Tom Minear: Lockdown reality is no walk in the park
The next time someone talks about this lockdown like it’s as easy as shutting your front door, think about Australians fighting over rolls of toilet paper and ask if we are ready for this, writes Tom Minear.
Opinion
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Let’s go into lockdown and get it over and done with. It’s been a common refrain recently, as though there’s a button we can press to fast-forward through the coronavirus crisis.
So it’s worth getting a few things straight. Locking down is the only way to stop the spread of the virus and, hopefully, save thousands of lives.
But look around — it’s already started. And we shouldn’t kid ourselves that it will end any time soon, or that the end of life as we know it can’t also be deadly.
State and federal governments have already changed the way our society works.
Pubs are closed, the footy season is suspended, gyms are shut, wedding parties are banned, holidays are off and kids are staying home from school.
There has been a consistent message behind these measures: that we must stay home unless it is absolutely necessary to go outside.
In Victoria, police are slapping hefty fines on those who think they know better.
You can only leave home to buy food and supplies, exercise, for caring responsibilities and compassionate reasons, and to work or study if that cannot be done remotely. These are the most extraordinary limits on our day-to-day lives we have ever seen.
This is a lockdown.
Daniel Andrews and Scott Morrison might not be calling it that, but Victorians face the same restrictions as those in the UK and New Zealand, except our retail stores are closing voluntarily.
In Victoria, an eight-page document regulates these requirements, but it also throws up confusing contradictions.
By the letter of the law, you can catch up with your sister as she tries on shoes in a shop — but you cannot have her over for dinner.
And until a change of heart yesterday, a person who lived apart from their partner could not visit their house, but they could buy takeaway coffees and go for a walk.
Andrews says people should use their common sense and, while he is right, authorities must tread carefully when they have so radically altered the law without the usual independent scrutiny.
Victoria Police deputy commissioner Shane Patton suggested officers might need to be “using the stick approach”.
By all means for anyone selfish and stupid enough to be throwing a house party, but police should use their discretion to educate.
Many have criticised the state and federal governments’ failure to implement such rules sooner, some arguing more are needed.
But, as Morrison points out, this health crisis started an economic crisis, and actions to solve one can make the other worse.
When the PM says this will be the toughest year of our lives, think about what that means. For the next six months — it could be sooner, but it could be longer — we are stuck in our homes.
No Friday night drinks. No office banter. No kids’ sport. No hugging our grandparents. We will be working from our kitchen benches. We will be trying to homeschool our children.
These are sacrifices we have to make to slow the virus and ensure health workers are not overrun by so many patients that they cannot care for them all.
But these sacrifices will have life-changing consequences.
We have had reports of skyrocketing alcohol sales, mental health services being flooded with calls, pathology services standing down staff, and stockpiling of guns.
If people are drinking to excess, how will that affect their health, and will it fuel a rise in domestic violence?
If our mental health system is broken, as the state government admits, how will it save those facing unprecedented stress and anguish?
If pathology labs are closing, will people miss out on tests they need to identify life-threatening diseases?
And if Victorians hoard firearms? Patton says civil unrest is “a real threat, subject to where we end up”.
The next time someone talks about this lockdown like it’s as easy as shutting your front door, think about the videos of Australians fighting over rolls of toilet paper.
Are we really ready for this?
AND ANOTHER THING
The co-operation between governments, unions and business groups on the $130 billion wage subsidy hibernation plan has been remarkable.
That same spirit will be needed when the economy switches on again.
Tom Minear is national politics editor