Cry Covid freedom: What Dominic Perrottet should do next

Dominic Perrottet can get things moving in his first days as leader by removing some of the more pointless anti-pandemic restrictions, writes James Morrow.

You can almost imagine the socially distant and mask-muffled conversations down at the ABC staff canteen.

“Have you heard about the new premier? Apparently this Perrottet fella’s a big time Catholic – and he really believes that stuff. He actually has six kids.”

“Wow. I can’t believe we have such an anti-science Neanderthal as leader. I hope he doesn’t start pushing any of that backward stuff about only women being able to have babies in the schools!”

From the moment Gladys Berejiklian pulled the pin, the prospect of Premier Dominic Perrottet has had the left (including, let’s be frank, many members of the Liberal party) in a meltdown.

Dominic Perrottet is about to succeed Gladys Berejiklian as Premier. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Christian Gilles

Perrottet pictured with Berejiklian. Picture: Toby Zerna

And, once the deal for his leadership appeared to be sealed Sunday night, the phrase “Catholic father of six” immediately became shorthand for “backwards clerical fascist” among those who prefer their kneeling done during the national anthem.

On Sunday night the ABC website published its own take: “Meet Dom Perrottet — the conservative Catholic and father-of-six who will be NSW’s next Premier”

For Ultimo luvvies who would never think of describing a Muslim politician’s faith as anything but “gorgeous, darling”, the message was clear.

Family man... Pictured with daughters Charlotte 12, Amelia 10 and Annabelle 7. Picture: Tim Hunter.

Even before Perrottet firmed as the favourite, the ABC was running a weird religious test.

One ABC news report pitted Perrottet against potential challenger Rob Stokes, running a bizarre tale of the tape that noted the former’s Catholicism, the latter’s Anglicanism, their respective number of children (Stokes has a relatively small brood of three), and for the coup de grace pointed out both “voted against decriminalising abortion.”

Of course it wasn’t just the national broadcaster.

Popular... Perrottet has backing of party moderates. Picture: Christian Gilles

The West Australian fired off its own report which it promoted on Twitter saying, “If hard-right NSW Dominic Perrottet – the Catholic with six children – ends up becoming the state’s 46th premier, WA could be firmly in his sights.”

“Hard-right” … “Catholic” … “six children” … Bingo!

Meanwhile in the Nine papers, Stephanie Dowrick wrote that Australians should be proud of being an “inclusive” nation, before launching an Orwellian pirouette: “Within a day, it is possible that NSW, self-described as the most progressive state in the federation, may have, in Dominic Perrottet, a premier … who is also a highly conservative Catholic with views that represent the most extreme end of a rigidly male-dominated institutional church.”

Bill Shorten’s attacks on Scott Morrison’s faith backfired on Labor.

At this rate, it won’t be long before journalists start demanding to know if Perrottet will install a hotline from Macquarie Street to the Vatican.

Australia’s founders, noting the sectarianism of their age – and particularly an elite anti-Catholic feeling we don’t seem to have yet abandoned – made it explicitly clear that “no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.”

Today’s fundamentalist atheist left should be so open-minded – and they should also recall how spectacularly, back in 2019, Bill Shorten’s attacks on Scott Morrison’s faith backfired on Labor.

Or, for that matter, the ugliness with which Amy Coney Barrett was attacked during her nomination fight to get on the US Supreme Court.

Amazingly, the mother of seven children (two adopted from Haiti) and prolific judge and legal academic was portrayed as the harbinger of a coming Handmaid’s Tale takeover of the US and not as a brilliant and talented individual with a large and, by all appearances, happy and loving family.

But in this coronavirus age the stakes are higher.

Perrottet – assuming he does get up at Tuesday morning’s party room – will need a lot more than faith to get him through the coming weeks and months.

At a time when some have turned science into a religion and health officers into high priests, Perrottet’s open warfare with Covid totalitarianism represents a heresy that threatens their power. His recent declaration that “it’s not the government’s role to provide freedom, ­people born in this country by default are free” should be repeated at every opportunity.

Three (and possibly more) by-elections threaten to end his government before his premiership has even really begun.

It will be incumbent on him to move quickly to make change and consolidate power.

A good start would be an end to compulsory mask wearing now, at least outdoors.

The rule was imposed more for the sake of shutting up a noisy segment of the press gallery and there is virtually nil evidence that Covid spreads out in the sun and air.

New cases Monday fell to 623, eight days after a brilliantly sunny Sunday which saw thousands of Sydneysiders flock to the beach and just as many Twitter doctors predict this would lead to a mass extinction event.

Dial-a-quote epidemiologists might shriek, but everyone else would be grateful.

Likewise schools should go back right away, too, and Perrottet should listen to the science which says that Covid is generally less serious than the flu in children and ensure pupils are not forced to wear masks all day as they are in some parts of the US.

On the subject of schools, Perrottet should also tell his Education Minister – whether or not that ­remains Sarah Mitchell – that every day they are not getting into a stoush with the unions is a day they are not doing their job.

A proper clean out of the curriculum, as well as cutting out divisive critical race nonsense imported from the US, should be first order of ­business.

NSW hasn’t had a premier who took schools seriously since Bob Carr and under the Coalition has had education ministers who have ranged from the woeful to the ineffectual. Fixing this could represent a great post-Covid legacy.

And of course he’ll have to take a blowtorch to the bureaucracy, particularly top officials who will seek to frustrate him at every turn, while keeping his conservative base onside with the many compromises he’ll need to make to govern.