Opinion: Covid-era leaders doing very nicely while we pay the price

You can rely on politicians to never waste a good crisis, and Covid-19 was too good an opportunity to pass up, writes Mike O’Connor.

Then premier Annastacia Palaszczuk with deputy Steven Miles in 2021

What were you doing five years ago? Peering through the windows at empty streets, wondering if you might get away with a quick run to the local bottle shop, or worrying about how your elderly parents were coping?

This month marks an anniversary of the first Covid-19 lockdown in Queensland, five years passing since toilet paper was hoarded like so much gold bullion and we surrendered our basic freedoms and rights with barely a squeak of protest.

The panic buying that cleared the supermarket shelves of bathroom tissue at the approach of Cyclone Alfred was an unsettling reminder of those dark days when state premiers – aided and abetted by unelected health bureaucrats eager to please their political masters – trashed our civil liberties, including our right to freedom of movement and association.

They’re gone now, the mini-dictators who ruled by decree. Western Australia’s Mark McGowan departed with his taxpayer-funded superannuation under his arm complaining of burnout, staging a miraculous recovery and landing jobs with BHP and Mineral Resources within weeks.

Victoria’s Daniel Andrews grabbed his payout and went in search of a golf club which would accept him as a member (no easy task with the stench surrounding his premiership preceding him like a dark miasma).

Our very own Annastacia Palaszczuk, dragged kicking and screaming from the Premier’s office, is now on the corporate speaking circuit and threatening to write a book, her legacy being the shambles which surrounds her ego-driven bid for Brisbane to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

They’re all doing very nicely, these leaders who saw a political advantage in playing the tough guy and creating an atmosphere of fear and intimidation which threatened any whisper of protest with the jackboot of harsh repression.

The tragedy is that we are still paying the price. Half a million children are regularly skipping school and an estimated 80,000 kids have disappeared from the education system – both of which are seen as long term impacts of lockdowns.

Former health minister Shannon Fentiman (right) with Governor Jeannette Young

Vaccination rates have also dropped alarmingly. As noted in the Covid-19 Response Inquiry Report, “the government’s approach (to vaccines) added confusion to what is already a complicated topic” which has resulted in “an ongoing loss of trust in vaccines”. Whatever happened, you might wonder, to all those people whose businesses were crushed by the lockdowns imposed on still secret medical advice? Did they declare bankruptcy, lose their homes and their life’s savings and have their plans and hopes for their children’s futures destroyed?

We all fell for it, the predictions of bodies lying in the streets and of hospitals being overwhelmed.

As late as 2022 the ABC’s health guru Dr Norman Swan tried to fan the flames of hysteria by claiming that the deaths of Shane Warne who died of a heart attack and that of a politician were Covid-19-linked.

Even Dr Norman Swan got caught up in the Covid-19 hysteria.

“It’s too much of a coincidence that Shane Warne and the Labor senator in Victoria died not long after a Covid infection, and people are reporting sudden death after Covid infection,” Swan said. “It’s not benign.”

Twenty-four hours later he retracted his claim and said he had got it wrong. Sorry folks. Relax. Covid-19 doesn’t cause heart attacks. Thanks Doc. Nice to know.

There was a lot of “got it wrong” five years ago, but we’ll never know the true story in Queensland because the Labor government, as represented by then health minister Shannon Fentiman, said the health advice used to impose lockdown rules and vaccination mandates didn’t exist.

“In making these public health directions the chief health officer relied on advice from a variety of sources,” Ms Fentiman said. Nothing to see here. Move along.

We are expected to believe that nothing was written down by then chief health officer Jeannette Young and that there was no documentation provided to the government, not even a post-it note. How handy.

One wonders if now-Governor Young, rewarded for her faithful service with the keys to Government House, takes notes in her current role or relies instead on what must be an incredible memory.

More than half the people I know have had Covid-19 over the past few years, suffering mild to moderate flu symptoms. The old and those with pre-existing conditions remain at risk, as was ever the case.

You can rely on politicians to never waste a good crisis and Covid-19 was too good an opportunity to pass up. We must hope that we have learnt from the past and never again accept police state rule based on unsubstantiated claims driven by a naked grab for political power. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.