‘Utter disgrace’: Qld’s Covid response ‘inappropriate, heavy-handed and controlling’

Broken families and crippled businesses who bore the brunt of the Palaszczuk Government’s belligerent and self-serving Covid restrictions have been vindicated, writes Kylie Lang.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk providing a Covid update during the pandemic. Picture: Dan Peled

A shout out to all those broken families, crippled businesses and otherwise emotionally scarred individuals who bore the brunt of the Palaszczuk Government’s belligerent and self-serving restrictions during the pandemic.

You have been vindicated.

While it might not mean much – because nothing can ever, ever erase the hurt, hardship and distress you’ve suffered – the Covid-19 Response Inquiry Report released this week sends a clear message.

You were not wrong.

When then premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and her chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young – later elevated to the cushy role of Governor of Queensland for her Covid performance – implemented one draconian measure after the next, you were right to feel oppressed.

You were right to believe the Labor government was not on the side of workers, in contrast to its founding tenet.

And you were right in seeing zero compassion from a premier who saw a way to use the pandemic to protect her job.

Then Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young. Picture: Dan Peled

But of course that’s history now and Labor’s short run under Steven Miles was brought to a close last weekend when Queenslanders gave David Crisafulli’s LNP a majority to clean up Labor’s mess.

Except it’s not history for the Queenslanders who followed the letter of the law but have paid a huge price.

The 868-page report, commissioned by the federal government and led by retired NSW senior public ­servant Robyn Kruk, found state lockdowns, border closures, curfews and school shutdowns were unjustified after the initial wave of the pandemic, with several problematic outcomes we are now stuck with.

Trust in government, such as it was, has been eroded.

The mental health of our young people has suffered so badly as to cause “changes in brain biology”. Expect that to have ramifications we’ve not even considered yet.

Did schools need to close? No. The peak decision-making body for public health emergency management advised against it but the Queensland government pushed on, in typical chaotic fashion.

Dr Young’s scaremongering about AstraZenica has contributed to vaccine rates tumbling, including for other diseases such as polio.

And, incredulously, our nation is less prepared now for a pandemic than it was when Covid hit in 2020.

Burnt-out health workers have quit – ambulance ramping but one legacy – while this once- obedient public will no longer automatically fall into line with government orders.

Who could blame us?

A Covid-19 drive through clinic in Bowen Hills. Picture: Dan Peled

The report found “restrictive measures became ­increasingly inappropriate over the long term and were too heavy-handed and controlling”.

“There was a lack of compassion and too few exceptions based on needs and circumstances,” it said.

“We cannot assume that the public will comply with similar restrictions in a future public health emergency.”

Let’s revisit three of the most notable cases.

September 2021: Three-year-old Memphis Francis was finally reunited with his mother after being stuck in rural NSW since visiting his grandparents in July. His parents, living on acreage on the Fraser Coast (social distancing made easy), had made several requests for an exemption for him to come home. All denied. It took coverage in The Courier-Mail for the government to have a heart.

September 2020: Canberra-based Sarah Caisip, 26, fought for an exemption to fly to Queensland to visit her father but he died before she arrived. The grief-stricken graduate nurse then tried, in vain, to attend his funeral with her mother and sister. Dr Young would not be moved, until finally permitting Ms Caisip, clad in mask and face shield, to be taken by paramedics from her Brisbane hotel to have a private viewing of her father’s body.

July 2020: Retired high-flying financier Brendan Luxton was forced to quarantine in Brisbane’s Marriott Hotel despite his family’s desperate pleas for an exemption due to his obvious and rapidly declining mental state. All requests fell on deaf ears. Mr Luxton, 51, suicided in his sister’s home within 24 hours of his eventual release from quarantine. The Luxtons were family friends of the Palaszczuks but didn’t try to leverage the relationship, instead “trusting the process”. It failed them miserably.

As Mr Luxton’s sister Marita Corbett told me this week, the Covid-19 Response Inquiry Report is “a real finger pointer” and it “lays the direct responsibility and accountability at state level”.

All in all, it’s an utter disgrace.

LOVE

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LOATHE

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