Daniel Andrews’s love ban fiasco was one diktat too many

Common sense prevailed at the 11th hour in Victoria on Wednesday after the Andrews government saw fit to poke its nose into citizens’ private lives. “You cannot visit your partner for social reasons,” Police Minister Lisa Neville tweeted early in the day. Premier Daniel Andrews initially supported the diktat, which smacked of Hogwarts High Inquisitor Dolores Umbridge promising to punish Harry Potter and his fellow students if they defied her decrees, such as: “Boys and girls are not permitted to be within 6 inches of each other.” Shortly before 5pm, Mr Andrews seemed to discover his sense of romance, or a grain of common sense. The state’s Chief Health Officer, Brett Sutton, brought the fiasco to a close , tweeting that Victoria had no desire to penalise couples who did not live together. Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s advice earlier in the week — “Now’s not the time for fun” — clearly needs to be applied judiciously.

Politicians and police have difficult jobs in overseeing the quarantining and social distancing needed to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. In doing so, they need to maximise public co-operation and goodwill. Invoking the language of a police state does not help. Neither does the idea of being spied on in everyday life by drones. As Chris Kenny wrote on Wednesday: “It is no good assuaging the shrill voices of Twitter (not the real world) if you infantilise and antagonise mainstream Australians.” We are all in this together. The battle against coronavirus will be won, ultimately, by the community, supported with medical expertise and firm but careful political leadership. In a nation where freedom and a healthy scepticism about authority are part of our DNA, imposing over-the-top rules and regulations from on high rarely achieves optimum outcomes.

Some influential voices disagree. On Sky News on Tuesday, conservative political strategist Grahame Morris insisted Australians needed to be “saved from their own stupidity”. Only a small minority. Labor strategist Bruce Hawker welcomed footage showing five police cars driving off roadways in Rushcutters Bay Park in Sydney’s inner east earlier in the day and stopping close to sunbathers and others who had stopped to rest. The people were ordered to go home because they were stationary in the park and not exercising or outside for an essential purpose, such as food shopping. “People need to be directed,” Mr Hawker said. “The world, in Australia anyway, is a very, very different place to what it was a week ago and it has to keep like this.” For as limited a time as possible, we would urge. It would be profoundly disturbing if, after weeks and months of living under such rigid state control, citizens became even remotely comfortable with it or authorities became comfortable with dictating where people were allowed to go, what they were allowed to do, and when.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian did not answer on Wednesday morning when asked if she was running a police state. With fines of up to $11,000 and six months’ jail for anyone caught leaving their home without a valid excuse, it was a reasonable question. NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller, to his credit, conceded his officers might have gone too far on Tuesday. “I’ve seen the vision (of Rushcutters Park) myself, I’ve thought a lot about it — on one hand, could they have got out of the car and achieved the same thing in a less aggressive way? Yes, they could. On the other hand, there’s (hundreds) of parks we’ve got to get to at the same time,” he said. “That was probably a bit disappointing and confronting.” Mr Fuller has asked police to exercise a high level of discretion. As he says, “the fact we haven’t issued a single ticket since this power was turned on I think is a pretty good example that we are measured in our response.”

Guarding against the spread of coronavirus is paramount at present. But businesses, community, sporting and social groups, churches and the public should not feel intimidated about speaking up if and when they believe restrictions need modifying. Unlike free association and movement, our rights to free speech and rigorous debate have not been erased. But irresponsible demands for a premature relaxation of restrictions need to be avoided.