Vikki Campion: Premiers must stop ignoring other issues because of Covid
What will our premiers talk about if they intend to remain reality TV stars in 2022 as talking heads for Covid while ignoring other issues? Vikki Campion has some ideas.
Opinion
Don't miss out on the headlines from Opinion. Followed categories will be added to My News.
As 2021 came to a welcome end, Queensland’s new chief health officer Dr John Gerrard made a stunning departure from his predecessor — opting for a dose of reality instead of bizarre rants about AstraZeneca.
He calmly told Queenslanders that Omicron is not the disease we fear and is even welcome due to its mildness. But this presents a dire situation for our premiers. What will they talk about now if they intend to remain Kardashian-esque reality TV stars in 2022?
Here are a few suggestions.
1. Use flashing light police equipment for actual policing instead of theatrical backdrops for Covid press conferences. Lights and sirens don’t scare Covid — but they can stop break-ins.
2. The majority of press releases pumped out of the Queensland Education Ministerial and Departmental offices during 2021 centred on schools becoming vaccination hubs, school closures and skeleton staff. Rather than using schools as another prop for Covid, they could talk about improving the education results of students. Queensland kids have had a long term decline in maths, science and reading with recent PISA results showing students behind kids in China and Estonia. Imagine what the pressure it could bring, especially if they compare their education results with other states and countries, dramatically different to ours, as they have done with Covid.
3. The Queensland Government has put out dozens of flashy announcements about hydrogen; they just won’t say where the water to make it will come from. In the scattering of press releases issued on Queensland’s dams during 2021, most related to emergency repairs to weirs built long ago and the early juggle of bureaucracy that goes into any new water project. Even dams announced for NSW back in 2020 stalled. They also had the fiasco of Paradise Dam at Bundaberg, where they lowered the wall and then realised a few days out from Christmas they had to build it back up after letting millions of litres of water wash out to sea.
4. Instead of pitting state against state for which fiefdom has the least Covid (surprise, surprise — it’s usually the most isolated with the smallest, and most distant populations), the premiers could use daily press conferences to show how they are going to make their state the most competitive, with well-thought-out ideas on reducing stamp duty, land tax, or red tape to allow business to flourish. It could be a regional incentive tax to give benefits to move enterprises west. Unlike Covid, it’s something they can directly control.
5. Western Australia can explain why it wants to be an independent country so badly: Premier Mark McGowan, from Newcastle, can give a press conference about why he doesn’t give a damn about anything outside Perth. Should get the ratings up.
6. The regional doctor shortage could be fixed with Medicare provider numbers alllocated by postcode. Sure, most doctors want to live in the city, but that’s not where the Medicare levy-payers live. While they are at it, the premiers can give us progress on how they are fixing hospitals, with a recent NSW inquiry into regional health revealing ghost-hospitals where millions of dollars worth of new infrastructure is left as storage rooms with nobody to staff them, maternity wards shut down and birthing women given waterproof mats for their cars. And the Qld Government could explain why so many of it’s hospitals were Code Yellow full without a single Covid case. A daily update on statistics of new medical experts recruited could see a health care revolution.
7. As regional rentals get snapped up by tree-changers eager to escape their apartments for a lockdown life with more room, the numbers of regional homes to rent are dwindling, and the cost to buy is skyrocketing. The obvious solution is to build more to meet demand, but that means lifting the koala anti-development zones set by the NSW Government during 2021. A daily statistic refresh on those who slept on cars and couches each morning could provide insight into how Sydney’s environmental policy affects the bush.
8. While the hypochondria pandemic still has months to go, the genuine consequence of two years of government-imposed isolation have been the declining mental health of people who lost business, those cruelly refused to see dying loved ones and nanna’s who waited two years to cuddle their grandbabies. Since the Premiers want to be famous so badly, they could adjust their morning statistics to the number of suicide attempts and businesses that fell over, exacerbated in large part by their restrictions.
Covid has proved a leisurely pastime for lazy journalists who prefer to report on government statistics and celebrity Instagram announcements than delve into the thorny issues and ask the tough questions — but 2022 could offer us a breath of fresh air, like why is everything but Covid being ignored?
Got a news tip? Email weekendtele@news.com.au
More Coverage
Civil war in Port Macquarie as the Coalition slugs it out
Port Macquarie has become ground zero for an eruption of green-on-blue violence in the NSW Coalition — fuelled by two men trying to keep a hold on their jobs, writes James O’Doherty.
Quiet, even more deadly: Asian crime gangs are merciless
The murder of Chong Kai ‘Jacky’ Wong on a remote farm by members of his own drug cartel shows just how merciless Asian crime gangs can be, says crime editor MARK MORRI.