I read awhile ago that the kind of bike sharing program that works everywhere else in the world has consistently failed in Australia because Australians are tooooo independance-minded and couldn't be persuaded to return them consistently enough. This independant mind-set coupled with Covid having not really been "that much of a problem" for most Australians because it had never got off the ground, means a very large number of them don't want to "trust the government" and don't feel community minded enough to get the shot for other's safety and/or stuff like that that all adds up to vaccine hesitency. And there's a wag-the-dog effect where a lot of politicians don't want to lose votes by emphasizing the importance of strong measures and vaccines, but then a lot of these people are hearing messages from the top that are playing it down aaand... so it's a feedback loop of the politicians being too afraid of being out of step with the lizard-brain electorate. I'm really thankful that the premier of my state ("Dictator Dan" as his detractors have labeled him) hasn't been afraid to absolutely put his foot down from the start. I don't generally follow Australian politics and didn't know his name when this started but he's really won my respect — he didn't take a single day off, like literally not even one day of a weekend, for over four months during the worst of last year.