A Sense of Place Magazine, Tone deaf: Aged Care Providers’ PR Campaign Strikes Wrong Note, As Editor, 14 September, 2020.
Tone deaf: Aged Care Providers’ PR Campaign Strikes Wrong Note
By Dr Sarah Russell with Michael West Media
Hiring properly qualified staff, staff-resident ratios and a commitment to be transparent and accountable for the $13 billion in annual taxpayer funding would help private providers of aged care “change the conversation” and “win the hearts and minds of middle Australia”. Dr Sarah Russell reports.
In the middle of the biggest reputational disaster to hit privately run aged care, with the preventable deaths of more than 500 residents, private providers have launched a public relations campaign to “change the conversation” about aged care and “win the hearts and minds of middle Australia”.
Rather than agree to fundamental things that would really win the hearts and minds of Australians – such as hiring properly qualified staff, staff-resident ratios, and a commitment to be transparent and accountable for the $13 billion in taxpayer funding they receive every year – the biggest players in the sector, including BaptistCare, Anglicare, Leading Age Services Australia, Aged and Community Services Australia and the Aged Care Guild have engaged Apollo Communications. Apollo Communications is a PR company run by Adam Connolly, former Daily Telegraph political reporter and senior media adviser to John Howard.
He Governs Best Who Governs Least
Civil Disobedience: The Ten Best Quotes of Henry David Thoreau
Although the essay was written 168 years ago, the subject of Civil Disobedience is more relevant than ever.
As people debate the scope of government power in regards to Covid-19 lockdowns, some are openly defying the law.
Henry David Thoreau believed that it was not only proper but necessary to disobey bad laws.
Civil Disobedience, or Resisting Civil Government as it was originally titled, was published in 1849. Thoreau was 32 years old, living in Massachusetts. At this point, Thoreau had already spent his time at Walden Pond.
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Australia’s Virus Story Collapses: Sky News Goes Feral
With police blanketing the streets of Melbourne, citizens being assaulted by thugs in uniform, doors being broken down, a woman being dragged screaming from her car while millions in Melbourne remain shut down in the world’s most draconian and irrational lockdowns, the Australian government has lost control of the very Covid narrative it created.
Gormless journalists have been part of the problem, acting as purveyors of propaganda for politicians and health bureaucrats rather than doing their job of aggressively holding power to account.
There have been days of revelations that Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews did not seek the advice of police or senior health officials before implementing a curfew. He has refused to release much-touted modelling he says supports his actions, while the very researchers who developed it say it does not support the current extreme measures.
Meanwhile there were wild scenes as out-of-control police dragged a screaming women from her car, tackled protesters to to the ground, harassed old ladies sitting on a park bench. Seventy four people were arrested over the weekend and 176 people fined over their participation in a Freedom Walk. A Melbourne man is in an induced coma after his head was stomped on by police during his arrest.