Melbourne opens up as new challenges emerge

After six months of near silence, Melbourne Airport is a hive of activity. Jets were to begin roaring along the runway at sunrise, the airport’s long corridors will be busy and departure and arrival boards turning over. Australia’s busiest air route, Sydney to Melbourne, is back in business, lifting Tullamarine from 1 per cent to about 33 per cent capacity. It will be busier again when flights to and from Tasmania resume on Friday. A few days later, hopefully, the Brisbane-Melbourne service will be back — Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk permitting. Melbourne travellers have an extra reason to be upbeat. Scott Morrison and Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews have struck a long-overdue agreement to fund an airport rail link to the CBD in under 30 minutes, leaving every 10 minutes. Work on the project, an ideal use of stimulus funding, will start in 2022 and take seven years. The return of 25 per cent of workers to Melbourne’s CBD and easing of rules for home gatherings, weddings and funerals, restaurants and cafes, pools, gyms, gaming venues and church services are welcome.

That’s the good news. It is testament to Australia’s management of COVID-19 and its fallout when much of the world is overwhelmed by second waves. On Friday, 187,833 Americans contracted the virus, 2015 died and authorities are turning chapels, cafeterias and corridors into makeshift treatment rooms. Europe, India and Brazil are also in dire situations. Britain recorded 22,936 new cases on Friday and 502 deaths. As Australia continues to open up, the problems besetting overseas nations are a reminder that the virus continues to pose a threat. Careful policy strategies will be vital if significant outbreaks are to be avoided.

At this stage, managing the quarantining of Australians arriving from overseas COVID hotspots is one of the main challenges. After Victoria’s quarantining disaster, which led to the deaths of 768 people, and last week’s alarm in South Australia, there is no room for error. South Australian Premier Steven Marshall did the right thing limiting the state’s draconian six-day lockdown early after it emerged it was based on a lie told to contact tracers by a part-time employee at a pizza bar. The man, a 36-year-old Spaniard on a graduate visa, also worked as a kitchen hand at a quarantine hotel. His lie about buying a pizza from the store but not working there created a baseless fear that he may have contracted the virus from a pizza box. Businesses in South Australia are furious, understandably, that the short, sharp lockdown was statewide when the problem was contained to Adelaide. But Mr Marshall was unapologetic in an interview with David Penberthy. The impact on jobs and the economy would have been “absolutely devastating” if a second wave had taken hold, he said. Mr Marshall also dismissed the idea that politicians had abrogated too much authority to unelected police and medical officials. The alternative, he said, was playing out in the US.

Short-lived as it was, the South Australian situation has underlined vulnerabilities that need to be addressed in relation to workers at quarantine hotels. Part-time work in hotels is common, which creates the problem of workers contracting and spreading the highly contagious virus through cross-employment. Close relationships are also a concern. In September, a security guard at a COVID hotel in Melbourne was linked to the spread of the virus to an aged-care centre. She reportedly shared a home with an aged-care worker.

ACTU secretary Sally McManus wants security guards in COVID hotels paid more than the award minimum to negate the need for them to hold second jobs. Opposition employment spokesman Brendan O’Connor wants the Morrison government to help fund those workers. In the interests of public health, especially that of vulnerable and older Australians and the national interest, safeguards are needed to minimise the possibility of further outbreaks at COVID hotels being transmitted further afield. Mr Marshall will consider banning hotel quarantine workers from holding second jobs after requesting advice from health experts. Strict hygiene and testing processes are fundamental. Staff, ideally, should be able to work full-time, or sufficient hours to not need other jobs. They must not be allowed to work in aged care. Employers need flexibility in rostering staff. The issue will become more pertinent from December 7 as Victoria accepts 160 overseas arrivals a day. All will be quarantined, testing what has been learned in recent months.