Commonsense died in Australia the moment tens of thousands demonstrated side-by-side in the middle of a pandemic.
Forget for a moment any debate about the strength of the cause and consider the medical evidence.
No meaningful social distancing, an infectious demographic and deep-seated carelessness combined to produce the obvious.
One infection that we know of and the potential for many more.
One positive test doesn’t make a cluster but it poses some serious political and medical questions.
The states failed the most basic test and, in the case of Victoria, appeared to be turning a blind eye to the activism.
The hypocrisy is profound, given the straitjacket imposed on a nation and with an economy still in hibernation.
We know that young people aged 18 to 30 are at high risk of contracting and then passing on the virus.
These are the people who were ubiquitous at the march.
This cohort is dangerous because in many ways they are like all young people, ten foot tall and bulletproof in their own minds.
They tend to care less about what happens to other people and the science suggests that even if they do get the virus, it won’t kill them.
While NSW failed to stop the march going ahead, Victoria’s efforts were tepid.
Premier Daniel Andrews’s stance was considerably weaker than his NSW counterpart and his initial rhetoric should have been tougher, particularly mid week.
But he did eventually utter these words: “Do not go to the protest. Big events will do nothing but spread this virus.”
Scott Morrison is right to lament the absurdity of these marches.
The hypocrisy of the states’ failure to deal with the protests is amplified when you consider that at the AFL’s season relaunch last night there was not a single member of the public in the outer.
Yet last weekend, less than a kilometre away, the Black Lives Matter crew were gathering in their thousands in Melbourne, flouting every sensible law and protocol.
It will now become extremely hard for governments to dictate the terms to ordinary Australians, who have been brilliant in their restraint as the virus spread across the globe.
Governments will have less political and moral authority in demanding people do the right thing by their neighbours.
Instead, we are likely to witness more people doing their own thing.
This may not be the end of the world given the waning influence of the virus but commonsense needs to prevail.
The Black Lives Matter marches down under were anything but sensible, failing the commonsense test and failing to match the standards forced on the broader community.
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