Coronavirus: Gladys Berejiklian response ‘wise and weighted’

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian. Picture: Damian Shaw

Gladys Berejiklian is being asked to keep her nerve and put the state’s economic recovery ahead of the temptation to completely overreact to the outbreak of COVID-19 at a pub in western Sydney.

This will involve a degree of political courage that premiers and chief ministers have been asked to show as the pandemic enters a new, uncertain phase.

Authorities have warned that outbreaks were to be expected once social restrictions were eased and liberties restored, but Victoria’s problems should not spook other states into folding like deck chairs at every new viral spot-fire.

The tactical approach from the state and territory governments to new infections must be about proportional response. While Victoria is a special case, this is an argument Premier Daniel Andrews is about to have with Melburnians.

At a special cabinet subcommittee meeting on Sunday night, Berejiklian and her colleagues, including Treasurer Dominic Perrottet, agreed that the economy was now the priority and this could not be compromised. There was a very strong view that to avoid going backwards, there needed to be a strategy for managing panic. Her cabinet effectively prioritised the economy over everything else.

It has been a more difficult path for NSW compared, for instance, with Queensland and Western Australia, which have weathered the storm largely by using border closures to hide the inadequacies of their health systems.

Berejiklian has shown what would appear to be a “proportional response” by reimposing limited restrictions on pub crowds in response to the Crossroads Hotel cluster. This, she argues, would have a limited and targeted impact.

And she has made it clear that reverting to lockdowns would only ever be a break-glass option.

No doubt she has had the encouragement of Scott Morrison to stay the course. The Prime Minister has made the point that the Victorian problem shouldn’t jolt other premiers into a state of fear.

Mechanisms put in place to deal with just this sort of situation must be given a chance to work. The federal government has poured billions of dollars into state and territory health systems and bought 7000 ventilators precisely for this reason: to manage isolated outbreaks so the economy could be revived responsibly.

Berejiklian faces a tough decision should numbers get worse. And that is whether she and her cabinet stick to the principle they agreed to on Sunday that the economic engine-room of Australia not be allowed to slip backwards in its recovery whenever there is the inevitable coronavirus flare-up.