Four serious errors on the way to COVID-19 ‘victory’

Police stand guard at an anti-lockdown protest in Melbourne on November 3. Picture: Brianna Travers

Australia has passed the COVID-19 test, Scott Morrison says. And with Victoria and Queensland celebrating weeks without a local case, Australians are jubilant, especially com­pared with the US, which added a million new cases in five days.

Based on these numbers, Australia appears to be the gold standard in fighting coronavirus. Popular opinion insists that case numbers and deaths are the only metrics with which to judge whether coronavirus measures have been successful.

However, when you look beyond the health figures and analyse what the government did and why, you will see Australia’s response to COVID-19 was flawed.

Australian governments made four serious errors. They failed to justify the introduction of draconian restrictions; failed to articulate an exit strategy; failed to consider the adverse impact of restrictions; and confined decision-making to small, opaque groups.

Concrete barriers reinforce the Bay Street border crossing between Tweed Heads, NSW and Coolangatta, Queensland in November. Picture: SMP Images

First, restrictions were justified on shaky grounds. The Prime Minister warned they could be increased if “social distancing measures (were) not adhered to”. Health bureaucrats supported additional limits to “enforce the new way of life … and to adapt the community mindset”. While such statements seem innocuous, they are alarming.

Governments chose to browbeat Australians into following new and continually changing public health orders that included closing “non-essential businesses”, limiting who we could have in our homes, stopping people sitting on park benches and issuing hefty fines to rule-breakers.

In a fast-moving situation such as a pandemic, policy decisions are going to be made with imperfect information and mistakes will be made when governments act quickly. However, even in a crisis, government actions need to be constrained by the norms of liberal democracy. Decisions always need to be proportionate and must protect not only at-risk groups but also, to the extent possible, individual liberty.

These are not theoretical principles for good governance; they form part of the federal government’s guidelines for responding to a pandemic. But the response to COVID-19 was indiscriminate and inflexible.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Daniel Pockett

Victoria’s response to an outbreak caused by its failed hotel quarantine scheme is the most obvious example. Rather than focus on protecting the most at risk, the Andrews government introduced the nation’s harshest measures. Victoria introduced curfews yet, initially, approved the Cox Plate to be run with 1250 attendees. Decisions were often incongruous and leaders could not articulate properly why they were necessary to stop the virus.

Second, governments introduced and increased restrictions in March without any idea of how or when controls would end. In April chief medical officer Brendan Murphy warned we would “need to change the way (we) interact permanently”. We were told by Acting Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly we needed to stay locked down to “flatten the curve”. Then we were told easing COVID rules could happen if we downloaded the COVID-Safe app, which has proven a failure. Then we were informed by Kelly that reopening would risk a second outbreak because we were “victims of our success” and “nowhere near that concept of herd immunity”. The goalposts for lifting restrictions kept shifting.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison (right) listens to Acting Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly speak during a media conference at Parliament House in Canberra in September. Picture: Getty Images

Third, governments introduced restrictions without knowing or considering potential im­pacts on the economy or mental health. As of last month the unemployment rate had reached 7 per cent. Those out of work may take considerable time to find meaningful employment and economic downturns have a detrimental impact on mental health. During the Depression the male suicide rate peaked at 28.1 per 100,000.

Finally, decisions were not properly scrutinised. The formation of a national cabinet, shutting down parliament, reliance on a small group of experts and lack of transparency on information point to a troubling lack of respect for democratic accountability. In a liberal democracy, it is up to our elected leaders to consider a variety of opinions, evidence and weigh advice against trade-offs. A crisis does not mean you can jettison every principle of a liberal democracy, then declare victory.

Monica Wilkie is a policy analyst at the Centre for Independent Studies and author of Victims of Failure: How the COVID-19 Policy Response Let Down Australians.