AFAIK the main effect from the PM’s policy change seems to be around relaxing indemnity rules for GPs so that they could hand out AZ if they wanted to without getting sued by people who develop the blood clot disorder. Previously this was an issue due to the current ATAGI advice recommending against it.
I thought the PM’s statement on this wasn’t too crazy—the blood clot risks are objectively still very low and the ATAGI report contemplates the then near-zero covid in Aus as you note. I assume somebody in govt realised that at current and projected vaccine rates it’ll be a long time before the country opens up / stops having to lockdown extremely hard every time covid leaks into the community—and then the recent NSW outbreak brought the issue to a head.
Vaccination supply has not been that reliable or consistent so far, and AZ is the only vax currently made locally so I think vaccination regimes that don’t involve AZ do risk a longer ‘fortress Australia’ period.
Thanks for the article—very informative and exactly the kind of content I enjoy!
In 2017 Australia held a public survey on whether same-sex marriage should be allowed, the results of which were pledged informally to be enacted by the government. Public votes on specific issues are relatively rare in Australia, so the debate around the procedural merits of voting on this particular issue were quite active.
I recall the main arguments against conducting a survey were mostly procedural criticisms, that it is wastefully expensive to hold a postal survey when public polling had revealed consistent majority support for same sex marriage for a number of years already. Wikipedia tells me the survey cost $80m AUD, so I wonder how much this Swiss system costs over the long haul?
The arguments in favour were mostly that it would break political and procedural gridlock over the issue and settle things once and for all with the legitimising stamp of direct democracy.
In the aftermath I found myself thinking ‘we should do this more often’ - so it’s nice to see that somewhere in fact does do it more often!
PS: It’s interesting to see the high rejection rate for referendums in Switzerland. The same-sex marriage survey was in fact suggested by the centre-right party who were historically opposed to same-sex marriage, and it’s generally accepted that they viewed the direct (voluntary) vote as the best chance to get a ‘no’ or ambiguous result on this matter and introduce a long-term mandate against legalising same-sex marriage.