Coronavirus: The curve’s crushed, so let’s get on with it

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk isn’t losing her $400,000 salary, despite denying many hundreds of Queenslanders an income for months. Picture: Jerad Williams

Former New Zealand prime minister Robert Muldoon once said every time a New Zealander left for Australia, the IQ of both countries went up.

Voters in NSW will soon be wondering the same about their fellow Australians in other states if borders remain closed any longer, on the flimsy basis of curbing the spread of COVID-19. For whatever reasons, the curve has been crushed, flattened, so let’s get on with our lives — at least within Australia as we won’t be going overseas for a long time.

The NSW government has made mistakes during the crisis, but it deserves credit for doing the most to help save businesses by permitting, from June, up to 50 patrons at pubs and restaurants. “It’s a crucial step towards reopening our economy safely and bringing back thousands of jobs,” Treasurer Dom Perrottet told The Weekend Australian.

Keeping interstate borders closed is ridiculous from an economic and health point of view. Perhaps the dumbest decision to close borders most go to Queensland, given how much it relies on tourism. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk isn’t losing her $400,000 salary but hundreds of Queensland businesses will be forced to have practically no income for months.

New cases nationally have been a steady trickle since early April. Positive tests for COVID-19, on Department of Health figures, are now 1 per cent (or below) of overall tests in every state and territory. Moreover, the vast bulk of cases in all states were acquired overseas, and no one is arriving much anymore.

And why on Earth is Tasmania wanting to keep us all out, given it has the highest rate of infections!

It’s problematic constitutionally too: section 92 says “trade, commerce, and intercourse” among the states must be “absolutely free”. There’s no exemption for pandemics.

Australia is one nation and an island, giving us a huge natural advantage in fighting COVID-19 (perhaps it’s partly why Japan, New Zealand and Taiwan have fared well too).

The oddest border closure, however, must be that between South and Western Australia. Neither state has been much affected by the virus. Neither has had a single case for many days, let alone deaths, which total only 13 through the entire epidemic.

In NSW the food and beverage industry supports about 280,000 full- and part-time staff. It has the highest number of deaths and infections by far, unsurprising given it’s home to the nation’s biggest and most international city. If it’s good enough for NSW to reopen, it’s surely good enough for the others.

If state premiers think there’s political gain in trying to protect us from even the smallest risks, it reflects badly on the intelligence of the electorate. How mindless are we to allow indefinitely such huge incursions on our lives by bureaucrats who by their own admission don’t have reasonable justifications. Queensland’s Chief Medical Officer even said closing schools, hugely affecting thousands of families, was only for “messaging”, not to save lives.