Scott Morrison wants speed up of economy reopening, protests or not

People protest at a Black Lives Matter rally in Melbourne last weekend. Picture: AFP

Yesterday the Prime Minister was asked by Neil Mitchell on morning radio in Melbourne “if we hadn’t had those protests, would you now be looking to ease things a bit quicker?” The PM promptly responded: “yes, no doubt”. The question was in response to last Saturday’s Black Lives Matter protests right around the nation.

The real question is, what does that mean? Will Scott Morrison be going into this morning’s National Cabinet meeting with a slower pathway towards easing restrictions because of the BLM protests last weekend? If so, he has made no mention of that shift in approach other than the rhetorical over-reach when answering Mitchell’s question. In fact the rhetoric from the PM and his ministers all week has been that they hope to speed up the lifting of restrictions, not slow them down, in order that the economy fire back up more quickly.

How does that gel with the “yes, no doubt” answer he gave?

Incidentally, any move to speed up the lifting of restrictions would run as contrary to the medical advice as the BLM protests going ahead did. The medical advisers to government want the road map already laid out to be followed to the letter, not constantly adjusted by politicians, so that they can interpret the results and quantify the gains (or losses).

The medicos are as concerned about politicians pushing them to move too quickly as they were about the risk the protests presented.

But back to the PM’s seemingly erroneous claim that last weekend’s protests have caused him to slow down the easing of restrictions. That also runs contrary to the constant push from the federal government for states to open up their borders. Just yesterday the Treasurer was telling journalists the states should “go the full hog” and lift border restrictions.

Indeed it runs contrary to the issues the PM has put on the agenda for today’s National Cabinet meeting — the further easing of restrictions as per the July Stage Three timeframe. Nowhere in the information sent out to journalists is there any reference to a slowing down of plans because of the weekend protests, as claimed by the PM on radio.

It is certainly possible that a second wave is caused by the protests, which is why many of us expressed concerns about them going ahead in the first place. We will have to wait to see if there is an uptick in community transmissions because of the gatherings. The protester out of Victoria who we now know had the virus when attending the rally may not have contracted it at the protest — that is the view of the medical experts — and he may have worn a mask when there, thus limiting the risk of him passing it on to others. But it was a risk all the same, which is why it is good that the PM expressed concerns about people attending, rather than leading with “it’s a free country” like he did a few weeks earlier when asked about radical 5G protests going ahead during a much stricter stage of the lockdown.

That’s called learning from your mistakes.

The next step in the learning process is not inflating rhetoric beyond reality to try and draw a line that doesn’t exist between disappointment with protests proceeding (something I share) and their alleged impact on the pathway to opening the economy up.

Because lets face it, it is still full speed ahead from the federal government when it comes to opening things up, as it urges the states to get the economy moving again at National Cabinet today.

Protests or no protests.

Peter van Onselen is a professor of politics and public policy at the University of Western Australia and Griffith University.