Opinion: State governments addicted to Covid-19 powers

Our political masters wield more power than even Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, and the public is getting sick of being told what to do, writes Mike O’Connor.

If, as former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger once observed, power is the ultimate aphrodisiac, then our state premiers must be in a state of permanent arousal.

It’s addictive stuff, power, as ­witnessed by the difficulty that those who gain it have in relinquishing it when the bell tolls.

Those of an age that allows them a memory of the Bjelke-Petersen days might recall that as his support crumbled, he locked himself in his office and refused to acknowledge it was over.

Sir Joh, however, never wielded anything like the power that is now being exercised by state governments.

How he would have loved to have been able to lock people in their homes, refuse entry to “southerners” and close the state’s borders at will.

His stock answer when anyone questioned his authority and ­criticised his judgment was, “Don’t you worry about that.”

A portrait of former premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen

Not a lot has changed. We’re now routinely told what is good for us and what is not.

Health Minister D’Ath last week dismissed calls for the ­reopening of international borders with the observation that she could not imagine why Queenslanders would want to go to Bali.

The arrogance of this stance is ­disturbing. I’m not in a hurry to go to Bali, but if I so desired it should be my call, not the health minister’s.

Want to leave the Sunshine State for far horizons? Silly boy. Don’t you worry about that. Put your face mask back on and go and stand in the corner.

The intrusion into our lives that has taken place is unprecedented, but the bell is beginning to toll, its warning peals growing louder by the day as they echo down the corridors of power in George Street.

The people are growing restive beneath the yoke of government direction and regulations.

Premier Palaszczuk crows about the “freedoms” Queenslanders enjoy as if they were hers to give, to be handed out like free tickets to the football to a fawning and ever-­grateful populace. They are not “freedoms”, but the democratic rights of association, movement, gathering and speech for which far too many Australians have given their lives.

The time is fast approaching when “don’t you worry about that” won’t cut it.

Health Minister Yvette D'Ath on Saturday. Picture, John Gass

People are wondering why ­suddenly we are being told that our hospital system will be unable to cope with open borders unless – surprise, surprise – the Federal Government hands over more money.

If this is the case, Minister D’Ath and her predecessor Cameron Dick should both resign, for they’ve had 18 months to prepare for this scenario – unless, of course, the plan is to keep us locked up indefinitely.

Grabbing the power to run our lives was the easy part. Remember the doomsday predictions of “health experts” like the ABC’s favourite son Norman Swan predicting 80,000 Covid-19 cases a day? If you listened to the “experts”, the bodies were going to be piled high in the streets.

We succumbed to the politics of fear and buckled down and “did the right thing”, disturbed by the sight of mounted police ordering people ­enjoying a moment’s rest on a park bench to move on, but reasoning that it was all for the common good.

The good will that saw us surrender the precious right to move about ­freely in our society is now evaporating, our patience worn thin by incessant blame shifting and finger pointing.

Premier Palaszczuk now complains that she was not told in advance that Scott Morrison planned to open international borders next month.

This is the same premier who when asked at a press conference if the Prime Minister knew she would build the Wellcamp quarantine ­facility, smirked: “Well, he knows now, doesn’t he.” Funny, eh?

We’ve suffered enough cringe-inducing moments. Surely enough is enough, but will the State Government easily relinquish the powers with which it has become so comfortable for the mere suggestion of this triggers a landslide of obstacles, obfuscation and procrastination.

Don’t you worry about that.

Remember the call to action that rallied us in the early days? “We’re all in this together,” we told each other, and most of us believed it. It was, after all, the Australian way.

Tell the Queensland residents sleeping in tents, cars and caravans on the other side of the border and prevented from coming home by police acting as Berlin Wall border guards that we’re all in this together and I’ve an idea they might beg to differ.

Is there a plan to deal with the months ahead? My very real fear is that there is not, just more buffoonery, antics and an ever-tightening and increasingly desperate grip by government on the extraordinary powers under which we live.