A year ago, Australia was burning. The ferocious, fatal bushfires that devastated large swathes of the country’s east coast felt relentless. They destroyed lives, livelihoods and so much more.
The fires that burned for months on end, and the subsequent, heaven-sent summer drenching that helped put an end to it all, were a reminder of this savage land of extremes we call home.
They also gave cause for another reminder. Of how we as Australians take care of each other. How no distance, no border on a map could quash or erode the innate desire we have to look out for our mates. The ones we know, and the ones we never will. We’ve always been like that, haven’t we?
It’s who we are as Australians. Or maybe it isn’t, not deep down and not really.
I ask that question because COVID has turned state against state in a way that I’ve never seen in my near-half century on the planet. One weary year down Pandemic Road, and I’m a little deflated to say that as much as we have seen good among us, perhaps even seen glimpses of our best, we’ve also seen some pretty average carry-on. I don’t say that to be deliberately provocative, it’s an honest observation.
Twelve short months ago, when NSW burned, nobody said Queensland water bombers were for Queensland fires only. When struggling farmers couldn’t feed their stock, nobody stopped the convoys from leaving Western Australia. No one said: Those greedy eastern staters only want to take WA feed and that’s for WA animals. Suggesting that now is the stuff of insanity, yet that’s been the spirit of the COVID-19 age.
What is it about the threat of COVID that changed us? Or is it a case that the ugliness was already there? I don’t know. Perhaps it’s as simple as the difference between a threat we watch from afar versus one that can strike with the simplicity of a sneeze. Heaven knows it’s easy to be magnanimous watching someone else’s house burn down on the telly, from the comfort of your own couch.
As the NSW government deftly continues to manage current clusters, notably without the need to imprison citizens or destroy the economy, pot shots were being lobbed from across state aka enemy lines. Criticism. A vocal and deliberate undermining. A thinly veiled disappointment that it hasn’t yet gone badly wrong. This isn’t who I thought we were.
Maybe it’s as simple and as distasteful as politics. COVID has shown us that voters won’t punish a leader for saying things that in any other circumstances would have triggered a reputational crisis. Queensland hospitals are for Queenslanders was apparently an OK position to take, even as a heavily pregnant woman was refused treatment. Voters rewarded the hardness, the fortress mentality and no doubt in two short months the same thing will happen in Western Australia.
COVID has shown us that voters will excuse an astronomical level of incompetence, excused by collective amnesia, and the subsequent human toll as long as they believe they’re being kept safe. Fear really is the opiate of the masses.
The Victorian and West Australian governments again slammed the doors shut as the New Year arrived. No policy, no planning and no clue. The worst of decision making that threw tens of thousands of lives into chaos, a revolving state of turmoil. With the notable exception of NSW, nobody wants a national standard, because I’m guessing there’s no votes, no leverage in consensus. At times, it felt like some weird, continuous version of State of Origin, Hunger Games Style. No Australia, just faux nation-states and their leaders, beating their chests.
It appears to be all about bread and circuses aka JobKeeper right now, but let me propose that it may be a different story come March when the bread runs out and the circus moves on.
The federal government must lead, but it’s fraught with electoral risk. It must solve a dilemma of its own making, namely, what to do with the national cabinet; how to repair our fractured nation, rather than serve the optics and agendas of the attending premiers.
I’m not interested in a so-called new normal that puts our national interest second.
Changing one word in our National Anthem is well intentioned cosmetic surgery. Right now, we are anything but one and we are certainly not free.
Gemma Tognini is executive director of GT Communications.
Should wives get a slice of husband’s future earnings?
Retired barrister Tom Kirk KC raises tricky questions about fairness (and even pets) in his new guide to separation and divorce.
Universities are meant to educate, not indoctrinate
Academic freedom is not a free pass for ignorant hate speech that stokes violence.