Coronavirus QLD: We’re not living in a police state

Commentators who have likened the Premier and her cronies to little Hitlers, and called for our social isolation restrictions to be eased might have missed something, writes Kylie Lang. There is the small matter of a global pandemic, and some of us need saving from ourselves.

PREMIER Annastacia Palaszczuk is secretly loving this coronavirus crisis.

With each new day, as recorded cases of sufferers increase, she gleefully rubs her hands together and lets out a wicked laugh before snatching away more and more of Queenslanders’ freedoms.

Oh, she’ll boast publicly that she is trying to keep people safe, but what she and her inner-circle of fun spoilers are deftly creating is a police state.

Opinion: Social distancing out the window in wild Woolies scenes

Social distancing and self-isolation are being ignored by too many

What else could possibly explain the closure of beaches and national parks and the blanket cancellation of large gatherings?

Picnic at New Farm Park during coronavirus restrictions, Sunday, April 12, 2020 - Picture: Richard Walker

The shutting of schools for most (but not all) children, and how in the name of all things Labor were the unions not consulted about the freeze on pay rises for public servants?

And the biggest outrage of all – no rugby league!

In a shock no-one saw coming, Ms Palaszczuk has refused to relax border restrictions so NRL clubs can come and go as they please. What part of footballers being gods does she not get?

Come October when we’re forced back to the polls, if Ms Palaszczuk is re-elected and stays the full four-year term, she will become the longest serving Labor premier since the 1940s.

If that’s not megalomaniac motivation to crush the little people, I don’t know what is.

But maybe I’m missing something.

Perhaps commentators who have likened the Premier and her cronies to little Hitlers have too.

I mean, there is the small matter of a global pandemic.

Queensland Police are seen moving on a sunbather from the beach at Burleigh Heads on the Gold Coast. (AAP Image/Darren England)

Italy, Spain, Britain, the United States and other countries - that did not act quickly enough to lock down life as they knew it - have been decimated. New Yorkers are burying their own in nameless pine boxes in massive warlike ditches.

There’s also that annoying thing that people do, where they think the rules don’t apply to them.

Consider the Queenslanders brawling in supermarkets, cramming into farmers’ markets, partying on beaches and generally thumbing their noses at common sense.

Could the Premier be genuinely trying to save people from themselves?

Could she be introducing tough measures after reviewing sound health advice and seeing how other places failed to stem COVID-19?

Could the hit to our economy be an unavoidable consequence of a virus we didn’t want to take seriously?

These are the questions we should be asking ourselves, instead of fuelling nonsense about evil dictatorships.

When we come out on the other side of coronavirus, in better shape than many other parts of the world, I don’t believe anyone with a brain will look back on the year that was 2020 and think the Government was excessive.

Instead of giving ammunition to idiots prone to flouting the rules by suggesting we are trapped in a police state, we should be encouraging everyone to suck it up and stay the course.

Originally published as Coronavirus QLD: We’re not living in a police state