Tim Blair: Gladys Berejiklian has stood out among premiers in the COVID era
One state premier has been impressively direct and upfront during our long year of coronavirus, but two others have turned into total blame-dodging flameouts, writes Tim Blair.
Opinion
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Athletes need to continually improve their performances as they move up to more competitive levels.
The efforts that deliver success at junior levels are never sufficient in senior ranks.
Australian racing driver Larry Perkins, for example, won many local races during the early 1970s. Gifted, hardworking and ambitious, Perkins then moved to Europe to take on the world’s best up-and-coming young racers.
That’s when Perkins discovered he’d been winning in Australia by driving at just seven-tenths of his full ability.
He had to step things up massively to even stay in touch with his rapid European rivals.
Likewise, politicians able to blunder through well enough as they operate at lower levels of government must elevate their act when in leadership.
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Melbourne One Day, Queensland the Next
Some of them accomplish this by simply recognising their increased responsibilities and behaving accordingly.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian may be a closet climate evangelist who could go full Turnbull on us at any career-ending moment, but at least she’s at the low end of the compulsive evasiveness scale.
In August, following an inquiry into the coronavirus-spreading Ruby Princess cruise ship debacle, Berejiklian took it on the chin.
“I want to apologise unreservedly to anybody who is continuing to suffer, or has suffered unimaginable loss because of mistakes that were made within our health agencies,” the Premier said.
“I say not only have lessons been learnt, but clearly those circumstances should and will never happen again in New South Wales.”
By contrast, other state leaders have adapted to increased pressures by working on their blame games.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has lifted her blame-dodging to such an elite level that last week she effectively denied even being Premier.
This followed her government’s refusal to allow Canberra woman Sarah Caisip one final chance to see her dying father. The government then prevented Caisip from attending his funeral.
Now, Canberra presently has the same number of coronavirus cases as it does reasons to visit – exactly none – so allowing Caisip into Queensland was clearly no health risk.
The whole episode defied comprehension.
Palaszczuk, up for re-election next month, blamed her Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young. At least four times on Thursday and a further three times on Friday, Palaszczuk said it was all Young’s fault.
I’m not sure how often buses roll by Young’s Brisbane office, but she must be getting tired of being thrown under them.
Young might be the only senior Australian bureaucrat serving double-duty as an urban traffic-calming device.
“It’s her decision,” Palaszczuk said during her welter of CHO-blaming. “Under the Act, it’s her decision. You have got to take the clinical advice here.”
But it was never Young’s decision. All she offered, as Palaszczuk said, was her advice – upon which Palaszczuk and her government acted.
Still, let’s not worry too much about Jeannette Young, who last week explained why certain wealthy folk are granted Queensland access exemptions while distressed young women are blocked.
“I have given exemptions from people in entertainment and film,” health-advising speed bump Young said, “because that is bringing a lot of money into this state.”
So start charging $500,000 in state fees for Queensland funerals, then. Two birds, one stone.
Down in Victoria, where two birds in close proximity would be liable for arrest under social distancing regulations, Premier Dan Andrews and various officials last week devised a fascinating variation on the blame game.
Asked whose idea it was to put Melbourne under a nightly curfew, they blamed a mysterious, unknown entity none of them could identify.
Chief Commissioner Shane Patton said police did not request and were not consulted on the curfew.
Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton said the curfew was not his idea and had not been recommended.
Andrews came closest to pinpointing the culprit. Or, rather, culprits.
“Decisions are made,” he said “by groups of people.”
But which group, in this specific case?
Was the curfew imposed by mischievous lawn bowlers with time on their hands during Victoria’s lockdown?
Did a choir sing the curfew into existence?
Can a curfew be generated by an online knitting circle?
Whoever they may be, Victorians better keep on the group’s good side. Given they have the power to impose the curfew, presumably only they can rescind it.
Like Jeannette Young in Queensland, “the group” clearly rule Victoria.
They’ve been active lately, shifting Melbourne’s curfew back one hour to 9pm and now allowing citizens a whole two hours – two hours! – of freedom in the prison exercise yard otherwise known as Australia’s second-largest city.
Actually, that comparison is unfair.
Many prisons offer more daily yard time to inmates than is granted to Melbourne residents by “the group” and their Victorian government subordinates.
By the way, Larry Perkins eventually made it all the way to Formula One. Armed with his enhanced competitiveness, Perkins then returned to Australia where he became a six-time Bathurst winner.
When he crashed during practice in his final Bathurst appearance, 17 years ago, Perkins blamed absolutely nobody but himself.
He might have been a brilliant driver, engineer and car-builder, but Perkins would never have made it as a politician.