Comment: Smoke and mirrors as Minister sticks to script

Never has the gap in cerebral capacity between punters and pollies been more evident than last week, writes Mike O’Connor.

MERE mortals like us cannot be expected to match the wits of the intellectual titans that occupy the state government front bench. Never has the gap in cerebral capacity between punters and pollies been more evident than last week.

The occasion was a question asked by the Opposition of newly sworn-in Health Minister Yvette D’Ath relating to tourist boat operators who since the advent of COVID have been restricted to operating at 50 per cent capacity, a restriction that threatens to destroy their livelihoods.

Why was this so, asked the Opposition, when planes were flying at 100 per cent capacity and on what health advice was this regulation based?

Fifty thousand people can pack into Suncorp Stadium for a footy match and the Brisbane City Council buses I catch these days are often full so maybe it’s time to lift the restrictions on tour boat operations. A reasonable argument, you might think.

Health Minister Yvette D'Ath knows more about the COVID risks of half-empty tour boats than the rest of us. Picture: Annette Dew

Not so in the mind of Minister D’Ath who illustrated what could kindly be described as an intriguing line of reasoning in comparing COVID with smoking. This was a world first for Queensland as no one anywhere else on the planet has been sharp enough to spot the link.

“Do they (the Opposition) say release all of the advice on smoking and why we have to restrict it in buildings and cars?” she thundered.

What had apparently escaped the Minister’s attention was that no one was suggesting that we all start lighting up in our cars or that the tour boat operators had a problem with bans on smoking.

While the Opposition and anyone else unfortunate enough to witness this bizarre announcement struggled to equate firing up a Winfield in a car with contracting COVID the Minister rolled on, attacking the Opposition for asking what she described as a “disturbing” question. I would have thought the response more disturbing than the question, but there was more to come.

“What that question says is we now want to put doubt in the minds of anyone coming to Queensland that you cannot come here safely,” she said.

Was this because they now feared that if they ventured across the border they would be forced to take up smoking by tour boat operators? Was it because they were afraid they might catch a neurological disorder that would cause them to confuse smoking with COVID? It was all very confusing.

In an attempt to steer the debate into the realms of reality, Opposition frontbencher Amanda Camm said: “There are businesses all across our state, in particular in the Whitsundays, that are screaming out for transparency and a review of these decisions to understand exactly why they have to comply with the 50 per cent carriage.”

Sanity, alas, failed to prevail for having revealed the Opposition’s lamentable inability to, along with everyone else in the state, grasp the nexus between smoking and COVID, Minister D’Ath revealed more startling news.

“There is not one leader, not one health minister around the world that is detailing all the complex medical information,” she announced.

Jeannette Young won’t reveal the true nature of her health advice. Picture: Annette Dew

How she came by this knowledge was not revealed. Perhaps by consulting the same mysterious source that equated inhaling smoke with COVID.

Refusing to concede the obvious anomaly between a full Boeing 737 and a half empty tour boat, Minister D’Ath said that elbow to elbow airline passengers were fine because they were ticketed and could be traced.

The fact that tour boat operators also record contact details does not appear to have occurred to her.

The real issue here, of course, was health advice. What was the basis of the health advice on which the tour boat restrictions were based?

Mention health advice and the entire cabinet joins hands and dances chanting “we’re keeping Queensland safe, we’re keeping Queensland safe”. The health advice for which we have all paid, meanwhile, remains a state secret.

Where is it kept, I wonder? In a padlocked steel box under Premier Palaszczuk’s bed? Is it written in invisible ink, lest some thief in the night should abscond with it?

Does Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young carry a cyanide capsule disguised as one of the pearls in her necklace? Captured by the Opposition and tortured beyond all human endurance by being forced to watch replays of her own press conferences, rather than reveal the true nature of her health advice she can whip off the pearls and crunch on the capsule.

The tour boat operators, part of the tourism industry that the government so loudly boasts of supporting, are still waiting for a rational response. Simple souls like us, lacking the perspicacity of Ministers of the Crown, might wonder if any such health advice exists.