‘on time’. That is, our application was dismissed on a technicality. We disagree with and reject this decision.

For fuller details on the case:

  • This link is to the ruling of 2 December. We’ve highlighted some sections.
  • This link gives an overview of the 3-year campaign, plus some commentary on the ruling.
  • We have made available a full commentary on the ruling to SEA members.

Here’s a summary

Supreme Court rules require that lodgement needs to occur within 60 days of when the named government department failed to do what that department is required to do by law. The issue was: what was that date?

WorkSafe refused to answer whether they had investigated those named entities as required.  But the ruling states that, as of 29 September 2021, we should have inferred, concluded or assumed that WorkSafe had investigated all the 26 entities/individuals that we named (the Victorian Premier, etc). (Our application was lodged on 14 February 2022.)

We say that that conclusion is wrong and that we did not and could not have known. The Court’s ruling was based on interpreting drawn-out correspondence spanning many months about who said what to whom and what we should have inferred by what was said/written.

The ruling then does two curious things in our view.

  1. It spends considerable time rebutting many of our published allegations/assessments we made as to why individuals/entities should be prosecuted. Why bother to do that when the dismissal of our application on technical grounds was all that was needed? The ruling reads as a defence of the government individuals and entities we named.
  2. The ruling then says that if the court allow SEA’s application that this would put the individuals we named under ‘stress’ and this should not occur.

It seems that the Court is saying that an individual should not be prosecuted for alleged offences if the prosecution were to cause the individual ‘stress’. We ask: Would this principle apply to an accused murderer? That is, should an accused not be prosecuted because they would feel ‘stressed’? We find this a disturbing concept. We will have more to say on this issue.

SEA is committed to continuing our ‘Not Above the Law’ campaign, along with our other campaigns on public policy issues affecting self-employed people and more.

I’m available to chat should you want more information or explanation.


Ken Phillips
Executive Director, Self-Employed Australia
0412 393 692

 

Filed Under: Campaigns, Covid-19, NotAboveTheLaw, Quarantine, Rule of law, Self-Employed Australia, Work Safety

ATO Small Business Debt: Patience Needed

December 15, 2022 by Self-Employed Australia

patienceThe Australian Taxation Office views small business tax debt as a major problem. The ATO says that small business debt is two-thirds of the $37 billion owed to the ATO—in other words, $24 billion.

Fortunately, the ATO does recognise that much of existing small business debt is the direct result of huge losses small business people suffered due to Covid lockdowns and restrictions. The ATO is showing some understanding. But we hope that the understanding is sufficient and that it will ‘stay the course’. Here’s one story that demonstrates the ‘Covid business disaster’ experienced by (at least) tens of thousands of self-employed people.

I had a chat the other day with a single mum who’s been running her own small business for about six years. She rents a commercial space that’s critical for her particular business. Things were going reasonably well and in 2019 she needed to move from one premises to another. She spent quite a bit of money upgrading the new premises, moved in and business was looking up. Then Covid hit in early 2020.

During the entire Covid lockdowns of 2020–21 the rules meant that she was prohibited from operating at all. Income dropped to zero. Yes, zero! She’d signed a five-year lease and had a bank mortgage. In early 2022 she could start operating again. But the loyal customers she had built up had drifted away. She’s had to rebuild, and although things are looking better, they are not yet back to pre-Covid (2019) levels.

She owes money to the ATO related to her pre-Covid trading. The ATO (fortunately) has her on a payment plan. She’s been very upfront with the ATO. But she’s still needing to cover her mortgage payments plus pay the rent on her premises. If she loses the premises, she’s out of business.

She talked to me about the struggle. I really don’t know if she can survive. She’s a self-motivated, positive, ‘go getter’. But my words of encouragement and support are just words and don’t cover the bills. She’s the sort of person who is most likely to battle through and, give her several years, get on top of the mess and start to make a profit again.

This lady is just one typical story. The economic pain of Covid has impacted the most vulnerable in our community—the ‘go getter’ small business individuals.

We hope that the ATO maintains its small business patience and support. But this needs to happen on a case-by-case basis, with high quality ATO communication and realistic assessments of individuals’ circumstances. It will be a long haul over several years. This is the economic ‘long Covid’.

Filed Under: Covid-19, Defining Self-employment, Independent contracting, JobKeeper/JobSeeker, Self-employment, Tax Reform, Taxation, The nature of work

Decision Supreme Court Victoria – Hotel Quarantine

December 2, 2022 by Self-Employed Australia

not-above-the-lawAt 10 am this morning His Honour handed down his decision on our application related to the 2020 Hotel Quarantine Program and the 801 deaths.

His Honour ruled that our application for a writ of mandamus (that would have required WorkSafe investigate the individuals and entities we named) was not submitted within the 60 days required under Supreme Court rules. Therefore our application was dismissed.

We will supply more information soon.

Filed Under: Campaigns, Covid-19, NotAboveTheLaw, Quarantine, Rule of law, Work Safety

2021: A Victorian Health Department Space Odyssey – Where is Hal?

June 15, 2022 by Self-Employed Australia

space-odysseyTry this piece of strangeness. We now have ‘proof’ that the Victorian Department of Health makes decisions and does things without any apparent human involvement.

The Department, we assume, must operate like Hal in the great, classic sci-fi movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Hal was the super computer that ran the spaceship without human involvement. Somewhere in the Health Department ‘Hal’ must exist.

The ‘proof’ of Hal is contained in a 4 October 2021 memo to executives in the Health Department. On 29 September 2021 the Victorian WorkSafe Authority announced it was prosecuting the Department of Health over the 2020 Hotel quarantine disaster which resulted in over 800 deaths. The 4 October memo states:

“WorkSafe have advised that no individuals from the department are, or will be, charged.”

Here’s what this means. WorkSafe has found sufficient evidence of breaches of work safety laws to start a criminal prosecution of Health. We updated you on this last week. In other words, the Department did or failed to do things that has resulted in criminal charges being laid. BUT. According to WorkSafe’s advice to Health, no humans committed any of the criminal things. The Department acted criminally but no human acted criminally. Go figure!

But see. We told you so. It’s Hal! And now like the children’s book ‘Where’s Wally?” we have to ask ‘Where’s Hal?’

Here are just some of the questions that must be asked:

  • How did WorkSafe conduct a criminal investigation without interviewing any humans?
  • Or did WorkSafe interview and question humans?
  • If WorkSafe did interview humans, did any of those humans explain how the Department does things without humans making decisions or doing those things?
  • Can humans in the Health Department explain how the Department operates without humans making decisions or doing things?
  • Did WorkSafe meet or see Hal?

Of course, these questions are all nonsense and just as nonsensical as WorkSafe only prosecuting Health but not individuals.

In truth a government department is just a bunch of humans making decisions and doing things. A ‘department’ does not and cannot act criminally. Only humans act criminally. There is no Hal in the Health Department. Only humans.

But WorkSafe is acting on a fantasy, a Space Odyssey.

This is not just an isolated Victorian issue. It cuts to the heart of whether government in Australia operates impartially so that no-one is above the law, including government itself. It’s no joke. It’s serious!

Here’s the Health memo obtained through FOI.

Note the 104-page Charge Sheet but with all important information blanked out!

Filed Under: Campaigns, Covid-19, NotAboveTheLaw, Quarantine, Rule of law, Self-Employed Australia, Self-employment, Work Safety

Prosecution of Victorian Health over 2020 Hotel Quarantine Disaster—Update

June 10, 2022 by Self-Employed Australia

It’s been a little while since we updated you on the legal process of prosecuting the Victorian government over the 2020 Victorian Hotel Quarantine disaster that resulted in over 800 deaths. What’s at stake is whether governments hold themselves accountable to the same standards to which they hold the rest of us.

It’s quite clear that our Not Above the Law Campaign forced Victorian WorkSafe to prosecute the Department of Health. We have to ask the question: how genuine is that prosecution? We’re chasing this and here’s an update:

  • The prosecution of Health was announced on 29 September 2021 and involved the laying of 58 charges. Since then there has been NO, that’s ZERO, further information.
  • We decided to check things out. We went to the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court and were told that there was an online directions hearing on 26 May.  Members of the public could attend and we were told we’d receive an email link. The link arrived. We dutifully attended only to discover that we’d been sent the wrong link. Goodness—what an unfortunate mistake by someone!!!

SO

  • We tried to hunt down the case number. What an effort that was, given that the case name has not been made public from what we could discover. Victory! We discovered the name. It’s Victorian WorkSafe Authority v The Crown in the Right of the State of Victoria (Department of Health). Case number M12097325. If you want to follow the case, check the Magistrates’ Court website, choose the “Criminal List” button in the top left corner and put the case number in the appropriate box. Members of the public have a right to attend, but it seems you’ll need to ring the Magistrates Court to receive a link (assuming you’re sent the correct link) or else attend the hearing in person.
  • Next step is that we’ve applied to the Court for the release of all court documents. We’re after the charge sheet, summons, prosecution summary and so on. Lawyers tell us that in criminal cases (OHS charges are criminal) such documents are ordinarily public documents. But the release will be decided at the next hearing date, Friday 17 June at 10 am (a Committal Mention). It will be interesting to see if WorkSafe and Health both apply to keep the documents hidden from the public.

Justice is something that must be done and must be seen to be done! But, goodness, with the Health prosecution there seems to be a lot happening to keep it ‘unseen’. We’re chasing this up and will update you after the 17 June.

Filed Under: Campaigns, Covid-19, NotAboveTheLaw, Quarantine, Rule of law, Self-Employed Australia, Work Safety

ABC’s Dr Norman Swan says badly degraded Victorian Health capacity to blame

February 6, 2022 by Self-Employed Australia

norman-swanThe ABC’s Dr Norman Swan explains why Victoria did so badly with Covid in 2020. Watch his comments here (47sec): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3h8mS-6VUM

Dr Swan says Victoria has

“… 88 different health services which don’t look after the population unlike most other states (the Victorian government)… long ago degraded … the public health capacity, and in 2009 they ran the white flag up … Dan Andrews was the Health Minister.”

This analysis by Dr Swan reinforces why we must proceed to push for the prosecution of the government and responsible individuals (Premier, etc.) over the 801 Hotel Quarantine deaths in 2020. If WorkSafe fails to do its job by prosecuting individuals, the degraded Victorian health system will continue to put people at risk. It’s unsafe.

Running parallel to Dr Swan’s comments is an analysis by a public administration academic who case studied the 2020 Hotel Quarantine program. His report Hiding in plain sight: Vulnerability, public administration, and the case of Covid-19 hotel quarantine sets out a table that shows all the actions and inactions of the government that led to the 801 deaths disaster. The paper says:

“The Covid-19 HQ Inquiry found that a series of actions and inactions surrounding decisions by politicians, practitioners, and policymakers with responsibilities for public administration portfolio areas gave rise to accidents which brought failures and subsequently a crisis into existence.”

“… the leadership and functional expertise at group as well as individual levels was unable to take meaningful action to ensure that the program was fit for purpose.”

However, the paper focuses exclusively on the notion that the disaster should be treated as a learning experience for public health administration. Some people might believe that no individuals need to be held to account to enable ‘learnings’ and change. Such a position would be plain wrong—even dangerous and unsafe in our view.

We see this attitude too often in public administration. The people who make the decisions (politicians and bureaucrats) are rarely held personally accountable for their decisions. The ‘blame’ is isolated and attached to the ‘system.’ But this is not the standard applied to business or the community. Small business people, in particular, are held personally accountable for every action they take. We say the public sector must be held to the same community standard.

This is why we say that Victorian WorkSafe is making things dangerously unsafe in only prosecuting the Department of Health and not the individuals who were the decision makers in the Hotel Quarantine disaster. Community standards of individual responsibility must be applied. No one is above the law.

More developments and news soon.

Filed Under: Campaigns, Covid-19, NotAboveTheLaw, Quarantine, Rule of law, Work Safety

Covid ‘rebels’ and the Eureka Stockade

January 5, 2022 by Self-Employed Australia

eureka-stockadeThere’s a band of people who see themselves as the ‘keepers’ of the Eureka Stockade tradition, and they are much miffed by anti-Covid lockdown protesters who wave the Eureka flag. The ‘miffed’ are principally unionist, republicans, and avowed leftists who hold that their causes shine bright under Eureka’s Southern Cross. To them, lockdown protesters are engaged in the theft of (their) sacred symbol.

But there are parallels between the Eureka rebellion and the anti-lockdown protests that give the current-day protesters some justification for flying the Eureka flag.

Eureka The Unfinished Business by Peter FitzSimons gives a highly detailed account of the ‘massacre’ (the term used by the Melbourne media at the time) just after dawn on Sunday, 3 December 1854. Some 30 ‘diggers’ were killed in a brutal 20-minute attack by colonial soldiers against the Eureka Stockade at Ballarat. Soldiers fell along with unknown other diggers – potentially several hundred – that died subsequently from horrendous wounds.

The seeds of the massacre were laid some short 20 years earlier when Melbourne was founded by a near lone explorer, John Batman. The ‘village’ and Victoria exploded in population to some 250,000 after gold was discovered in 1851 – not just ‘gold’ but massive nuggets were literally sitting under the soil, easily picked up by the lucky finder.

The Victorian colonial government appointed from London had a degree of local parliament, but the representatives were elected only by landholders (squatters). These lucky first settlers of Victoria had received huge land grants from the government, paid a small annual rent to the government, then acquired wealth on the back of wool and related grazing activity. These 4,000-or-so elite individuals were effectively a social and political nouveau riche aristocracy.

The gold rush induced not only a huge immigrant population explosion, but a rush of squatters’ workers and every other type of worker to leave their jobs for the lure of riches in the goldfields. The colonial government faced a big revenue shortage and so imposed a monthly mining levy on every goldfield digger whether the digger had found gold or not.

This levy, often violently enforced by the police, was the core reason for the Eureka revolt. Their ‘revolutionary’ theme was ‘no taxation without representation’.

The Eureka revolt is a symbol for some modern Australian republicans because some diggers, mainly Irish, added a republican agenda to the diggers’ cause. This divided the diggers.

Karl Marx himself, who wrote his Communist Manifesto in 1848, showed great interest in the diggers’ 1850s rebellion. In 1855 Marx opined that the rebellion was the workers’ proletariat rising up against the ruling bourgeoisie just as he predicted. This was enough for today’s political Left to grasp Eureka as their symbol of the inevitability of the workers’ revolution.

It was out of this Marxist idea of the endless struggle of the workers versus the bosses (however defined) that was – and remains – a central idea of the Australian union movement and the Australian Labor Party. As the primary funders and factional controllers of the ALP, Australian unions fly and display the Eureka flag at all opportunities.

But here’s where the truth of Eureka breaks from the symbolic myth and connects to the Covid ‘rebels’, particularly in Victoria.

The diggers were self-employed. They were ‘workers’ and ‘bosses’ all in one. This shatters the Marxist, Leftist, unionist myth. The Eureka revolution arose from ‘workers’ who deserted their ‘bosses’ to become their own bosses. They took their luck in the marketplace of gold prospecting. Their revolution was against the bureaucratic government elite who sought to (and did) distort their free market, thereby creating massive harm. The elite cared not for the harm they did.

Likewise the Covid ‘rebels’ are drawn heavily from the ranks of the self-employed. Under Covid, self-employed and small business Victorians have carried the financial burden, with some pushed into comparative poverty. These are the people most damaged by the world’s longest and harshest Covid lockdown – all staged in Victoria.

Look at the Victorian ‘revolution’…

Construction workers massed against and attacked their own union. A huge police presence was needed to protect the union ‘bosses’ in their Elizabeth St Melbourne citadel. Repeated weekend after weekend, huge but peaceful (even polite) rallies stretched from the gold rush funded Victorian Parliament House to the end and beyond of the 3 km Bourke St main city strip. Drone footage interposed with computer analysis put crowd numbers around some 120,000 at its peak.

And where do these Covid rebels come from? Mobile phone tracking analysis identifies the bulk of them from Melbourne’s outer ring of suburbs. These are the homes of the mortgage strugglers and low-income earners, says the analysis. They are heavily the self-employed hairdressers, personal trainers, tradies, and more.

These are the people who’ve carried the financial burden of the Covid lockdowns. Anyone on the financial teat of a heavily indebted, harsh, authoritarian Victorian Covid government has financially sailed through. Here is where the Covid government played the politics of dividing the community; to oppose the Covid policies was – and is – to be considered as scum.

Such was the story also of colonial Victoria. The Colonial Governor ran the line that the Eureka rebels threatened the very safety of the colony and the population.

Both the colonial and Covid Victorian governments resorted to harsh, even brutal police action. The Eureka Stockade massacre was the end product of increasingly brutal police tactics in enforcing the diggers’ licence. The firing of rubber bullets by Victoria’s anti-terrorists squad into the backs of fleeing Covid demonstrators was the end product of months of police activity arresting demonstrators for not ‘locking down’.

In 2020, Victoria police arrested a pregnant mother for ‘sedition’ because she expressed her anti-Covid policy opinion on Facebook. Thirteen of the Eureka ‘rebels’ were likewise charged with sedition and High Treason. All 13 rebels were found not guilty at trial. Common to both the colonial and Covid Victorian governments was the affront they took toward anyone seen to be defying their authority.

Sedition is the ‘crime’ of inciting people to rebel against authority. So obsessed were both governments with enforcing their authority that they blinded themselves to their own massive mismanagement that caused the defiance.

The colonial Governor repeatedly insisted on enforcing the diggers’ licence even after many deputations warned him of the consequences. The ‘Covid Premier’ Daniel Andrews oversaw a months-long disastrous hotel quarantine program that lead to 801 deaths and then reacted by imposing the world’s harshest and longest lockdown.

The Victorian Colonial Governor’s own inquiry found that it was the government’s maladministration caused the Eureka disaster. Similarly, the Victorian Covid government’s inquiry also found that it was government maladministration of hotel quarantine that lead to the initial wave of 801 deaths in 2020.

It is these similarities between the Eureka and Covid rebellions that stand out most in giving the Covid ‘rebels’ the right to wave the Eureka flag. Such similarities overpower unions, Leftists, and republicans who also claim a right to use the flag.

In 2004, on the 150th anniversary of Eureka, Eureka author John Molony stated, ‘Democracy is much more than a system. It is an ideal and a spirit born day by day in those who believe in it.’ How true.

Perhaps it is a strange quirk of Australian history that the core of both the Eureka and Covid rebellions is in Victoria. The starkest reason is that with Eureka and Covid, the Australian state with the harshest, most authoritarian, unyielding, manipulative, and even violent government occurred in Victoria. Strange indeed.

The Colonial Governor and government had a military victory in crushing the Eureka rebellion. Within a short year or so the government’s authority amongst the people had crashed and the Governor resigned. By 1859, along with a wave of democratic reform, Victoria had the vote for all males in a new Legislative Assembly. (Women had to wait another 50 years!) But the dominance of the landed elite was suppressed, spelling the death of a looming landed gentry class.

The Victorian Covid government seemingly won the lockdown battles of 2020-21. But history is yet to play out as to whether their authoritarianism prevails over a living day-by-day democracy.

Filed Under: Campaigns, Covid-19, Eurerka, Self-employment

Xmas is here—Goodness. A quick update and Season’s Greetings!

December 22, 2021 by Self-Employed Australia

seasons's-greetingsSuddenly Xmas is upon us. What a year!  Season’s Greetings to all our members and followers! We wish you the very best for a ‘non-lockdown,’ ‘sudden rules change’ Xmas and holiday season.

Here’s a quick pre-Xmas update for you on our two main campaign activities.

Victorian Government OHS prosecution campaign

The fund-raising response has been outstanding. We’re looking solid in achieving our funding target for the legal campaign. We try and ring people to say thanks for contributions but the numbers have become a bit overwhelming. Please accept our thanks if we haven’t rung you.

The funding is so solid that we’ve started the process of spending serious money on lawyers. The full legal team had a long and highly productive Zoom conference early last week. Tasks have been allocated, research into the finer details of legal issues is occurring, and preparation of court papers has begun. We’ll keep you updated during January. I won’t go into the details at this stage.

We’ve had quite a few queries around the fact that WorkSafe is prosecuting the Victorian Health Department and what this means. I’ve prepared another short video explaining that the prosecution of Health doesn’t change the fact that individuals also need to be investigated with a view to prosecution.

Here’s the YouTube video:

NATL

Reform of the Australian Taxation Office

Our decade-long campaign to reform the ATO rules governing how it is required to treat small businesses continues. Yes, we’ve been on this case for 10 years. Yes, we are persistent.

Here’s the ABC coverage of what we’re seeking:

Helen

You’ll be pleased to hear that we are in discussions with the ATO on our Taxpayers Rights Agenda based on the USA model for regulating the IRS. The ATO is showing genuine interest and seems to want to understand. That’s good. We’ll continue the discussions.

Other major issues

  • The new Federal ‘pay on time’ laws are now in full implementation. This is hugely important for small business people and a great Xmas present. We’ll provide some updates in the New Year.
  • The beefing up of Unfair Contract laws is slower than we’d like. The new Federal Bill has across-the-board support but seems to be caught up in an overloaded Parliamentary backlog of Bills. We hope it proceeds before the next Federal election. We’ll certainly push for this.

So again. Season’s Greetings to everyone. Let’s all trust that planned holidays, long overdue family gatherings and some well-deserved relaxation occurs without Covid-reactive government interference.

Filed Under: Campaigns, Covid-19, NotAboveTheLaw, Pay on time, Quarantine, Rule of law, Unfair Contracts, Work Safety

Justice means prosecuting individuals – Where is WorkSafe?

October 27, 2021 by Self-Employed Australia

Worksafe-questionIt’s a couple of weeks since we updated you on the Not Above The Law campaign over the 801 Victorian Hotel Quarantine deaths in 2020. Here’s some info.

Prosecution of Health

You may likely be aware that, on Wednesday 29 September, WorkSafe announced that it is prosecuting the Department of Health (but not responsible individuals). The announcement caused a storm of media coverage.

29 September was one year to the day that we sent our 131 application; the legal trigger that required WorkSafe to investigate with a view to prosecuting. The prosecution totally validates our campaign, demonstrating the correctness of both the issue and our pressure activity. The major media channels now view our campaign as significantly serious.

Magistrate hearing: Last Friday 22 October was the first Court hearing, a procedural matter where the date was set for the start of the serious legal process (10 March 2022).

Plead guilty? There is speculation that Health may plead guilty and pay a ‘round robin’ fine – that is, the government fines itself which means (effectively) no fine. The media have been on to this with commentary viewing this as a ‘con’.

Next stage – Our campaign focus – prosecute individuals

Our campaign is now focused on pushing heavily for prosecution of the responsible individuals – that is, the Premier, Minister and government officials. This doesn’t mean that we say they are guilty, but rather that the evidence requires prosecution. I explained this in a 3AW radio interview (6 minutes) on 22 October:

https://selfemployedaustralia.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/3AW_Interview_Ken_Phillips_22_Oct.mp3

TV advert #2 (30 seconds): Following the Health prosecution announcement, we have relaunched our TV advert on social media. See the refocused ad here. This is being supported by a hard-hitting on-line social media campaign (on Facebook & Google).

Radio adverts (30 seconds): A new radio advert is running this week on Melbourne 3AW, 7am to 10am with several repeats in each time slot:

https://selfemployedaustralia.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Radio_advert_30s_Oct2021.m4a

 NATL website: A dedicated Not Above The Law website was launched mid-September which has had strong traffic. Here’s the site: https://notabovethelaw.com.au/

Legal campaign

To date we’ve had a big impact without needing court action. There have been 38 pieces of correspondence between Self-Employed Australia and WorkSafe over the last year. In addition, during September we wrote to the Attorney-General, Shadow Attorney-General, WorkSafe Minister, Shadow WorkSafe Minister, Ombudsman and the Solicitor-General. There has been careful legal guidance at every step. See information here.

We anticipate news about next steps in the near future.

What does the Covid modelling say?

You might be interested in some tracking of the predictions about the spread of Covid-19 since the last Victorian heavy lockdown started. The Table below shows what the Burnet Institute predicted would be the Covid impact during the heavy lockdown.

They said that (see page 7, Table 4, of their document)

  • The number of infections would peak at 4,543 per day.
    The actual peak so far is 2,297.
  • Hospital demand would peak at 3,150 per day.
    The actual peak so far is 851.
  • ICU demand would peak at 706 per day.
    The actual peak so far is 163.

Ummmm?

Burnet-table

Filed Under: Campaigns, Covid-19, NotAboveTheLaw, Quarantine, Rule of law, Work Safety

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