Corona? Barely even knew 'er (International Women's Day)

News

• All fires are out in New South Wales!
• It’s International Women’s Day. Celebrate with the horror of this Shell ad.
• Never forget that International Women’s Day began as a socialist celebration of working women.

Coronavirus

• Vox has a detailed and readable summary of what we know about COVID-19 so far. Here’s the direct source for what the experts are saying. The Australian government website is good for a just-the-facts summary of symptoms to look out for and best-practice precautions.
• Missy Higgins dad has COVID-19, but didn’t meet the health department’s guidelines for testing.
• Australians are panic-buying toilet paper. As Buzzfeed reports, it started as a media scare, now its becoming a real panic.
• Panic buying and hoarding is bad for everyone else. It prevents people who are living paycheque to paycheque from being able to purchase the things they need.
• The poorest people in our society — people on casual work and without sick leave, are also the people who come into contact with the most people.
• The Liberal government has a history of trying to make it harder for the poorest Australians to the access health care they need.
• Jeremy Poxon of the Unemployed Workers Union has interrogated Centerlink on the requirements they will place on unemployed people in quarantine, with no clear answer. They have a bad record on this, cutting off the payments of bushfire victims.

Government corruption

• Penny Wong has accused Scott Morrison of being “up to his neck” in the corruption of the sports rorts.
• The liberal party attempted to shut down on questions by calling the word “rorts”, “unparlimentary”.
• Angus Taylor, the government’s minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, was not interviewed by the Federal Police, after his office falsified documents for a fight with Clover Moore, mayor of Sydney.
• Taylor’s business interests have also raked in $93 million of state and federal funds during his time in office.
• In extra promoted to guest star news: Glenys Beauchamp, who was in the episode last week destroying documents, has now been found intimidating an academic whistleblowing a data breach of 3 million Australians.
• Anne Rushton, government’s Minister for Families and Social Services refused to say that Australia’s social security system should not cause harm to the people within it.

Bushfires and climate change

• The Morrison government is dropping funding to an international emissions research collaboration.
• … along with the Bushfire & Natural Hazards research centre.
• It appears that the much-hyped $2 billion bushfire relief fund may not exist. Only $400,000 has been distributed so far.
• Angus Taylor (who loves to take $93 million of taxpayer money for his businesses) is trying to keep the Liddel coal power station open to at least 2026, even though it’s not economical.
• The Australian government has not done modeling of the economic impact of climate change until at least 2013.
• The gas power plants in Australia have been running at 30% of capacity for the last 18 months — and yet the government are calling for more to be built.

Actions

• Shout out to the Flood Cast from Flood Media — check their series on capitalism and a socialist future. Solidaritus et podcastus ✊
• Wash your hands, buy a reasonable amount of toilet paper and if you can, take time off from work if you’re sick. If you have COVID and your boss makes you work, make sure to take them aside during the day to apologise for trying to slack off (enclosed spaces if possible).