Rita Panahi: Business leaders must do more to end Covid lunacy

It was refreshing to hear business leaders pushback against WA’s Covid lunacy, but much more is needed to pressure governments to act proportionately.

It took long enough but Australia’s business leaders have finally found their voice and begun to publicly criticise mad Covid-19 policies that are harming their companies.

In the absence of any real opposition to Australia’s Covid overreach, both at state and federal level, it was incumbent upon the country’s top corporate leaders to speak out about destructive measures that impact not only their shareholders but also their staff, clients and ability to operate.

We’ve seen corporates ready and willing to indulge in divisive political grandstanding on issues that have nothing to do with the running of their operations, but when it came to widespread business closures, some necessitating mass sackings and furloughs, they failed to push back or question the wisdom of the Covid-zero lunacy much of Australia pursued until late 2021.

Western Australia is still desperately clinging to the elimination strategy even as the rest of the country illustrates how utterly futile it is to try to lock out a virus, particularly one that we have known since mid-2020 would become endemic. It’s only a matter time before WA starts recording an avalanche of new cases; unless they intend to keep their state permanently closed to the rest of Australia and the world.

Premier Mark McGowan is holding strong on his state’s Covid strategy. Picture: Colin Murty

WA’s biggest company Wesfarmers, which owns retailers including Bunnings, Kmart and Officeworks, has done well through the pandemic but even they are fed up with Premier Mark McGowan’s fringe Covid stance and will relocate their senior bosses to the east coast. Wesfarmers CEO Rob Scott admitted on the weekend that it was “virtually impossible” to run a national operation from the hermit kingdom of WA.

The rebuke from Scott was mild as were the comments of Qantas CEO Alan Joyce who this week called on Australia to reopen its borders to international tourists.

“Other countries are opening up. The UK has taken all restrictions off for all countries (and) you don’t have to test any longer,” Joyce said.

“So if you’re a Japanese traveller and taking a trip in July-August you have certainty in the UK. You don’t have certainty in Australia and that’s very important for tourist destinations in Queensland … Qantas used to be a big business. It’s a small business at the moment because we’ve lost $20bn of revenue because of Covid – more than any other company in the country.”

While it was refreshing to hear a little pushback much more is needed to pressure governments to act proportionately, not only now but when the next variant arrives as it inevitably will. It would be great to see some of the passion the corporate sector displayed during the same sex marriage debate.

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce this week called on Australia to reopen its borders to international tourists. Picture: Dylan Coker

Joyce had Qantas heavily involved in supporting the ‘Yes’ campaign for the SSM plebiscite (never mind the feelings of the two in five Australians who voted ‘No’) and the airline applied considerable pressure on Rugby Australia to punish star player Israel Folau for posting his religious beliefs about homosexuality on his personal Instagram page.

Of course Qantas’ concern for LGBT rights does not extend to countries where members of the LGBT community are actually persecuted with the airline having a codeshare partnership with Emirates, a company owned by the government of Dubai, which considers homosexuality a crime punishable by jail, beatings and possibly even death.

Right now you cannot board a Qantas flight, domestic or international, without copping an inane, unnecessary and deeply incoherent “acknowledgement of country” statement from the cabin crew. Why not devote that activism to pursuing the full reopening of the country? Something that will get the thousands of sacked or furloughed Qantas staff back to work.

Too many CEOs on multimillion dollar packages have left the heavy lifting to small business operators such as restaurateurs Paul Dimattina and Chris Lucas, who have spoken out consistently against destructive, illogical and sometimes bewildering policies in Victoria.

For their trouble the pair were both fined $10,900 for supposed Covid breaches, though I am happy to report those fines have since been withdrawn.

The Covid lunacy ends when we demand it does; the reversing of the IVF ban and playground closures demonstrated the power the public hold in shaping the Covid response.

We cannot have our close to fully vaccinated nation plunged into further restrictions, and even lockdowns, when the next Covid variant arrives.

IN SHORT

The ginger and whinger have weighed in with their unsolicited advice on the Joe Rogan Spotify saga. At least Neil Young, after failing to engineer Rogan’s cancelling, had the decency to cancel himself from Spotify. But Harry and Meghan will keep collecting their cheques despite producing just one terrible podcast since signing a $30 million deal.

Read the opinion piece in full here.