Maurice Newman: Premiers blocking us from proper Covid recovery

State leaders and their inflexible lockdown tendencies are stomping all over Australia’s ambitions to emerge strong and economically healthy from Covid, writes Maurice Newman.

Eighteen months ago, blinded by apocalyptic computer modelling and lulled by a disingenuous “we’re all in this together” media campaign, Australians allowed their fundamental human rights to be stripped away.

In a fear-driven panic and on the promise of being saved from Covid-19 they ceded responsibility for their lives to a power-hungry collective.

Suddenly, those who had earlier paraded themselves as champions of the underdog became sinister authoritarians, riding roughshod over ­accepted standards of behaviour and accountability.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews led the way, projecting himself as the man for the moment.

Victorian Premier Dan Andrews is going for the lockdown world record. Picture : NCA NewsWire / Ian Currie

He now vies for the world record for the number of days of keeping people under house arrest. Despite multiple failures, the majority of Victorians fell for his pitch and still harbour positive feelings for their captor.

The financial cost is massive and equal to about seven per cent of gross state product. State debt is headed for $150 billion and beyond.

Demonstrating his need to control, Andrews has 86 direct reports to take the blame when things go wrong.

Otherwise it’s simply enough to tell his subjects: “It is not for me to prove the efficacy of any one measure. No-one has ever maintained that any one measure is the way out of this, so therefore it is not for me to provide hard data that establishes that.”

Trust him. He just knows.

But, with infections spiking and after nearly nine months of financial stress, suffering suicidal ideation, domestic violence, undiagnosed medical conditions and separation anxiety, a growing number of relegated Victorians are realising they have been had.

Some are taking to the streets in protest.

There, they are reminded of their underclass status. An army of palace guards, ranging from a deeply politicised, black-shirted police command, armed with unprecedented air space management powers to keep prying eyes away, work with a corps of tame journalists to repel them.

Brutal police action is censored and the Andrews government’s spin that the demonstrators were mainly subversive anti-vaxxers and “Nazis” who got what they deserved is the story.

For many looking on this must surely be Venezuela, not Victoria.

Non-Victorians shouldn’t feel smug.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is still refusing to consider opening borders. Picture: NCA NewsWire / John Gass

For example, the authoritarian Queensland Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, now says lifting border restrictions, even after Australia’s vaccine coverage reaches 80 per cent, may not happen: “If you look at the national plan, the 80 per cent actually takes you backwards.”

In other words, forget what she agreed at national cabinet and just be thankful for the diminished freedoms you have.

If your business can’t plan, it’s for the collective good. She and her erratic chief health officer, Jeanette Young, know best.

Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan says he wants at least 80 per cent of eligible West Australians vaccinated before he will set a date for bringing down the hard border, but now includes children aged 12 and over in that threshold.

While the likelihood of a child becoming seriously ill from Covid is incredibly low, the wider long-term health risks of double vaccinating them are still unknown.

That said, McGowan’s political interests are likely to prevail.

West Australian Premier Mark McGowan is also playing games over border reopenings. Picture: Jackson Flindell

South Australian premier Steven Marshall is another national cabinet member who is baulking at an 80 per cent average vaccination mark. He cites uneven distribution of vaccines as his reason.

So what’s the point of a national cabinet and a national plan to transition out of Covid? Or of the Australian Constitution, for that matter?

Today’s state leaders behave like pre-1901 colonial governors who are no longer members of a federation.

Even the nation’s most liberal premier, Gladys Berejiklian, is reluctant to loosen her grip.

As NSW “gallops” towards her much vaunted 70 per cent fully vaccinated target, she warns: “I am always wary of using terms like ‘freedom day’.”

She adds that opening up must be a “step by step process”, whatever that means.

Berejiklian is no doubt speaking for her fellow authoritarians when she says: “We must remember that even though people may be fully vaccinated, if you are vulnerable and have other conditions, you can still succumb and get the disease in a serious way, or worse.”

Welcome to the nanny state, where personal responsibility has no place.

South Australian Premier Steven Marshall is making a mockery of national cabinet. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Emma Brasier

Driving reckless government ­conduct throughout most of the pandemic is the reality that without ­additional intensive care units, ventilators, hospital beds and trained staff, should infections spike, health ­resources risk being overwhelmed – not a good look politically.

So for 18 months, the ruling class has opted to turn millions of healthy homes into makeshift quarantine ­stations.

With no bill of rights, Australia’s Constitution provides few protections from state coercion.

The right to vote means little when the ideological divide between the major parties is almost indistinguishable and when the Prime Minister ­behaves like just another state ­premier.

For example, where is Canberra’s High Court challenge to arbitrary border closures?

And where is the Prime Minister’s condemnation of the brutal actions of the Victorian police?

Earlier this year Prime Minister Scott Morrison boasted it was a triumph for our democracy when women’s rights ­protesters “weren’t met with bullets”.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian is the most liberal state leader in the country. Picture: Getty Images

Six months later, when anti-­lockdown protesters were met with rubber bullets, he slammed the protesters and backed dictator Andrews’ spiteful two-week ban on construction work.

Where are the defenders of freedom we fought two world wars to ­preserve?

It must be clear to even the most obedient Australian that after nine months of the world’s harshest lockdowns, at enormous social and economic cost, the critics were right.

Lockdowns don’t work. On half the number of tests, Covid cases in Victoria look like overtaking more liberal NSW.

How much longer can faith in this fascism last? Are the recent protests the canary in the coal mine?

Only time will tell. What we know is, blinded by fear, we surrendered our freedoms to those more interested in expanding the authoritarian high ground than relinquishing it.