Matthew Abraham: The Marshall Government would have loved to ditch the masks that have turned us all into fogged-up, shouty people

If you want proof that Professor Spurrier and Grant Stevens are public servants above politics, you’ve got it, writes Matthew Abraham.

Spreading fertiliser in the rain isn’t just for farmers and politicians.

As the rains soaked Adelaide on Wednesday evening, I pulled on the gumboots, donned the roughest of my five parkas and cracked a fresh 10kg bag of Golf Course Green.

This stuff is supposed to transform your back lawn into the 18th tee at Grange Golf Club and it worked a treat last spring. But by the end of summer, our back lawn resembles the “natural terrain” of the Nullarbor Links fairways, so the fertiliser has its work cut out.

We’ve seen trailer loads of fertiliser spread around over the long two years of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Australia, but every now and then a statement cuts through the manure.

On Tuesday, the state’s Covid-ready Committee was widely expected to ditch mandatory public mask use and change quarantine rules. Instead, it reached into its hat but didn’t pull out an Easter bunny.

If you want proof that SA’s Chief Public Health Officer Professor Nicola Spurrier and Police Commissioner Grant Stevens are public servants above politics, you’ve got it. With the polls looking dire and the election only days away, the Marshall Government would have loved to ditch the masks that have turned us all into fogged-up, shouty people.

Professor Nicola Spurrier and Police Commissioner Grant Stevens. Picture: Simon Cross

Instead, the committee wants more time to assess the fallout from its decision the previous long weekend to ease the ban on dancing and singing while on the turps in a pub.

Speaking before the meeting, Premier Steven Marshall told The Advertiser: “I think everybody is sick to death of masks at the moment but they’ve been necessary to make sure we don’t have a nasty second wave.”

What a moment of clarity. Sick to death of masks? We loathe them. They might be a boon for alleged crooks dodging the cameras as they leave the Magistrates Court, but it’s hard to find anyone else who loves the things.

Now Commissioner Stevens is urging us all to “hold on a little bit longer”, promising mask and close contact rules would be eased “very soon”. This is cop code for next Tuesday, at the committee’s next meeting, after the election.

What’s going to change between one Tuesday and the next? Case numbers took off after lifting the dancing and singing ban in licensed premises, and hospitalisations followed suit. Wasn’t this predictable? We know the consistent pattern of the Omicron variant is that it is mainly young people who catch it and mainly old people who die from it. Lift a restriction and you get an equal and opposite reaction in case numbers.

SA Health has had plenty of time to observe the figures from the eastern seaboard where mask mandates have been dumped. What’s so special about us?

One of the factors cited behind the incredible volatility underwriting this election campaign is COVID weariness and anxiety. Being forced to wear masks in low-risk settings is a constant reminder of the mind-boggling, contradictory rules imposed on society by bureaucrats and politicians out of “an abundance of caution”.

A busker entertains the Fringe crowd on East Terrace. Picture: Dean Martin

Singing and dancing on a big night out is now OK, but you must still mask up, unless “consuming” – which you can’t do while singing or dancing. Even gentle community choirs are still forced by law to perform and rehearse through their masks. All-day compulsory masks are particularly cruel for teachers, shoppies, bar staff and all workers in public spaces.

Wouldn’t it be funny if removing masks made no difference to COVID case numbers?

Commissioner Stevens seems to know he’s now flogging a very dead horse.

“I do see a little bit of fatigue around in terms of people’s commitment to the wearing of masks and some of the other social distance requirements,” he conceded on Wednesday.

At West Lakes shopping centre a few weeks back, it was plain quite a few shoppers had given up on masks. One trick was to sashay around the mall sipping from a water bottle, a handy excuse for being unmasked.

Life shouldn’t feel like we’re trapped inside some weird Occupational Health and Safety test tube. Masks in low-risk places can be suggested, but voluntary. Adults should be free to make their own decisions about when, where or if they’ll mask up.

A friend in Sydney said he’d expected many to keep wearing masks even after the mandate was lifted, but instead they were ditched by the busload. People couldn’t wait to be free of them.

But then the grass is always greener on the other side of the border.