Balancing risk in the age of coronavirus

People wearing face masks exercise around Albert Park Lake in Melbourne on August 26.

In 1984, at the age of 27, I went to Europe for the first time. It was all very exciting. I was newly married and this was our “big trip” before starting a family. I was in the middle of writing a thesis on Melbourne as an antipodean version of London. My arty wife wanted to see the great galleries. I wanted to visit the East End and the industrial Midlands. I was well read about the rise of the British Empire. And while I was excited to see London and Europe, I remained confident that Australia offered the best quality of life of pretty much anywhere in the world.

My thinking was confirmed when we visited Brighton, on England’s south coast. Where was the sand and the wild tussock grass? Where was the youthful energy? Every inch of the coastline was pebbled, concreted, promenaded, constricted. I felt sorry for the English if this was their idea of coastal living.

A few weeks later we were in Rome, on a Contiki tour no less, and the youth and the energy I’d felt was so lacking in Brighton was on full display. Teenagers and 20-somethings in the Piazza Navona, dressed to the nines, pouting and parading on their Vespas, enjoying every moment that life had to offer. In that moment I realised there was another view of how life might be lived. Not better and not worse than Australia, just different.

In Siena we arrived a day after their famous horse race around the Piazza del Campo, which was replayed on the nightly news. I couldn’t understand what the commentators were saying but they were clearly excited by an event in which horses galloped on cobblestones around a tight track thronged with spectators. Where the Italians saw a great feat of horse-racing derring-do, I saw risk of injury and litigation.

We have been back to Europe many times since 1984, and especially over recent years with our son now living with his Danish wife in Copenhagen. And while I am struck by the similarities between how life is lived over there and back here, there are differences. In hip Copenhagen, smoking is tolerated in certain pubs. Cyclists in many European cities aren’t obliged to wear helmets. There is no speed limit on sections of Germany’s autobahns. The Europeans have a tolerance for risk that is at odds with their supposedly measured persona. In comparison, we brash Australians seem to be decidedly risk-averse. I concluded after my Contiki visit all those years ago that the European world view is of the moment but with an appreciation of history and culture. We Australians, on the other hand, also live in the moment but with an eye for the future.

And nowhere are these differences more apparent than in how coronavirus is being handled. According to figures from Johns Hopkins University, Denmark has recorded 10.7 deaths per 100,000 people (compared to 1.58 deaths per 100,000 in Australia) and yet, since May at least, the Danes seem to be going about their lives pretty much as normal. I am not averse to the precautions taken to manage the coronavirus risk in Australia and, as a parent, I’d quite like the Danes to be just as jumpy as are we on this matter. My point is much broader. I wonder whether there is indeed such a thing as an Australian aversion to risk and, if so, could it impact board decisions limiting entrepreneurial opportunity?

Life cannot be lived, and businesses cannot expand, without accepting some level of risk. It seems to me that we need to find the right balance between protecting our lives and securing our livelihoods. Some say we might have to learn how to live with coronavirus; I say we may also need to learn how to live with an acceptable level of risk.