Coronavirus: Tony Abbott says opening borders is essential to rebuild economy

Tony Abbott warns that Australia’s closed borders must be ‘liberated’ soon or it will be a ‘massive problem’ for trade.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott. Picture: Getty Images

Tony Abbott has told British powerbrokers that Australia’s closed borders should be “liberated’’ soon but warned that if the restrictions went on too long it would be a “massive problem’’ for trade.

Mr Abbott also attacked Victorian premier Daniel Andrews as wanting to extend “a health dictatorship for another six months’’, in a hard-hitting speech to the Policy Exchange, a well connected think-tank in central London on Tuesday.

He also accused the state premiers of acting like “trauma doctors’’ in dealing with the pandemic rather than assessing the whole impact of border closures and lockdowns, and addressing the costs to society.

He said government’s health economists routinely addressed the costs of lifesaving cancer drugs based on quality life years it would provide in deciding whether to fund such drugs yet the government had approached coronavirus differently, listening to the alarmist experts at Imperial College whom he derided as “the spiritual fathers of lockdown measures’’.

Mr Abbott also feared that the consequences of the lockdowns, such as governments subsidising wages, rents could become “the new normal’’.

“The saddest features of the pandemic, is that mostly the elderly died alone without the solace of family and friends because of (coronavirus) measures. This psychological damage is as bad as the pandemic toll on health and wealth. People who were self reliant are now looking to the government for sustenance – a something for nothing mindset – reinforced by young people saved from looking for jobs,’’ he said. Mr Abbott said the longer the situation where the government is paying business wages, homeowners are frozen from mortgage payments and tenants are not able to pay rent, it risks being established as a new normal. He said the governments’ measures had produced “a fear of falling sick, which stops us from being fully alive’’.

He said: “We have each had six months, it is surely time to relax the rules, so that individuals can take personal responsibility and make more of their own decisions about the risks they are prepared to run.’’

Mr Abbott, who is poised to be appointed to the UK Board of Trade.