Gladys Berejiklian’s leadership carries national capital for Liberals
This week has provided a colossal example of why Canberra should be Berejiklian’s next move.
Imagine if Gladys Berejiklian went to Canberra. The NSW Premier is clearly cabinet material and potentially higher. She’s grounded and has a reforming instinct. Her humility marks her out as different too. She’s popular without being a slave to populism. The woman is certainly believable: she’s far from perfect, there have been bungles and a dreadful bloke in her life. But she doesn’t play the victim. Onwards and upwards. Gladys governs to a gold standard without making a fuss.
While her arrival would overturn the apple cart in Canberra, the Liberal Party needs a dose of creative destruction. And the country would be the biggest beneficiary.
This week has provided a colossal example of why Canberra should be Berejiklian’s next move. COVID-19 has cemented her credentials as the only state leader who has consistently acted in the interests of the nation, and her state. After a national shutdown, the NSW government has kept its economy open for business and borders open to the country. NSW borders closed once, when Victoria became a coronavirus basket-case following the deadly, unforgivable hotel quarantine fiasco overseen by Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews.
Contrast the panicky leaders elsewhere in the country. On Tuesday Western Australia, the Northern Territory, Tasmania and Queensland, shut their borders to South Australia after an outbreak of 22 cases. Victoria did the same on Thursday.
When such a low threshold leads to border closures, it makes it impossible for two-thirds of the country to make plans to travel across a border to share Christmas with their families, let alone organise their day-to-day lives long after Christmas.
By contrast, people in NSW are able to plan their lives in a way that recognises that we will be living with this virus, in some form or another, for a long time to come. Berejiklian has done that through fast testing systems, effective contact tracing and building hospital capacity to deal with a disease that is both highly infectious and has a low death rate.
It’s possible that circumstances will change in NSW, but Berejiklian’s record of measured responses is in sharp contrast to her counterparts. Andrews is damaged goods; his management of COVID has been incompetent, extreme and disingenuous. Any mug can lock down a state for more than 100 days and declare victory.
Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan has turned federation into a farce. This week he repeated his plan to keep the virus out of his state; in other words, tethering the state to an elimination strategy that is untethered from science. McGowan claimed this week that NSW “is not the best model”. It is a preposterous assertion. The NSW economy and its borders are open because of effective testing, fast contact tracing and sustained hospital capacity to deal with outbreaks.
McGowan then shifted to bizarre by claiming he was leading the way by closing borders to SA. Leading? The man who signed a T-shirt bearing his face and the words “locals only” for a West Australian Labor Party fundraiser is in a leadership retreat. McGowan’s fortress mentality might suit the parochialism of many Western Australians, but it is a public admission that he has no confidence in the systems he is responsible for setting up and managing: testing, contact tracing and hospital capacity.
Now contrast the NSW Premier with the Queensland Premier. Annastacia Palaszczuk shut off Queensland from NSW for political reasons, causing untold misery to thousands of Australians who live near the border and need to access the nearest medical services in Queensland. Like a political cage fighter, Palaszczuk told voters she might open them up after the state election last month.
Maybe Queenslanders were happy with that — she was re-elected after all. But Palaszczuk, like McGowan, should be ashamed of dismantling federation. Leadership is not the same as stoking people’s fears and parochial desires.
Earlier this month, when many Australians in the UK entered another four weeks of lockdown there, Palaszczuk tweeted about “the stark contrast to Queensland, where our economy is open, and we can travel freely around our state”. With no hint of smugness, Berejiklian continues to lead 7.5 million people through COVID outbreaks and manages the arrival of many more Australians from overseas than any other state. After the early debacle involving the Ruby Princess, the Berejiklian government has learned that testing, tracing and keeping people informed about the location of outbreaks is the key to offering people greater certainty about the future.
Don’t underestimate the importance of stability. On that note, contrast how quickly South Australian Premier Steven Marshall was spooked this week. By locking down the entire state in response to 22 mild cases of COVID-19 — those who have it are showing virtually no symptoms — Marshall has thrown the state into chaos, and undermined his leadership credentials.
Worse, on Friday, after South Australians queued for toilet paper and booze, Marshall blamed it all on a lie by a pizza worker and signalled an early lift of the lockdown on Saturday night. This is not sound leadership. Had Marshall not overreacted he wouldn’t be looking like a spooked, confused, incompetent Premier right now.
After the national lockdown in March, states and territories have had many months to get testing, tracing and hospital capacity to levels that should allow Australians to live safely with outbreaks. What made some sense in March when there were no testing and tracing systems in place is unforgivable in late November. The impulsive SA lockdown is a telltale sign that Marshall has no faith in systems in SA to manage the virus. His argument for the lockdown — that SA must not become Victoria — pointed to complacent leadership. Marshall says he has acted on scientific advice to impose home detention on the whole state, shutting schools and closing most businesses, even construction.
As much as we might want to blame disproportionate measures on health bureaucrats, they are not secret about being the most pessimistic of professions. They are asked to deal with one issue alone. It is up to elected leaders to take advice from a range of informed sources and weigh up the costs and benefits. Whoever advised the Premier that South Australians must not exercise their dog or exercise alone for an hour a day should have been told to take a hike.
Lifting that idiotic ban on Friday changes nothing about Marshall’s reckless over-reaction. In NSW, Berejiklian did not impose hysterical lockdowns after a few infections in restaurants. By kicking off an arms race for more and more severe restrictions to deal with smaller and smaller clusters, Marshall has set a dangerous precedent that won’t serve the national interest, let alone the people of SA.
As the World Health Organisation’s coronavirus envoy, David Nabarro, said last month: “We really do appeal to all world leaders: stop using lockdown as your primary control method. Develop better systems for doing it. Work together and learn from each other.”
In contrast to Berejiklian’s measured, proportionate and transparent management of COVID-19 outbreaks, the SA Premier’s response to this outbreak has been both confused and feverish. We were told this is a more severe strain of COVID-19. Really? Marshall told South Australians not to panic, as he told them the state is facing a potential catastrophe and has only “one chance” to deal with the virus. “You don’t get a second chance to stop a second wave,’’ Marshall said.
Take a breath, Premier. You are making a jolly fool of yourself.
There will be further outbreaks, and they need to be managed. Will that mean another lockdown in SA? And for how long must South Australians live with the shadow of the Premier’s sledgehammer responses hanging over them?
Marshall and others demonstrate that Berejiklian has governed to a higher standard during COVID. If she headed to Canberra, she would inject some much-needed competition for the top job there.
The NSW budget shows what Berejiklian can achieve when moored by more sensible people, in this case NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet. The NSW budget this week is a clever mix of cash splashes encouraging people to eat out and serious reforms to cut planning approvals, slash payroll taxes, replace stamp duty and investing in targeted infrastructure.
Speaking at The Australian’s Strategic Forum on Wednesday, Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe praised NSW and pointedly urged the federal government to move faster on obvious reforms such as industrial relations.
While the Prime Minister is not known for his reforming instincts, perhaps with a proven state Premier nipping at his heels, he might work harder to leave a reform legacy behind him.
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