Opinion: Laid up by saboteurs and COVID: Barnaby Joyce in Washington
Barnaby Joyce left the country with a clear mission in mind but now finds himself isolating in an American hotel room for 10 days. In some ways the Deputy Prime Minister’s situation is a metaphor for Australia’s.
And the risk of perhaps closing the border suddenly again in the future? Finance Minister Simon Birmingham was asked what the trigger for a future closure might be. “There is always a risk into the future,” he told Sky News. “But now that we have such a highly vaccinated population, it would take something quite extraordinary to change that risk factor and see us go back to those widespread border closures that we were pursuing earlier.
Two years after the virus was first identified in Wuhan, Australia’s capacity to produce mRNA vaccines to deal with it is unchanged. Zero. If a dangerous new variant should arise, requiring a new mRNA vaccine, Australia would once again be dependent on other countries to supply it. He’s spending his time playing virtual Scrabble with his partner, Vikki Campion, watching inane American TV shows and getting frustrated listening to right-wing rant. The backbencher George Christensen, for instance, a member of Barnaby’s National Party and a backbencher in the Morrison government. Christensen this week gleefully accepted an invitation to appear on theshow hosted by American professional conspiracy theorist and provocateur Alex Jones.
Christensen’s pathetic attention-seeking is on the extreme end, but a few others in the Coalition have shuffled themselves in the same general direction in recent months. Liberal senators Alex Antic and Gerard Rennick love indulging US anti-vax provocateurs too.