A lot has been happening of late:

• Freedom Day on December 15, as promised;
• The untimely arrival of a new COVID variant (the OmiCON), with an associated spike in cases, to coincide with the easing of restrictions;
• Continued fury with governments and the major Parties on the part of the COVID deplorables, who have considerable overlap with the Liberal Party base, especially in the Greater West of Sydney;
• Continued heavy pressure on the premier from the public health pandemia brigade and their friends in the corporate media who simply do not want to let go of the “crisis” – in fact, they wish to ramp it up afresh;
• A major cabinet reshuffle, with a whole new bunch of ministers no one has heard of, with attendant hopes of a major government refresh;
• The unlamented passing of three further old faces (Harwin, Pavey, Hancock) following the unlamented earlier passing of three other old faces (Berejiklian, Barilaro, Constance);
• The unfortunate retention of Hazzard as Minister for COVID Scaring, clearly still keen on focusing on the irrelevant case numbers and publicising the implausible modelling efforts of yet another research institute (the Kirby Institute) funded by Bill Gates;
• Mixed messaging of late from the premier and his health minister in relation to the “roadmap” (Kerry Chant is still championing the useless masks).

Perrottet passed his first two COVID tests, with Hazzard’s Daniel Andrews-like push for long-term emergency powers defeated (for the moment) and the promised freedoms delivered (at last).

Yet there is lingering, under-the-radar anger at all the lost jobs of the unvaccinated and the savaging of rights and freedoms that has occurred on the NSW Liberals’ watch.

The comments in response to backbench MP Tanya Davies’ social media posts that signal new government initiatives remain white-hot, and continue to provide as good a litmus test of feelings towards the government as one can get.

One comment in particular cuts to the chase: “What is the use of being able to go to Kmart again when you no longer have an income?”

Unimpeachable logic, simply stated, with pain, from the heart.

This sentiment, and the reality of the price we have paid for COVID policy madness, will not likely go away any time soon, and not likely this side of March 2023.

It suggests the possibility that, for many, Freedom Day might be a case of “all tip and no iceberg”.

It doesn’t help that the government has all but invited companies to continue vaccine passports for customers if it makes them feel “COVID safe”.

Not the approach of true freedom-fighters like Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida.

ADULT

DeSantis recognises that excluding the unvaccinated from society and the economy is ineffective policy and, far more importantly, unacceptable discrimination against around a quarter of the adult population. (Yes, the numbers of vaccinated are exaggerated by including 16s and up).

Hence it is illegal in Florida to discriminate against the un-vaxxed.

That Perrottet, to his credit, is waging a battle internally against the pandemic-fanciers in his own government will not remotely impress the people who have lost their jobs and possibly their careers, their businesses, their homes and, not least, often their dignity, what with all the insults and gaslighting to which they have been subjected.

The Liberals who value freedom for all and have been willing to voice their views and to press for policy change have been few on the ground across the country.

Contrast the silence of the Liberals – those who aren’t themselves bullying us – with the Tories in the UK.

Just this past week, one hundred Conservative MPs voted against fresh measures imposed by Boris Johnson to combat the astonishingly mild new COVID variant which has arrived in time for the depths of the British winter.

That is around half of the Tory backbench. Then a senior minister (Lord Frost) resigned in protest.

Then the Tories lost a seat (North Shropshire) that they had held for centuries, with a swing of 34 per cent.

The tens of thousands of New South Welshmen who have lost their jobs this year, including many of them sacked by the government itself, must be shaking their heads in disbelief at the lack of principled, vigorous right-of-centre political protest down under.

And remember that what Johnson is proposing for Britain is a very mild form of COVID passports, far less severe than those imposed by our own Tories, and in a country where we have had a tiny fraction of the cases, hospitalisations and deaths that the UK has experienced.

Looking at the UK comparison another way, Mr Perrottet doesn’t have a strong anti-lockdown, anti-vaxx backbench, unlike Boris Johnson, to (in Dom’s case) provide his newly minted freedom orientation with vocal support and spine.

The COVID dissidents are simply not there. He will need the continued support of the likes of Tanya Davies, who hasn’t received her (perhaps expected) reward of a ministry for her loyalty to Dominic.

She is increasingly friendless in her electorate, despite her then impressive 2019 electoral cushion – look at North Shropshire – and is perhaps equally friendless within the Moderate-dominated Liberal Party for her period of vocal opposition to vaccine mandates.

She has ended up making everyone unhappy. What will her next move be, one wonders?

VOTING

Making sense of all this will not be easy for the voting public come March 2023, however refreshed the government might now appear.

And it is not remotely clear what the premier might do about all these unemployed non-vaxxed citizens, now welcomed back to the shops but not, alas, to their former jobs.

Inviting them all back to their government jobs and asking the private sector to do likewise seems like a move too far, and too complicated. How would this work?

Wheeling in hundreds of thousands of (vaxxed, naturally) migrants to take the jobs lost to locals will simply return Australia’s economy to its erstwhile, failed Ponzi scheme of mass immigration, and will anger the already-fuming COVID disaffected even more.

So Perrottet has pressure from all sides.

Too little freedom, some say. Too much freedom, others claim. Freedoms lost and not yet regained, for many.

Abandoning the lunacy of COVID zero might seem sane to many of us, but it will also look like a U-turn that will require some serious explanation, since everyone has been pursuing this impossible dream for nearly two years.

Nor will many forget that Dominic Perrottet was seated at the Cabinet table when all the pain was being delivered.

Huge blows, not easily forgiven and certainly not forgotten. And all the while, even with some easing of the pressure on the people of NSW, many of us still can’t travel interstate and virtually no one can leave the country.

Then there is the “pingdemic” for all those, many of whom will have been jabbed twice, who, like the (presumably vaccinated) Australian cricket captain, sit at the wrong table at the wrong restaurant at the wrong time, and may, as a result, lose their (legal) family Christmas.

I imagine the anger of these unfortunates will be immense. Not to mention all the struggling hospitality businesses now barely showing a pulse.

FREEDOM

They, too, are victims of the pingdemic. They will recall the braggadocio over the “gold standard” NSW track-and-trace regime that so many in the government championed, the result of the papers-please work of (the sadly retained) Victor Dominello. Bye-bye Santa. While not feeling remotely ill.

So, the freedom is highly circumscribed in the Freedom State.

And, despite the firmness of the new Premier’s apparent direction, the cynical punters – and there are many – simply do not now believe anything a politician says about COVID management.

Natural gauleiters like Brad Hazzard and the Chief Health Officer will not forget easily how much they have enjoyed their power. COVID cases not important?

These have been the currency of fear and hysteria. Very difficult to give up.

(And now Brad is pushing to ensure that “fully vaccinated” will mean triple-jabbed. He has a way to go, since only about five per cent of Aussies are booster-jabbed. He must be hoping there isn’t too much booster hesitancy. Will they throw three quarters of the population out of work, one wonders?)

Then there is “Gates Law”. The COVID class has been plotting this totalitarianism for at least a decade, and power acquired, while it corrupts, is never surrendered lightly.

Search online for any medical research institute that is advising government and look at their funding sources.

The Gates Foundation will inevitably come up.

GLOBAL

Trying to find an institute that provides medical advice to Australian governments that does not receive funding from the Global Vaccinator-in-Chief is not easy.

The Doherty Institute. The Burnet Institute. The Kirby Institute (on whose modelling Hazzard is relying). The University of Melbourne. Then there are all the media outlets. All over the world.

These sources of medical advice have been wildly wrong, often, in their dire predictions – predictions that are intended to scare politicians and scare voters.

(Even Prof Neil “pantsdown” Ferguson in the UK is making yet another comeback with his latest warning on Omicron, despite his earlier modelling having been shown to have been farcically inaccurate).