Michael McGuire: They have made many good decisions. But, they have also been lucky

It’s starting to become apparent that good luck has been at least as valuable as good management, writes Michael McGuire.

Author Donald Horne famously labelled Australia as the “lucky country”. It wasn’t a compliment.

This was the 1960s and his point was that Australia had won its place in the world through good fortune rather than any particular merit. He lamented what he saw as a general lack of imagination, innovation and leadership.

Now, in the same Horne vein, it is perhaps going too far to label South Australia as the “lucky state”, but it’s starting to become apparent that good luck has been at least as valuable as good management over recent months.

We will never know how close we came to a Victorian-style COVID-19 breakout over the past month. But the mixture of barely concealed panic from those at the top, the confused and contradictory messaging, the scapegoating and the handballing of blame has revealed that perhaps chief public health officer Nicola Spurrier, Premier Steven Marshall and Police Commissioner Grant Stevens weren’t quite as on top of the situation as we were led to believe.

It’s quite possible nobody could be on top of something as virulent as COVID-19. No doubt they have all been working very hard in a difficult situation.

They have faced an almost unprecedented pandemic. They have made many good decisions and provided necessary leadership. But they have also been lucky – and there is no shame in that.

It’s a luck that in some ways stretches back to the start of this strange year. There was nothing good about the bushfires almost 12 months ago, but it did lead to a decline in tourists from China, the US and Britain just as the virus was taking hold and about to devour those countries. SA has also never – compared to the eastern states – hosted that many cruise ships, so we avoided plague carriers such as the Ruby Princess.

South Australian Premier Steven Marshall demonstrates checking in via QR code at the Stag Hotel. Picture: Kelly Barnes/Getty Images

There is no doubt they were still pretty hairy times. Intensive care units were overflowing and people were dying, but we were helped by the luck of our geography and relative isolation – an isolation that placed us a long way from the rest of the world.

Even within SA, we are generally isolated from one another. There are far fewer of the residential tower blocks you see in places such as Sydney and Melbourne.

South Australians not being a rebellious lot, we generally abide by the rules – although it’s become apparent that if you are anything but absolute in those rules, people will ignore them.

Witness the drastic reduction in mask-wearing in the past week. Recommendations just don’t cut it for South Australians. So, we are riding our luck there a little bit.

Luck plays its part in all our lives. It’s luck where in the world you are born, who your parents are, how much money they have. Just look at life expectancy and health outcomes in the poorest and richest suburbs. It’s obvious there is still nothing luckier in this world as being born white, relatively well-off and male.

SA has been lucky over the past month. For months, the number of positive COVID cases had been building as we hosted more overseas arrivals. We were repeatedly told by Spurrier and Marshall this posed “no risk” to South Australians. That was wrong.

Remarkably, we still don’t know the ultimate source of the outbreak. We were told we had to go into lockdown because one person lied. That message changed. The Police Commissioner spat the dummy when it was suggested it was unwise that security guards at quarantine hotels held second jobs. That position changed.

Likewise, we were told those working in medi-hotels didn’t need to be regularly tested. That also changed.

Public flogging was brought back for a pizza worker, then 20 cops later, nothing. We were told a bloke who went shopping posed “a very significant risk for us’’. Then we were told he had done nothing wrong. The Health Minister admitted not reading a report into the Victorian quarantine disaster,

Look, nobody is perfect. This has been a long and difficult year for everyone and Spurrier, Marshall are probably exhausted. If they have had a day off, I haven’t noticed.

But maybe sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good. And I don’t mean lucky in a Donald Horne kind of way.