Coronavirus: Why we won’t see another Victoria, NSW lockdown

Another lockdown is unlikely in Victoria and NSW unless the health situation becomes dire. Picture: Britta Campion/The Australian

Let me go out on a limb on the basis of some remarkable research: I don’t think either Victoria or NSW will embrace another Covid lockdown in the foreseeable future unless the health situation becomes dire.

As I will discuss below, this is close to the best news for the Australian economy that is possible to deliver.

It’s true state premiers are unpredictable there must be a good chance that the premiers of Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania will follow. WA is now almost a country on its own and anything could happen.

What makes me confident in making such a prediction is the remarkable Morgan Research mobile phone analysis of exactly who attended the enormous recent protests in Melbourne during the weekend of November 20-21.

That analysis also throws into doubt the accuracy of many of the opinion polls in the current political environment — including the Morgan polls.

These days most protests are dominated by either hard left green/woke groups or the hard right. Both sides are dominated by professional protesters determined to do what ever is required to gain media attention. They certainly don’t gain my attention.

But Saturday and Sunday, November 20 and 21, were different. The professional protesters were missing and so media coverage was down. I now realise similar groups appeared in most states but it was in Melbourne where the largest numbers massed on the streets. I wrote about the event because I believed I was watching middle Australia go to the streets — something they rarely do. The largest protests were on the Saturday where in Melbourne almost certainly 200,000 walked through streets in an orderly fashion.

Protesters walk down Flinders Street on November 27 in Melbourne. Picture: Getty Images

Morgan researched the Saturday crowd. To determine who these people were, and where they came from, Morgan ‘geo-fenced’ the area in front of Victoria’s Parliament House from 11am to 2.30pm.

The mobile devices that were seen in this area during the protest time period were then profiled by Helix group to produce a ‘Heat Map’ showing where the protesters had come from.

Missing were the normal protest groups from inner-city areas. They were replaced by people who had come from the outer suburban areas that ring Melbourne. Some even came from regional centres like Ballarat, Geelong, Ocean Grove, Torquay, Wallan, Warragul, Hastings, Traralgon and Wonthaggi.

By examining the population compositions of the suburban and regional areas who dominated the protest Morgan determined that they were mainly two groups of Australians:

• The so called “contented Australians” who embrace conventional family life. They are perennial home improvers, they see their homes as an expression of their status and achievements.

• Those further down the socio-economic ladder who are struggling to make ends meet and looking for a better deal in life. They tend to be cynical and pessimistic about their situation and authority figures generally.

Protesters gather on the steps of Parliament House in Melbourne last weekend. Picture: Getty Images

These two very different groups united. Both were hit by the lockdowns and are very unhappy with the Victorian premier. The anecdotal evidence indicates similar groups attended the Sydney protests albeit on a smaller scale.

Any state government that inflicts another lockdown on these two groups can forget about being elected at their next election.

In its voter base, the ALP has a large slice of the battlers, but both parties need votes from ‘contented’ Australians who normally do not protest unless they are greatly aroused. Another lockdown in NSW or Victoria will likely see voters surge to the opposition.

Around the world opinion polls on political issues are proving inaccurate. Australia’s opinion poll record is superior to most countries but given there is turmoil in outer suburban land, opinion polling can be wrong.

While the greatest turmoil is in Victoria, it is also evident in NSW and other states. It does not appear to show up in many opinion polls so we have to wonder whether the pollsters have maintained their accuracy.

Meanwhile the economic figures that came out of the lockdowns in Victoria and NSW were stark.

Australian household spending fell by 4.8 per cent in the September quarter.

Spending on discretionary or non-essential goods and services accounted for between 80 and 90 per cent of the fall in consumption for NSW and Victoria. Spending has now bounced back very strongly and we are set for a great Christmas.

But middle Australia has spoken and both the Victorian and NSW Premiers will have got the message, which is great news for business.