Covid histrionics gone to the dogs

Annastacia Palaszczuk and her dog Winton, left, Mark McGowan, main picture, and the e-card the Labor Party urged WA residents to send to their Premier for Father's Day. Pictures: News Corp/News Corp/Supplied

In the fourteenth century, Mongol raiders waged war with devastating effect against the prosperous Genoese merchants of Caffa by catapulting plague-infected corpses into the Crimean city. According to Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan, the federal government plans a similar fate for his state.

“Why are they on this mission to bring Covid into Western Australia, to infect our public,” he asked last week. “To ensure we shut down parts of the economy? That we lose jobs? That people get sick and some people die?”

What prompted his measured speculation was federal Attorney-General Michaelia Cash’s declaration that the increasing vaccination rates bring into question the constitutional legitimacy of state border closures. According to McGowan, this statement “obviously would encourage someone like Clive Palmer or someone else with his attitudes to bring on another High Court challenge”.

All reasonable people would surely agree it is a terrible thing that litigants can force governments to account for the lawfulness of such legislation. It is not the first time the Premier has been subjected to this indignity. Last year he described Palmer as “an enemy of our state” who was “committed to breaking down WA’s door”. As he said then: “strong border controls have been our best weapon in this fight”. Talking about defending WA certainly brings out the warrior in McGowan, attributable perhaps to his days in the navy, where he served as a lawyer.

WA Premier Mark McGowan. Picture: Jackson Flindell/The West Australian

Why the Morrison government is so insistent on provoking the great man is beyond comprehension. McGowan is a man of his word, which is why we should believe him when he stated this week he will consider reopening the state when vaccination rates reach 90 per cent. Or rather, he will consider opening the state two months from that point. Just like on August 6 when he agreed to the national cabinet’s plan to exempt vaccinated residents from all domestic restrictions once 80 per cent of the population was fully vaccinated.

Magnaminous McGowan

Nonetheless he has said he will permit entry into his state sometime next year.

This should not be seen as a grudging concession to constitutional realities but instead as evidence of McGowan’s magnanimity. And it would be churlish of us to complain should he yet again renege on that promise. After all, the man is dealing with systemic failings in his public hospital system. If only he had, say, a $5bn surplus to address this.

Kudos as well for WA Labor, which last week decided to honour its favourite son in typical low-key but tasteful fashion. “Happy Father’s Day to our State Dad, Mark McGowan,” its website proclaimed, inviting West Australians to sign an e-card to that effect, as well as encouraging them to add a “message to Mark”. Last time we witnessed something this cringeworthy was in 2013 when over 100 ambassadors and high commissioners were ‘invited’ to line up at The Lodge to congratulate Kevin Rudd on having regained the prime ministership.

But if a card is to be signed, then allow me to add my words. Greetings to his esteemed magnificence, great extractor of iron ore, saviour of the national economy, guardian of the western province, nemesis of east coast freeloaders, he-who-ensures-prosperity-and-harmony, repository of divine wind, grand poohbah of gratuitous postulating, and provincial buffoon extraordinaire. Never let it be said that the Premier fosters the cult of the leader. After all, one cannot establish a personality cult if the individual concerned is devoid of a personality.

Meanwhile, in Queensland .....

Having delayed by several months getting vaccinated and being given Pfizer instead of AstraZeneca, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk claimed in June that one Winton – her dog – was to blame. He had supposedly bitten her, which required a tetanus booster. I was one of many who derided her for what seemed a convenient excuse, but it now appears she was telling the truth. Symptoms of those infected by the bite of a rabid dog include anxiety, hallucinations, confusion, and agitation.

How else would you explain, for example, Palaszczuk’s disingenuous extrapolation of Doherty Institute modelling last week to claim that opening the borders once a 70 per cent vaccination had been achieved would result in the deaths of 80 people each day and 2240 per month? Or her insistence that border closures would remain until every child under 12 had been vaccinated, despite there being no vaccine for them and the Delta variant being a low risk to that demographic?

Someone think of the children

“You open this state and you let the virus in here and every child under 12 is vulnerable,” the Premier told Parliament last week. This is alarmist nonsense. As an analysis by the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance has found, 98 per cent of 2864 children and teenagers who tested positive between mid-June and July 31 were asymptomatic or reported only mild symptoms. Of the two per cent hospitalised, very few required intensive care.

Palaszczuk’s concern for children is such she gives preference not to Queenslanders stranded outside the border, but to the wives and girlfriends of NRL players. Last week it was revealed a three-year-old boy had been waiting in NSW since July for permission to re-join his frantic mother in Queensland. Barring him from entry while allowing a junket flight during a travel ban must be yet another example of keeping Queenslanders safe, as Palaszczuk is fond of saying.

The sight of separated family members tearfully embracing over border barricades at Coolangatta on Father’s Day was one that was hard to watch. As sad as it is, however, the agony of their estrangement is nothing compared to the suffering of Queensland chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young, who this week defended Palaszczuk’s risible take on the Doherty Institute’s forecast.

“You’ve got me quite upset now,” said the outraged medico in response to a journalist’s suggestion she was “making political decisions”. I remember reading in 2018 that Young’ salary was $622,000, and we can only hope this paltry amount has since been increased significantly to compensate for her distress and the impertinence of the media. “Thank goodness I work with a Premier that we have here and the Cabinet to stop the virus coming into Queensland,” she said.

That a statutory appointee would effusively endorse the Premier and her Cabinet reminded me of a former high-ranking Queensland official and his ill-advised remarks.

Belinda Vardy, gets hugs and flowers from her mum, Barbara Roberts, and father Max (on the NSW side) at Coolangatta on the Queensland-NSW border.

“The people of Queensland and the police force owe the Premier a very deep gratitude,” said then Queensland Police commissioner Terry Lewis during a graduation ceremony in 1983. “The free enterprise policy of the Bjelke-Petersen government has been responsible for Queensland’s tremendous growth. Irrespective of whether some people agree with the politics, statements, or stands, there is a universal respect, even admiration, for the total loyalty he and his colleagues show for what they believe is in the best interests of Queensland.”

That same year, Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen nominated Lewis for a knighthood. Palaszczuk nominated Young to be the next Queensland Governor, a role she will assume in November.

I do not suggest for a moment equivalence between Young and Lewis, a man who was imprisoned for multiple counts of corruption. Young has a longstanding and honourable record in public health administration. But that does not remove the need for her to account for her advice to the government during the pandemic, especially given she has frequently defended Palaszczuk’s capricious and electorally advantageous approach to border closures. Preserving her independence and acting apolitically are essential in her determinations. Being Palaszczuk’s bestie and acting outside her remit can only damage Young’s reputation and compromise the office she holds.

That Young so angrily insisted last week she did not make political decisions is telling. After all, this was the same person who audaciously said last year regarding entry permits for celebrities: “I have given exemptions for people in entertainment and film because that is bringing a lot of money into this state and, can I say, we need every single dollar in our state”.

Between Young deciding what is good for Queensland economically and Palaszczuk telling people “I don’t make the decisions,” one has trouble distinguishing the political leader and the statutory office holder. But that might just be me reading too much into this. As Bjelke-Petersen used to say: “Don’t you worry about that”.