Patrick Carlyon: How lockdown has shrunk the Aussie identity

Australia is a world leader in Covid control, but the nation’s phobic response to the pandemic will hurt in other ways.

Tony Abbott said it best. There is more to life than avoiding death.

Australia is a world leader in Covid control. But the nation’s phobic response to the pandemic will hurt in other ways.

Much of the world thinks Australia is decidedly odd. A hermit kingdom of big lockdowns and small caseloads.

US states, such as Virginia, are open. As a friend there wrote last week: “I cannot believe you are in lockdown. We have more cases in Virginia than your WHOLE country! It’s crazy!”

Elsewhere, restrictions mostly belong in the past.

Norway opened – no masks, no double-vax privileges – and case numbers dropped. The biggest problem was the nationwide hangover the following day.

Wild scenes in the streets when Norway lifted Covid restrictions after 561 days. Picture: Twitter/@TheMarieOakes

Australia has catastrophised the threat. Health lobby groups demand we act for fear of worst-case scenarios. Unrealised fears have driven policymaking, and a heightened sense of risk because they have fed restriction settings unlike any other place.

A myopic submissiveness to unelected officials, especially here in Victoria, stands to change who we are, what we believe, and how we will be perceived. The “rugged individualism” of Aussie folklore has been replaced with the blind adherence normally reserved for oppressed peoples.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson may not be a preferred voice of reason. But perhaps, as an outsider, he can see through the Australian smudge. Carlson said the other day: “To see your media, and most of your public officials, endorse policies that are just so destructive of basic civil liberties is so crazy … it’s horrifying.”

Lockdown helped Melbourne avoid more deaths — but it has changed who we thought we were. Picture: Quinn Rooney

The paralysis of fear, abetted by botched rollouts and tin-pot state leaders, stands to shrink the Australian identity.

True, some have challenged the orthodoxy of dread. NSW’s Gladys Berejiklian changed the conversation by setting goals. Her approach was labelled “aggressive”, but it was pretty cautious compared with the rest of the Western world.

The friend from Virginia wants to visit. “I am concerned about booking anything with all the unknowns with Covid. Australia might not let us in right now!”

She’s right. She won’t be welcome for some time yet, even with NSW opening its international borders on November 1.

Yes, we have avoided death in Australia. But the price of doing so may have changed who we thought we were. Who’s going to come to Australia? The Lucky Country has become the locked country.

— Patrick Carlyon is a Herald Sun columnist