7 August

Twice in Australian history, the ‘reserve powers’ have been used to remove a sitting government. Once in 1932, when the NSW Governor removed Premier Jack Lang (picture). And once in 1975, when the Governor-General removed Gough Whitlam. Both on confected, trivial ‘economic’ grounds. I thought about this today because Lang’s crime was to oppose an agreement by all other Premiers to implement an economic plan. Currently the NSW Government is acting against the national pandemic plan. Another day of catastrophic numbers. This will infect and kill many Australians. If history involved justice, the NSW Governor would remove the NSW Government from power immediately. It won’t happen, it’s symptomatic of how much idiot economic ideas have infected our brains that it wouldn’t even occur to people to do it. Leaders can kill their populations with impunity, but break an economic rule, and you have to go.