Qld coronavirus: Labor trading in fear and alarmism in COVID-19 response

With just over 1000 cases and six deaths – a COVID-19 result as good as anywhere in the world – why is the State Government continuing to deny people basic human rights? There’s nothing like a good old-fashioned fear campaign to keep punters on their toes, writes Peter Gleeson.

At his inauguration speech in 1933, US president Franklin D Roosevelt said “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself’’.

He went on to say fear manifested itself through “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyses needed efforts to convert retreat into advance”.

He didn’t know it at the time but he might well have been referring to the way three Labor premiers – WA’s Mark McGowan, Victoria’s Dan Andrews and Queensland’s Annastacia Palaszczuk – are handling the COVID-19 crisis.

Let’s look at the original Queensland health modelling, which admittedly is fraught with danger and the contagion variables are as unpredictable as a Labor premier at a national cabinet meeting.

Queensland Health Minister Steven Miles, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young. (AAP Image/Darren England)

For context – considering the October 31 election will be a referendum on COVID-19 – it’s important that we look back over the past six months to see how this pandemic, and the response, has unfolded.

Queensland Health pandemic modelling looked at every possible scenario, including the doomsday ­option.

Labor will argue that a campaign of fear and alarm in the early days ensured Queenslanders were vigilant and alert and contributed to our low numbers, compared to Victoria and the rest of the world. That is entirely reasonable.

But after flattening the curve, why are we continuing to trade in fear and alarmism, with just over 1000 cases and six deaths, which in the global context is as good a result as anywhere in the world?

Why are we continuing to deny people the opportunity of medical treatment and basic human rights to attend funerals and go to a boarding school?

To be fair to the Queensland Government, the dire warnings in March were just as strongly advocated in Canberra as they were in George Street.

The federal government estimated between 50,000 and 150,000 people might die from coronavirus if it got out of control. At the same time, it said there was no credible medical evidence to keep state borders closed.

For its own reasons, Queensland Health has been much more enthusiastic than other jurisdictions in embracing the Armageddon modelling.

Here’s what Queensland chief medical officer Dr Jeannette Young said on March 23.

“This is all modelling but the best advice we have is for around 25 per cent of the Queensland population to get this disease in the next six months.”

Queensland’s latest Census figure shows a population of 5,071,000 people. If a quarter were to get COVID-19, that’s about 1,270,000 people.

Since Dr Young made that comment, 1128 people have contracted COVID-19 in Queensland.

In other words, if that statement was to ring true, about 1,269,000 people would need to contract the virus in the next 16 days. If that was the best advice from Queensland Health back then, Dr Young needs better advisers.

Of course, it’s modelling and there’s always room for error, and a good politician like Health Minister Steven Miles will defend that statement by saying the government’s strict border controls and social distancing protocols saved us from mass deaths.

It’s not a stretch to suggest the figures seem over-inflated. Nothing like a good old fashioned fear campaign to keep the punters on their toes.

You’d hope economic modelling on the state’s debt was more accurate. On the comparable Treasury modelling, Queensland’s debt would be $120 trillion, not $100bn.

The inconsistencies around border exemptions and the inability to respond to the post-COVID economic crisis are questions that Ms Palaszczuk will increasingly be forced to answer over the next seven weeks.

If this election is a referendum on Labor’s COVID-19 record, the flip side to the health narrative is the economic and social impacts. The government is also being portrayed as heartless because of its inconsistent approach to border restrictions.

Many Australians see a lack of compassion around exemptions for medicine, agriculture and schooling. They wonder how celebrities can be granted homestay isolation, yet others are forced to pay thousands of dollars to isolate in a cramped hotel.

Some question why 80 people were permitted to attend the funeral of an Indigenous man in Mackay, when the maximum was just 10 at the time. Why, at the height of the pandemic, we allowed a local government poll to go ahead.

Keeping people safe is one thing, but looking after them for the long haul is another. As the rest of Australia is starting to learn, there are more holes in Queensland Labor’s coronavirus policies than a chunk of Swiss cheese.

Originally published as Qld coronavirus: Labor trading in fear and alarmism in COVID-19 response