Next lesson: making sense of our schools snafu

Ten-year-old Sydney student Nate adjusts to home schooling. Picture: AAP

People can be so unreasonable with their expectations of clarity and consistency from politicians. Especially during a pandemic.

Today our leaders will emerge from another National Cabinet, this time having discussed schools.

The Victorian Premier says his position on schools is the same as everyone else’s, including Scott Morrison. Even though Daniel Andrews says unless absolutely necessary children should stay home, but the PM says there is no medical advice that schools aren’t safe, so parents should send their kids to school.

No medical advice, other than Victoria’s Chief Health Officer — Professor Sutton — who says to fight the coronavirus and stop it spreading, students shouldn’t go to school unless absolutely necessary. Echoing what the Victorian Premier is saying.

The New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian can let us know why she seems to always go into the National Cabinet meetings having told her state colleagues one thing, only to emerge with a newly defined position once the PM has sunk his teeth into her.

While she’s at it, can she and the PM can let us know why public playgrounds have police tape around them because they are unsafe, but not at schools where kids can climb all over the equipment?

A woman meditates in Hyde Park, Sydney. Picture: Nikki Short

Or why it is not okay to sit on a park bench all by yourself, 50m from the nearest other park bench available to another human being, yet 30 teenagers can be crammed into a classroom no bigger than the living room I am in while typing these words?

Why is it safe for schools to open and teachers therefore mingle in crowded classrooms, but the largest building in the country — Federal parliament — can’t open because that would be too dangerous?

Let me guess, because schools are filled with children, unlike parliament. Hmmm. Jokes aside, what about the teachers then? An ageing workforce to be clear. Apparently children don’t spread the virus, which is why they “absolutely must” stay away from aged care facilities, lest they infect their grandparents.

Makes sense.

A list of home schooling routine is seen at Donna Eddy’s Sydney home. Picture: AAP

How is shutting down our democratic parliament, by the way, the less dangerous choice than keeping it open with social distancing? Especially when the government is about to track everyone’s phone without our consent — like that bastion of democracy Singapore does.

Speaking of Singapore, schools there have closed down, even though the PM cited Singapore as doing well in the coronavirus crisis and therefore worth emulating when it hadn’t yet shut down schools.

What he really meant is it is a good point of comparison when it suits him to make it. Like when he referred to his kids to justify decision making, but went on to scold journalists who ask as a follow up if his kids are heading back to school when term starts back up.

How dare the media drag his children into this! Only he is allowed to do that.

Help me understand why sitting on a boat alone or with family in the middle of Sydney Harbour (not fishing) is too risky in these socially-distanced times, but sitting wedged against two other people in that crappy middle seat on an aeroplane isn’t?

We all understand the need for tighter rules to beat this pandemic. And despite some missteps along the way in overall terms the government has done pretty well.

But it is too much to ask for better explanations and more consistency? Because if anything is going to spark a backlash against the measures governments expect us to adhere to to combat this virus, it will be if people feel like the rules aren’t consistent and don’t make sense.

Are teachers unions guiding the policy settings of state governments on schools, for example, or are the medical experts? If the latter please explain the differences from state to state and the disagreements with the Commonwealth, rather than dismiss them as non-existent.

Why does the PM feel the need to offer national dictates on schools when education is one of the few areas left that the states are responsible for? Especially when he isn’t even reflecting the views of the states who do implement schools’ policies.

Yet when the Ruby Princess docked in Sydney the feds leaked that it was a NSW health issue, not the fault of Border Force. Stopping the boats suddenly became a state issue.

Makes sense.

Peter van Onselen is political editor for Network 10 and professor of politics and public policy at the University of Western Australia and Griffith University.