Ahh Australia, the cultural and intellectual asshole of the world. A nation of jet skis and burnt meat. Apathy is the default position and thinking about stuff is too bloody hard mate. Ave’ a beeeeer! We’ll just do whatever we’re told because ... because ... ahh Christ I can’t even be bothered thinking about why. Just shut up and take the bloody jab mate. If ya don’t love it - leave!
Yes, I expected the worst from the pollies, the media, the bureaucrats but the Great Australian Public were the real surprise - and the real disappointment.
Reading Phil Shannon = utter delight at his turn of phrase, head nodding at hitting the nail on the head and abject terror as he shines a light on banal evils. Many thanks, once again.
Well, that was a depressing read. I would be very interested to see polling with more detailed demographics, especially rural vs urban location. Since moving to a rural area, I've encountered a lot more people who are sceptical of the narrative, even if they're not terribly well-informed. The percentage of people still wearing a mask is far smaller in the small town that I live near, slightly larger in Bundaberg (population roughly 50 000) and considerably higher in Brisbane, particularly the inner city.
Lowy (https://poll.lowyinstitute.org/charts/global-responses-to-covid-19) provides a breakdown by region for its n=2,006 sample but the results don’t show much difference when comparing ‘urban Australia’ and ‘regional Australia’. 24.1% of urbanites Australia-wide thought the government did ‘very well’ in handling of Covid compared to 24.9% of cockies and out-of-towners. 5.0% of urbanites thought they handled it ‘very badly’ compared to 4.8% of non-urban population. These, and all the other differences, are all within the 2.2% statistical margin of error for Lowy’s sample survey.
By state and region, 28.3% of ‘rural Queensland’ were actually in the ‘very well’ handled camp compared to 19.9% of ‘Greater Brisbane’ although 5.5% of rural Queenslanders very in the ‘very badly’ rating camp compared to 2.6% of Greater Brisbanites. Overall, the very well/fairly well camp and the fairly badly/very badly camp gave nearly identical results – 78.9% of rural Queenslanders were in the unhappy-to-some-degree camp compared to 78.8% of Greater Brisbanites. A national sample of 2,006, however, doesn’t give much to work with reliably at state/regional level although there should be some sort of statistical noise if there were some real differences on the ground.
On the other hand, the anecdotal evidence (including mask wearing as a proxy for Covid Narrative compliance, etc) is contrary to the poll evidence and I think that many rural areas would have been more congenial to Covid dissidents during the craziness – all those blunt-speaking rugged individualists must have counted for something (on masks, if nothing else to do with Covid).
Thanks Phil, I should have taken the time to go through the poll results myself! I do wonder how participants in these polls are selected. I've never been polled, and nor has anyone I know. I'm always suspicious about the possibility of push polling (but then I've become pretty suspicious of everything these days; I've no idea why ;-)).
Ahh Australia, the cultural and intellectual asshole of the world. A nation of jet skis and burnt meat. Apathy is the default position and thinking about stuff is too bloody hard mate. Ave’ a beeeeer! We’ll just do whatever we’re told because ... because ... ahh Christ I can’t even be bothered thinking about why. Just shut up and take the bloody jab mate. If ya don’t love it - leave!
Yes, I expected the worst from the pollies, the media, the bureaucrats but the Great Australian Public were the real surprise - and the real disappointment.
Reading Phil Shannon = utter delight at his turn of phrase, head nodding at hitting the nail on the head and abject terror as he shines a light on banal evils. Many thanks, once again.
Lucky that Russia invaded Ukraine so they can be blamed for the inflation. 97% does seem bloody high.
How many would not have bothered but for the threat of job loss ?
I keep hearing the tune from Hamilton in my head when King George sings “what comes next”
Loved it Phil!! Awesome!! Thank you so much. An Aussie delight!!😊
Well, that was a depressing read. I would be very interested to see polling with more detailed demographics, especially rural vs urban location. Since moving to a rural area, I've encountered a lot more people who are sceptical of the narrative, even if they're not terribly well-informed. The percentage of people still wearing a mask is far smaller in the small town that I live near, slightly larger in Bundaberg (population roughly 50 000) and considerably higher in Brisbane, particularly the inner city.
Lowy (https://poll.lowyinstitute.org/charts/global-responses-to-covid-19) provides a breakdown by region for its n=2,006 sample but the results don’t show much difference when comparing ‘urban Australia’ and ‘regional Australia’. 24.1% of urbanites Australia-wide thought the government did ‘very well’ in handling of Covid compared to 24.9% of cockies and out-of-towners. 5.0% of urbanites thought they handled it ‘very badly’ compared to 4.8% of non-urban population. These, and all the other differences, are all within the 2.2% statistical margin of error for Lowy’s sample survey.
By state and region, 28.3% of ‘rural Queensland’ were actually in the ‘very well’ handled camp compared to 19.9% of ‘Greater Brisbane’ although 5.5% of rural Queenslanders very in the ‘very badly’ rating camp compared to 2.6% of Greater Brisbanites. Overall, the very well/fairly well camp and the fairly badly/very badly camp gave nearly identical results – 78.9% of rural Queenslanders were in the unhappy-to-some-degree camp compared to 78.8% of Greater Brisbanites. A national sample of 2,006, however, doesn’t give much to work with reliably at state/regional level although there should be some sort of statistical noise if there were some real differences on the ground.
On the other hand, the anecdotal evidence (including mask wearing as a proxy for Covid Narrative compliance, etc) is contrary to the poll evidence and I think that many rural areas would have been more congenial to Covid dissidents during the craziness – all those blunt-speaking rugged individualists must have counted for something (on masks, if nothing else to do with Covid).
Thanks Phil, I should have taken the time to go through the poll results myself! I do wonder how participants in these polls are selected. I've never been polled, and nor has anyone I know. I'm always suspicious about the possibility of push polling (but then I've become pretty suspicious of everything these days; I've no idea why ;-)).