The Australian federal government has introduced wide ranging warrantless powers that allow for a lot of potential abuse of computers and communications. These

The Australian federal government has introduced wide ranging warrantless powers that allow for a lot of potential abuse of computers and communications. These have had bi-partisan support and been rushed through parliament with very little debate or discussion from the complicit mainstream media. This stuff is likely pushed by our large allies and it isn't going away and likely allows Australia to be used as a backdoor to spy on our allies citizens as well. This is potentially really serious long term problem and gets almost no debate in Australia. Meanwhile these localised state based measures aimed at fighting this pandemic are another thing entirely. Our state governments are not part of five eyes and aren't under pressure to maintain any of these measures indefinitely. They want to keep local businesses active by avoiding lockdowns and keep their tightly budgeted public health systems working. Our less populated states here managed to get through the pandemic basically virus free without much in the way of restrictions within their states. I don't think people understand how good we have had this. Our vaccines supply was delayed but now that has improved all the states are opening up once vaccine targets are reached and the state want to ease into the change. We still have very low vaccination rates compared to many countries where vaccinations were expedited as the only real viable solution. To reopen state borders and allow more potentially infected people in we need to be able to quarantine infectious people without locking them up and an app is a cheap solution. Once covid is endemic and as vaccination rates climb there won't be any point to quarantining people and the app will be discarded. It isn't for surveilling the entire population but for individuals for the relatively short time they might be shedding virus. People are right to be vigilant but you all have the wrong target here. The right target is the Australian federal government's mass surveillance laws. An app that will be used for a week or two by a sick person then discarded isn't the real problem.