Canberra EDM royalty Peking Duk have penned a lengthy open letter, scorching the federal government for royally cocking up the coronavirus vaccine rollout.
It’s no revelation that the vaccine rollout across Australia has been a balls-up to the highest degree. Just six percent of Australians are fully vaccinated, leaving us trailing abysmally behind the rest of the world.
Peking Duk were set to perform a Winter In The Domain concert this Saturday, a show that, amid recently announced lockdowns, will be postponed. In light of the events imminent cancellation, the duo have launches a searing verbal condemnation at Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the Australian government.
“It feels strange to be writing this while the rest of the world seemingly returns to normal, holds events, travels freely and yet Australia who was leading the way with their response to Covid-19 is in yet another lockdown,” the pair wrote.
“16 months ago we locked down, it made sense – why overrun the hospitals if it was avoidable. 12 months ago, we locked down, It made sense – we need to protect our loved ones, we need to protect those that are at the highest risk of Covid-19. In December 2020, 7 months ago – we locked down… this made sense, because again it had not been enough time to vaccinate the vulnerable and safeguard those who are at risk.
“Now in July 2021, with Australia firmly the worst performing country in the OECD for fully vaccinated adults the music industry is facing more uncertainty, more cancellations, more postponements. America can have events, because 45% of their population is vaccinated. Australia with around 7% fully vaccinated cannot.”
The statement continues, “We were doing so well. At the end of 2020, beginning to plan shows for the end of 2021 we thought, surely.. surely the federal government will get this right.. Well no, they got it so horribly wrong and with their terrible planning, terrible roll out it brought more border closures, more lockdowns and less and less events, music festivals and a huge amount of uncertainty to the industry we love.”
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Peking Duk went on to highlight that despite music events susceptible to cancellation, large-scale sports events have been allowed to continue without a hitch.
“It doesn’t have to be this way, Sport seems to be doing well – thousands of people were at Suncorp stadium in Brisbane while music venues in Melbourne (with zero covid cases) were left with no dancing policies and operating at hugely reduced capacities,” they wrote.
“When will live music be afforded the same luxury as other events? When will we get the green light from the government so that we can tell our crew who have been out of work since March 2020 that they can return to some form of normality.
“Scott Morrison has a 4 part plan but there are no dates, there are still no answers. Just another piece of his marketing puzzle so that when people ask what the plan is he can say “oh well we have one..its 4 parts!!”???
“So we are left scratching our heads. Should we postpone our shows to the end of the year? Should we postpone them to next year? Will things even return to normal next year with this snail paced vaccine roll out and ever evolving strains of the virus.
“The music industry wants answers, The entertainment industry needs answers or unfortunately more and more very talented musicians, very talented lighting designers, very talented sound engineers to say the least will get tired of the uncertainty, they will move on to more secure jobs and the music industry might not ever be the same again.”
You can read the statement in full below.
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