{"id":104011,"date":"2020-06-27T16:06:13","date_gmt":"2020-06-27T23:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=104011"},"modified":"2020-06-27T16:06:13","modified_gmt":"2020-06-27T23:06:13","slug":"australian-state-of-victoria-virtually-isolated-failures-of-federalism-and-lack-of-central-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/06\/27\/australian-state-of-victoria-virtually-isolated-failures-of-federalism-and-lack-of-central-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"AUSTRALIAN STATE OF VICTORIA VIRTUALLY ISOLATED \u2013FAILURES OF FEDERALISM AND LACK OF CENTRAL LEADERSHIP!"},"content":{"rendered":"

By M D P DISSANAYAKE<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

In\nAustralian State of Victoria, Roving Testing Squads and government Health Door\nKnockers are  making surprise checks in homes, similar to the campaign\nstarted long time ago in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many\nreturning inter-state travellers are refusing to undergo Covid 19 Tests, as it\nis not mandatory, unlike in Sri Lanka under curfew and Quarantine Law.  <\/strong>The\nlaw in Sri Lanka is primarily governed under\nQuarantine and Prevention of Diseases Ordinance No.03 of 1897 (QPDO). The\nordinance was introduced (inter-alia) to prevent the introduction of plague and\nall contagious or infection diseases to Sri Lanka and the spread of such\ndiseases in and outside Sri Lanka\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Sri Lanka only one foreign traveller, an American\nDiplomat, escaped the tests, but presented himself later on government\nintervention.  In Sri Lanka the rules are so tight at present, the\nreturning travellers or tourists must undergo PCR  tests at the Airport\n  upon arrival before Immigration compliances. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on the PCR test results, all passengers are diverted\nto the hospitals or quarantine centres for 14 days.  Strict vigilance is\nconducted in and around quarantine centres prohibiting any arriving tourists,\nleaving the centres or socialising  in violation of health regulations of\nSri Lanka. Drone cameras are also being used for this purpose.  Perhaps\nthese are handy hints from a small nation to Big Nations!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nStates are also blaming for the failure to engage Australian Defence Force\nactively  in combating Covid 19. We recall the Sri Lankan opposition\nblaming its government for engaging the Army to assist health authorities,\nwhich was ignored by the government of Sri Lanka.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently\nShenali Waduge wrote an excellent piece on  Federal Governance system in\ncombating Covid 19.   In Victoria, with its extremely popular City of\nMelbourne, the State Government is facing a tough battle to contain the\n spread  of virus.  This was in spite of the great volume of\nplanning and hardwork undertaken by its Premier Mr Daniel Andrews.  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hurriedly\norganised Testing Centres are inundated with anxious Victorians queuing up,\nsome had to wait as much as 4 hours to get tested.  Due to unexpected\nmassive crowds arriving at the centres, the centres have been closed \nearly, with massive traffic jams.  The centres were not fully equipped to\nmeet the demands of unexpected influx of Victorians.  The shopping\ncentres  once again have placed maximum quantity for each customer \nfor most sanitary related products.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last\nweek, Dr  Stephen Ducket  a Senior Health Economist from the\nGrattan   \n        Institute, \n requested other States to keep their boarders closed.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

South\nAustralia has virtually opened its boarders to most States, except\nVictoria.   Queensland and New South Wales are requesting Victorians\nnot to travel to their States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since\nyesterday, Victorian Government appears to have taken another  leaf from\nthe books of Sri Lanka.  They are now embarking on random police checks of\ndrivers in the 6 Victorian Local Government areas identified as hotspots. \nIn these Cities of Hume, Brimbank, Moreland, Darebin, Cardinia and Casey where\n17, 10, 6, 6 and 7 Covid 19   cases have been tracked down as Covid\n19 positive patients.  These are densely populated cities, with at least\none million Victorians living in 6 Cities.  Similar to Sri Lanka, the Army\nhas been  deployed from 24 June for door-knocking  to find any Covid\n19 cases.   In a vast continent with  only 23 million\nAustralians,  it is regrettable that the situation is still not under\ncontrol.     Visionary actions of President Gotabaya\nRajapakse saved our small nation with 23 million Sri Lankans, in a densely\npopulated island.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within\nStates confusion existed  between State Premiers in regard to the opening\nof the School days and now the closing days before the upcoming Winter vacation. \nWhere in some families, either mum or dad work and reside inter-state, the kids\nare unable to meet both parents and siblings during school holidays due to\nconfusion and restrictions.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our\npoliticians like Ranil, Sajith, Sambandan, Sumanthiran, Mano, Hakeem,\nJayampathy Wickremaratne ( thank  God he has disappeared<\/strong> ),\nJVP,  etc.  need to study the practical aspects of their demands for\nfederal system of government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nAustralia the Federal Prime Minister Mr Scott Morrison has done an excellent\njob in providing  leadership and relief packages.   But the\nState Premiers are under no obligation to accept the orders of the Prime\nMinister.  He can only REQUEST<\/strong> the state premiers, representing\nLabour and Liberal Premiers, squabbling with each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hence,\nthe pandemic continues unabated in Australia. This is mainly due to lack of\ncentral control where the National Leader Mr Scott Morrison is bound by the\nFederal System. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nintroduction of Federal System and removal of Executive Presidency in Sri Lanka\nwill be a recipe for disaster! <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By M D P DISSANAYAKE In Australian State of Victoria, Roving Testing Squads and government Health Door Knockers are  making surprise checks in homes, similar to the campaign started long time ago in Sri Lanka. Many returning inter-state travellers are refusing to undergo Covid 19 Tests, as it is not mandatory, unlike in Sri Lanka […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dr-m-d-p-dissanayake"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104011\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}