The Informer: Why getting to the bottom of things matters

Well, it would have had the Australian National Maritime Museum not stood its ground. But no-one was going to sink the story that the final resting place of Captain Cook's Endeavour had been found. Not even the principal investigator of the US team which worked on the joint project.

Barely an hour after the discovery off Rhode Island's coast in the US was trumpeted here in Australia, the Americans insisted the claims were not only premature but a breach of contract, too.

That's about the speed of the news cycle these days, folks. Which is odd really as you'd think after searching for 22 years, the communication strategy might have been discussed.

But then you'd probably also hope two years into a pandemic that there was some sort of strategy to dealing with COVID in Australia's aged care homes.

Yet today it was revealed a-third of fully vaccinated aged care residents still have not received their third COVID-19 jab.

The government is waiting for states to report booster vaccination data on people who have died with COVID-19 in the aged care sector. Well, at least that's why Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck couldn't tell a parliamentary committee exactly how many of the deceased had received their booster.

But fear not, there's a task force being established to scrutinise the hundreds of COVID-19 deaths in aged care since the start of the Omicron wave. With a shelfload of reports and a Royal Commission into aged care quality and safety not a year old, it's no wonder the announcement was met with not just cynicism but anger.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese led the calls for Senator Colbeck's resignation while sprouting some disturbing numbers of his own.

Mr Albanese said 15,000 residents have been infected while others were missing out on showers, meals or having their wounds tended to as a quarter of shifts went unfilled due to 17,000 cases among staff.

"A (proper) announcement would be the government saying that they are going to take serious action. Instead, what we have is a minister who says there is no crisis and a government that says bureaucrats are going to collect data."

The term "paralysis by analysis" springs to mind.

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