Editorial: Premier should stop using doctor to answer hard questions
Queensland’s Chief Health Officer should be required to provide the public with expert health advice and the reasoning behind certain decisions under her powers – not used as political cover for a leader who doesn’t like it when the questions get a bit tricky, writes The Editor.
Opinion
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THE allegation that a Nerang man threatened the life of Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and the state’s Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young is appalling.
Queensland is not a despot state where such threats against elected representatives and senior officials should occur and hopefully the charges lead to serious consequences for this deplorable individual.
We all owe a debt of gratitude to the work that particularly Dr Young has done before and during the COVID-19 crisis.
Her dedication to her role, one few Queenslanders would have heard of before this dreadful pandemic came along, ensured our state was ahead of the curve compared with other jurisdictions.
It wasn’t an accident that Queensland was the first in Australia to declare a state of emergency because of COVID-19 and begin early work preparing our health system for a potential influx of infected patients.
Ms Palaszczuk also deserves credit for her diligent efforts in the earlier days of the pandemic by listening to and acting on the health advice. It is a shame that effort has been sullied by some very overtly political decision-making in recent times, particularly in relation to the border and exemptions.
Yet amid that it should be recognised how Queensland has again fought back from the brink of a second wave of cases, thanks to Dr Young, which is in stark contrast to what occurred in Victoria. The cluster of cases around the Wacol Detention Centre – now scientifically linked to the two infected women who conned their way back into Queensland after travelling to Victoria – could have easily got out of control. But Queensland Health has again performed outstandingly, with fever clinics quickly established to undertake record numbers of tests and contact tracers tracking down and isolating anyone who may have come into contact with infected people.
Only one new case of coronavirus occurred yesterday – and that person was already in quarantine. Results like that don’t just happen by good fortune.
It’s a pity that Dr Young has had to go off script on a couple of occasions to defend government decision-making. The government should respect Dr Young’s statutory independent and not force her to defend decisions it has made to ensure things outside COVID protocols can occur.
Dr Young should be required to provide the public with expert health advice and the reasoning behind certain decisions under her powers – not used as political cover for a leader who doesn’t like it when the questions get a bit tricky.
It should be Ms Palaszczuk who today fronts up to face those tricky questions herself – to explain why she decided to travel to Mackay on Monday while unwell.
Despite admitting on Monday that she had lost her voice, the Premier apparently diagnosed herself with having only lost it due to her exertions in last week’s parliamentary sittings. That meant she gave herself the all-clear to attend the funeral of late deputy Labor leader Tim Mulherin on Tuesday, and then travel to Proserpine and on to Bundaberg on Wednesday. She insisted yesterday that it was only on Wednesday that she actually felt unwell, and so it was then that she went home and was tested – a test that came back negative.
But the Premier should have been far more cautious – as she has advised us all to be so many times in recent months. We are, after all, “in a global pandemic”.