Lives and livelihoods ruined in misplaced coronavirus response

It is no accident that Jacinda Ardern and Daniel Andrews have scant first-hand knowledge of the private sector.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern poses for a photo with Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews on July 18, 2019 in Melbourne. Picture: Getty

It’s just over two months since Jacinda Ardern declared: “We are confident we have eliminated transmission of the virus in New Zealand.” She made the statement after revealing that, on receiving this news from her officials, she “did a little dance”.

To be fair, the New Zealand Prime Minister said that eradication of COVID-19 had been achieved “for now”.

She added: “Elimination is a point in time. It is a sustained effort. We almost certainly will see cases here again.” Which makes you wonder — how many “little dances” will Ardern undertake until COVID-19 goes the way of the Spanish flu during the previous pandemic in Australasia a century ago?

The sad news out of New Zealand this week is that a fresh COVID-19 cluster has been discovered and that more lockdowns have been implemented — the most severe in Auckland, the location of the current outbreak.

Until now, many disease experts and commentators in Australia have been urging the federal, state and territory governments to implement the New Zealand approach in tackling the virus.

For example, on July 14 ABC Online reported that “an elimination strategy would likely involve tougher lockdowns and has proved successful in New Zealand”. One of the commentators said that a really tough lockdown would prevent the need for a similar response at some later time.

Alas, this has not proved to be the case in New Zealand. It is not clear what is the cause of the resurgence of community transfer of the virus in New Zealand. However, Australian National University infectious disease physician Peter Collignon, is not surprised.

Speaking on Sky News’ The Bolt Report on Wednesday, Collignon said he “was always a bit concerned about this elimination term — because I think that’s very difficult to get but, more importantly, to sustain”.

Collignon is aware of the various theories about the virus cluster in Auckland. His essential point is that “one of the problems is that people who are young, 20s and 30s, often have minimal or no symptoms”. Consequently it’s easy for COVID-19 “to percolate below the surface for quite a long period … and then … it comes back”.

New Zealand had the toughest lockdowns in the whole of Australasia. But COVID-19 has not been eliminated. Victoria had the toughest lockdowns in all of Australia — but it has implemented an even stricter lockdown as it faces what appears to be a serious second wave of infection.

Meanwhile the economic consequences of the lockdown continue to wreak harm on Australia’s businesses and the nation’s mental health.

On Monday, The Mercury in Hobart led with a story about the impact of COVID-19 on Australia’s smallest state. Shelley Brooks, the director of Rodgers Reidy Tasmania, was reported as saying: “It is anticipated there will be a tsunami of insolvency appointments over the coming months and up to two years following.”

The Mercury reported that, of Tasmania’s 40,000 businesses, 95 per cent are considered to be small operators. They prevail in the retail and tourism businesses. Not much business there in the foreseeable future. Tasmania is in a statewide lockdown. Tourists and other visitors are not welcome. However, Tasmania is Australia’s least prosperous state and is dependent on money spent in the state from other Australians and foreigners.

If the island of New Zealand cannot eliminate COVID-19, why should the island of Tasmania be expected to do so? If it cannot do so, on the current policies of the Tasmanian government the state may be locked down for another year or more.

What then will be left of the once thriving Tasmanian tourism industry and the businesses that benefited from it?

At the moment, virtually every state border is closed to other Australians except for the transmission of goods. It’s true that in 1919-20 Australia’s state borders were closed to prevent or slow down the impact of the Spanish flu.

But that was a century ago when Australians who lived in Albury could not readily work in Wodonga — likewise with Tweed Heads and Coolangatta. In short, closed borders then did not pose the economic, social and medical problems that they do today.

In NSW, Premier Gladys Berejiklian is doing her best in trying to keep open as much business and interstate trade as possible.

Certainly NSW closed its border with Victoria following that state’s catastrophic handling of quarantine procedures in hotels. But travel is possible from Queensland into NSW. The Berejiklian government seems the most focused — along with the federal government — on the need to keep the private sector going at a time of national and international recession.

It is no accident, as the Marxists were wont to say, that the two Australasian leaders in government who have been most willing to close down large sections of the economy — Ardern in New Zealand and Daniel Andrews in Victoria — have scant first-hand knowledge of the private sector.

Without question, COVID-19 is an insidious virus — especially for the aged. This is a reason to focus on the needs of older Australians and those who suffer from chronic illnesses.

But there is also a need to be mindful of those, especially in the small to medium businesses, whose lives are being destroyed by the response to COVID-19.

It is notable that the attitude to the virus by some physicians and surgeons in the private sector differs from the policies proposed by some health professionals in the public sector — including health bureaucrats who make policy recommendations to state and territory governments.

It’s much the same with the media. It seems that journalists with secure public sector jobs are more inclined than others to call for even tougher lockdowns.

In late July, Melbourne-based journalist Virginia Trioli called for a “New Zealand-style shutdown” for Melbourne. On Thursday, on ABC Radio National Breakfast, Fran Kelly gave the impression of urging federal Trade, Tourism and Investment Minister Simon Birmingham to ease off in his wish that the borders between states and territories should be opened up as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, much of the private sector is dying or dead. There’s nothing to dance about in Wellington or Canberra.

Gerard Henderson is executive director of the Sydney Institute. His Media Watch Dog blog can be found at www.theaustralian.com.au.