NSW sets standard as other states panic over borders

When Scott Morrison declared the NSW system for COVID-19 testing, contact tracing and suppression to be “the gold standard”, many who would prefer a more heavy-handed approach sneered. The evidence is coming in, however. And so far it appears to vindicate the Prime Minister’s judgment and the integrated suite of measures being relied upon by the Berejiklian government, which learned its lesson after the Ruby Princess fiasco highlighted weaknesses in its quarantine system. Gladys Berejiklian has not inspired blind loyalty on Twitter. Nor has she been accorded the status of secular saint by the left, as has New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. However, Ms Berejiklian has produced impressive policy outcomes when lives, and livelihoods, depended on her. Unlike some of her counterparts in other states, Ms Berejiklian has attempted to balance containment of the virus while maintaining a functioning economy and upholding basic liberties of the citizenry. The norms of the Westminster system were preserved, and parliament continued to sit and conduct the people’s business.

A mere eight new cases of COVID-19 acquired through local transmission were identified through 44,466 voluntary tests to 8pm Monday. Yet those raw statistics conceal a deeper message about the health of the Australian Federation. Ms Berejiklian chose to use a scalpel rather than a sledgehammer to tackle the crisis. While the leaders of other states are inclined to panic and slam their borders shut at the first sign of a sneeze, the NSW Premier has adopted a cautious, balanced approach.

As recently as Sunday and Monday, Ms Berejiklian and her Health Minister, Brad Hazzard, were being abused by the social media lynch mob for refusing to impose the same draconian measures employed earlier in the year by Victorian Premier Dan Andrews. West Australian Premier Mark McGowan had one of the loudest megaphones. But the NSW leadership, to its credit, trusted the state’s health professionals and the people to collaborate in undergoing testing and exercising prudence. They recommended that people wear masks on public transport and in other settings but treated their citizens as adults, not inmates.

To solve a problem largely of his own creation, Mr Andrews, in contrast, imposed a severe lockdown, which included a curfew with no medical rationale. Mask-wearing was made mandatory and the entire population of his state was effectively incarcerated inside their homes for 23 hours a day for months. Only an outcry from respected jurists and influential lawyers forced him to abandon the more draconian elements of an omnibus bill, the like of which had not been seen in this country in peacetime. Forming a crisis cabinet, Mr Andrews ruled by executive diktat for most of the year. Despite revelling in the theatre of his daily media conferences, his government has been exposed as incompetent and evasive by an inquiry whose limited scope of investigation he tailored.

Yet even that inquiry, by Justice Jennifer Coate, found glaring, systemic failures of governance. The shambles constituted a damning indictment of the authoritarian approach personified by Mr Andrews. Yet to his delusional Twitter foot soldiers, Mr Andrews was the true victim of the pandemic, attacked by annoying journalists asking probing questions. After a year of posturing at the podium, while effectively crippling his state, and undermining living standards across the nation, Mr Andrews’ sycophants are ready to follow his bid for re-election in 2022, announced on Monday.

The contrast with Ms Berejiklian is stark. Neither she nor NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant seemed to crave adulation. They got on with building excellent contact tracing systems. They took the people of NSW into their confidence, and they have responded. In so doing, Ms Berejiklian has shown it is possible to contain this virus without crippling the economy. For her diligence she has been repudiated by parochial opportunists, such as Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, whose insistence that NSW achieve 28 days without community transmission before she reopens the hard border is unattainable over the school holidays. The ruling will dash the hopes of thousands of families who had hoped to take a summer holiday north of the Tweed. After a very bad year, it will further damage Queensland’s tourist industry.

As Ms Berejiklian has cautioned, it would be premature to declare victory. The results released on Tuesday are grounds for hope. However, as Peter Collignon, Professor of Microbiology at the Australian National University, warned on Sky News on Monday night, the risk of a spike in numbers remains for some days yet. Professor Collignon rejected the hyperbole of some epidemiologists about rampaging outbreaks caused by “super spreader’’ events such as Christmas gatherings. The Crossroads Hotel at Casula, in southwest Sydney, was intrinsically more dangerous in the depth of July than the northern beaches outbreak, he said. Viral chest infections were more contagious in cold weather when people are confined in poorly ventilated spaces. Even so, the next few days will be critical.