POINTS TO PONDER

I have heard there is a strong possibility that Leanyer Drive will be renamed Dog Road in honour of the most common, almost constant, audible sound emanating from properties along its length. Pedestrians beware, for walking is not a quiet exercise.

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The new drive through approach for customer convenience at Red Rooster Northlakes with both display boards and audio facility linking customers to the staff for ordering of meals, make the process of service a lot faster and far more convenient than was the case. Many other drive through businesses could benefit from a similar upgrade.

The Labor Party keeps pushing the line of wanting to induce and reward double jabbed Australians with a $300 gift from the federal treasury. That would be an outlay of $300,000,000 for every 1,000, 000 fully vaccinated Australians. Work out the cost if we finish up with well north of 15,0000,0000 jabbed citizens. Small calculators blink in horror when doing the sums.

The antics and carry on about vaccinations by CLP VP Jed Hansen will do little to persuade voters to favour CLP candidates when the time comes for the next NT election. This behaviour may also have consequences for the way Territorians vote in the upcoming federal election.

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I remember clearly the Royal Commission into Aged Care. The Commission confirmed the huge deficits in support for seniors in residential homes, with glaring deficiencies being Australia wide. It is only 12 months since the commission made public its findings and recommendations for improvement. Now we have Covid; the plight of those in aged care homes, both residents and staff, is far worse than before the commission handed down its findings.

I remember clearly the Royal Commission into Aged Care. The Commission confirmed the huge deficits in support for seniors in residential homes, with glaring deficiencies being Australia wide. It is only 12 months since the commission made public its findings and recommendations for improvement. Now we have Covid; the plight of those in aged care homes, both residents and staff, is far worse than before the commission handed down its findings.

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Why do key politicans doing media interviews have to be flanked, usually by a backbencher or two, who look totally bored while nodding their heads, up and down, like puppets?

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It is preposterous that executive staff attached to Australia Post should be awarded (or award themselves) huge bonus payments (on top of extravagant salaries) for ‘oversight’ of the agency. The real workers, those responsible for the day by day running of AP, excepting for a very few, were snubbed. Typical. Those who ‘talk’ are deemed superior to those who ‘work’

Glad to know that a camel named ‘Gunner’ won the Boulia Cup.

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Can we PLEASE have regular, programmed Covid updates from the Chief or his ministers in the NT. We don’t have a clear picture of what is happening. Information is scant and detail about the number and location of infections, imprecise and unclear. Our CM and his key ministers need to lift their reporting game.

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If the passing of Covid impacted Indigenous Australians in Howard Springs Quarantine Centre are deemed to be deaths in custody, then the passing of ALL people who pass away in this facility, should also be classified as deaths in custody.

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Thank you NT News for the brilliance of the ‘120 Most Powerful’ list online and in print for the year just ended. This brilliant and hopefully everlasting initiative is a wonderful recognition of those who do the most for us through the roles they occupy.

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It looks as if the ‘last hurrah’ period in federal politics has arrived for Senator McMahon. It is a great shame that recent circumstances look likely to derail her most significant contribution – a bill seeking to reinstate the right of territories to legislate on the issue of euthanasia. Had this issue gained traction, her contribution on behalf of the NT would have been positive and everlasting.

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Speech and speaking clubs like Toastmasters are offered a new challenge; developing within members and through community workshops, the ability to speak clearly, expressively and audibly while wearing masks. With this facial coverage becoming an ongoing and prescribed need, such training is becoming essential.

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Relief seems to be seeping into the community because of discernment that Omicron is peaking and infections will decline. Maybe, but behind this virus will come another and another. Mask wearing may become a permanent community feature.

The NT News story ‘Stairing in the abyss’ (21/1) should send a shiver down the spine of all Territorians. We need an Australia-wide national home building code like we need a hole in the head. Elevated homes and louvre cooling are part of our way of life. Crowded together hot box homes on matchbox size blocks should NOT be mandated as the only home building option.

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Relief seems to be seeping into the community because of discernment that Omicron is peaking and infections will decline. Maybe, but behind this virus will come another and another. Mask wearing may become a permanent community feature

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WA Premier Mark McGowan deserves thanks and appreciation from those living in the state. He is the ONLY state/territory leader with patience to sustain resistance to Covid, the ONLY leader to prioritise the health of people as being of more importance than the making of money. He is a leader of conviction and deep commitment to his state.

Many years ago on Groote Eylandt, one of the darts competition teams was named “Hopeless and Helpless”. That name aptly fits the NT Government in terms of its present management of the Covid 19 outbreak.

Apart from the Granites mine issue derived from Queensland and the outbreak introduced into the NT by a Cairns visitor and which spread to the Katherine area, things were going well. By dint of outstanding follows up procedures, these situations were largely controlled.

That all changed when borders were opened to all and sundry from interstate on December 20 2021. Returning travellers and visitors have well and truly impregnated the NT with virus. The PFC testing program has collapsed (it is held to be inconsequential) and has been replaced by the ‘hit and miss’ RATS test. That hit and miss is largely about the unavailability of testing kits, with demand totally outstripping supply.

The ultimate indignity has been the week long delay in sending texts to QR code users, advising they had been in a location at the same time as someone who tested positive. The texts do not say when (no date or time) or where (no location); just ‘sometime, somewhere’. With government no longer listing public exposure sights, receivers of these vague and imprecise texts are introduced to the uncertainty of nightmare land.

We had a good Territory system in terms of both protection and ‘place and time’ notification of exposure sites. Why have these excellent safeguards been allowed to lapse, causing uncertainty and chaos to reign.

The Gunner Government deserves applause for the unparalleled generosity of bonus offerings to public servants. For all employees of government to be gifted $10,000 over four years is tantamount to them receiving manna from Heaven. This generous scheme confirms that our government holds the needs and interests of employees close to its heart.

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Relief seems to be seeping into the community because of discernment that Omicron is peaking and infections will decline. Maybe, but behind this virus will come another and another. Mask wearing may become a permanent community feature.

It is desperately alarming to realise that our police are behind tempted to go interstate. The attractions of higher salaries and less challenging workloads must be hard to resist. The disparaging way in which police are treated by so many people, particularly in terms of verbal and physical abuse, must be hard to take. No wonder so many police move on.

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Thanks to Grey Morris for his absolutely brilliant journalistic contributions over the past decades. Grey is number one.

God bless.

Now more than ever, with Covid so embedded within the territory, I try and take extreme care when venturing out in public. I leave home for only the most urgent of reasons, timing my departure from and return to the safety and security of our abode. Covid impresses upon me the fact that nothing can be taken for granted and that extreme care and caution must be exercised every day.

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Rents are skyhigh, setting renters back many hundreds of dollars each week. Might it not be better for rent payments to be expressed as costing ‘X number of dollars per hour’. That might sound more palatable and be easier to swallow.

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I often wish we lived in the more simple, straightforward and ‘common sense’ compliant world that existed in my growing up days of the 1950’s and 60’s. During those years (and later) vaccination programs and other health measures necessary for common good. There was no unnecessary fuss perpetrated by ‘anti’ persons wanting to big note themselves. These Covid times cause me to yearn for the attitudes people had in these

past times.