Don’t let the virus weaken our political immunity

Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s popular Prime Minister, has hit the pandemic pause button on the September 19 election, pushing it back a month. Opposition parties had pointed out that the country’s COVID outbreak — small by global standards — meant a campaign curtailed by tougher restrictions on the lively social business of pitching for votes. It’s a call for the Kiwis themselves, of course, but given the extent of Jacindamania on our side of the Tasman — much of it bewitching progressive folk who had anti-fascist fainting fits at Donald Trump’s recent musings on electoral timing — it’s worth a few words of caution for Australia’s political class.

The bigger and trickier the tasks facing government, the more the need for the normal democratic mechanisms of oversight and accountability. That means parliamentary sitting time, elections on schedule and media scrutiny informing public debate in between these regular verdicts of the citizenry. The Palaszczuk government in Queensland belatedly recognised this fundamental principle last weekend when it abandoned its brazen and clumsy attempt to criminalise media reporting of corruption allegations during an election.

Ms Ardern is clearly conscious that putting off an election is far from ideal — she pointed out that both Singapore and South Korea recently had managed to give voters their bookmarked opportunity to boot a government — and she pointedly has said there will not be a further delay beyond the new poll date of October 17.

New Zealand and Sweden probably best represent the opposite poles of anti-COVID policy, the point being there is still considerable uncertainty about the virus itself, how to combat it and how much collateral damage to the economy and society is warranted. This is not simply a question of gaps in the data or disagreement among experts but turns on inescapably political decisions about competing values and trade-offs, with the calculus likely to be different across time. All of this is — or ought to be — core business for democratic politics with its institutions and traditions fully functioning. It’s certainly not a time for superficial party-political pointscoring or exploitation of a pandemic to pursue pre-existing ideological agendas. But opposition parties exist to scrutinise the policy direction and decisions of government, and sometimes that requires robust exchanges because nobody in authority willingly admits error. So, too, with the role of the media. By all means, journalists should be conscious that those in government, not just the politicians, are fallible and sentient beings wrestling with a crisis; but, precisely because so much is at stake, rigorous reporting and analysis in the public interest remain basic duties of the fourth estate. Citizens are in an unusual position, having to sacrifice a degree of liberty and in some cases to bear harsh social and economic costs. But the quid pro quo for this is competent and transparent management by those in power, and that requires ongoing accountability.

Even in normal times, the tendency of the political class is to come up with appealing arguments for a tad less scrutiny. Now, in a state of near chronic emergency, the temptation to dismiss hard questions as a distraction from urgent tasks will often be strong and must be resisted. After all, it is the in-built and legitimate second-guessing of an open democracy that makes crippling overreach or tragic errors less likely. There are pragmatic reasons, too, for not running politics on a pilot light.

The challenge for the nation is to contain the virus while avoiding policy self-harm that makes it harder than necessary to get back to life as normal. This test applies to us as individuals, workers, employers and institutions, government included. Under pressure, we can succumb — or adapt, devising clever ways to work around a threat we cannot eliminate overnight. Families and businesses are finding new ways to do what’s necessary. Politicians are keen to preach the gospel of technology and innovation, and there’s no reason they can’t apply it to how they co-ordinate federal-state pandemic policy, the logistics and safety of parliamentary sittings, as well as the character- building activity of submitting to the scrutiny and will of voters.