Coronavirus: Biggest threat yet to come, says Cory Bernardi

Governments have created a problem that is much bigger than the coronavirus, former Liberal senator Cory Bernardi said.

Former senator Cory Bernardi. Picture: Kym Smith

Australian governments have created a problem that is much bigger than the coronavirus by implementing job-wrecking policies and trashing the economy on the basis of “doomsday scenarios”, former Liberal senator and Australian Conservatives founder Cory Bernardi says.

Mr Bernardi said he feared the biggest threat from COVID-19 was yet to come, with an enduring loss of investor confidence as businesses realised they could be closed “with the stroke of a pen” by nervous governments on the basis of “catastrophic” medical advice.

Mr Bernardi, who quit politics this year, said he understood why Australian governments had been so determined to be guided by the scientists in crafting their initial response to the emerging pandemic.

But he questioned the dramatic nature of scientific predictions and whether governments had been driven more by political self-preservation than pragmatism in “overreacting” to the modelling.

Mr Bernardi pointed to the influential work done by London’s Imperial College which advocated widespread social distancing and mass business closures to avoid huge numbers of predicted deaths.

“Unfortunately the information the whole world relied upon has been statistically ­erroneous,” he said. “They painted this doomsday scenario and none of it has come true. The temptation now is for governments to say it didn’t come true because of the things we put in place, which in my view is debatable.

“I don’t doubt the complexity of dealing with this is unfamiliar to many politicians. Governments want to rely on experts because they can say that if things don’t work that they were following advice. It’s a protection mechanism.

“But medical experts are people who are always going to dwell on the extreme caution side, the apocalyptic side of events. The early evidence of this was so clear to anyone who really wanted to examine it is that it was an illness that largely affects people who are particularly vulnerable with chronic conditions or very old age.”

Mr Bernardi said that with the exception of Victoria, Australian governments were now desperately trying to work out how to back-pedal out of the shutdown they had overseen, much of which he says was unnecessary.

“Governments all around the country are realising that they are creating a much larger problem than the virus did,” he said.

“They are as busy as beavers trying to set aside that fact and to redirect people from thinking this was a massive over-reaction to commending the government for having done the right thing.

“They want to be commended for opening up the economy when it’s debatable whether we needed to close it to he extent we did.”