Politicians a plague on Covid rules and common sense

Victoria has been caught covering up its bad record with a blatant public relations display of overconfidence.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison greets Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese at the 2021 Ecumenical Service for the Commencement of Parliament in Canberra on February 2, 2021. POOL PHOTO: Dominic Lorrimer

It is becoming obvious that many well-meaning Australians are increasingly confused by the inconsistency of rules governing public gatherings in the pandemic — none more than this well-meaning Australian. This was especially the case after I opened the paper this week to discover that our federal politicians did not seem to be obeying the same rules as the ordinary citizens.

Imagine my surprise when I saw a photograph of our Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition cheerily bumping arms in Canberra’s St Christopher’s Cathedral for an ecumenical service for the opening of the parliamentary year, while all their colleagues were crammed cheek by jowl into the pews behind them — with apparently no regard for social distancing. I have been assured by the cathedral administration that they had taken appropriate measures to implement the two-square-metre rule.

Meanwhile, the rest of us have had to become used to sitting only three to a pew and in alternate pews — with people scattered around and standing up the back. During the Christmas period the choir at St Christopher’s — now reduced to a skeleton of small groups — was required to sing at a relay of masses because of the limitation in numbers allowed in the churches. But the cricket stands have been pretty full with singing and chanting, and households can have parties and quite big gatherings, and children are at school, as they have been for the whole year except for the initial lockdown last year.

The inconsistency is obvious. What chafes and confuses many is the seeming inconsistencies, both within and between state and territory jurisdictions.

It is understandable that when the Sydney outbreaks happened in January, people were prevented from coming into the ACT from Sydney. However, some of the rules, like the numbers allowed in churches, are starting to look like overkill. And more to the point, there is very little explanation of these rules. Consequently, in some jurisdictions the inconsistencies are inexplicable.

For example, how does the government of Western Australia explain to its population why it has suddenly made mask wearing outdoors in public mandatory when it wasn’t compulsory for guards within quarantine hotels? How can the Victorian government justify hosting the Australian Open and bringing in a whole lot of infected foreign tennis players when that state’s population was obliged to be in quarantine for four months?

The new lockdown in WA might, to some, look like overkill. I don’t believe it is. It is not the lockdown itself that the public cannot understand. People tend to be supportive of lockdowns, as Newspoll consistently shows. The public’s attitude is, in general, “better safe than sorry”. We have all heard the complaints from the usual libertarian suspects about “only one person” locking down the whole city. However, the unfortunate individual who tested positive was infected with a virulent variant of COVID-19. He had more than 60 contacts over a very wide area with no certainty about who infected him. So, it was imperative that contact tracing be done as soon as possible so the area of infection is isolated very quickly, and the most effective way to do that is to keep the population from moving about.

No, the problem with the rules in Perth (and other places where there have been outbreaks) is not lockdown itself, but confusion about the possible minor infringements within that situation. So a blanket rule on mask wearing outdoors is pointless. In public places with few people around, like a beach, wearing a mask is unnecessary, but beneficial in a crowded outdoor venue. Likewise, social distancing works, especially if masks are employed as well. But the explanations for all these precautions are thin on the ground, except that the government of Western Australia was trying to cover its appalling record of lax quarantine by overreacting.

However, the Victorian decision to go ahead with the Australian Open is of a different order. It was covering up its bad record with a blatant public relations display of overconfidence — inexplicable to many of us, since the source of all that state’s original woes was a quarantine breach. No one could be confident that it would not happen again, and of course it did this week with a security officer linked to the Australian Open testing positive.

Back in the national capital, confidence seems to be so high that social distancing went out the window for federal politicians. It is true Canberra has done better in the pandemic than any major city in Australia. With a very low population density, and houses on large suburban blocks and with a lot of extra space, Canberrans have been fortunate. However, it is not all good luck. The population of the capital is very compliant and understands the rules. Social distancing has become almost second nature. So free of this virus has Canberra been that even the West Australian members of parliament were exempt from quarantine, unlike many Sydney relatives of ordinary people in the ACT who were prevented from joining their families at Christmas.