What the ‘heartless’ Aussie border decisions reveal

The heartless way state governments have handled the covid pandemic is proof of a wider problem we face in Australia.

The heartless and ham-fisted way in which state governments have destroyed the most profound and tragic moments in their citizens’ lives is perhaps the saddest proof yet of just how second rate our current generation of politicians is.

This month alone we have seen a couple in Queensland banned from seeing and holding their newborn baby, a couple in NSW banned from entering Queensland to see the man’s dying father, and a man in Victoria banned from entering WA to see his dying mother.

She’s dead now, by the way. He never got to say goodbye.

In all these cases the relevant premiers – those of the isolationist Queensland and WA – used a bizarre version of the Nuremberg defence that they were just following orders. The problem is that it is a pretty spurious defence when you are the one who’s supposed to be in charge.

And it is particularly disheartening for those with Labor sympathies that both brainlessly hard line positions come from leaders of the party that is supposed to be the compassionate one.

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West Australian Premier Mark McGowan. Picture: Paul Kane/Getty Images

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. Picture: NCA NewsWire/John Gass

Indeed, it is a dark irony that the biggest act of compassion this week came from the former right-wing numbers man Alex Hawke, when he granted the Biloela family a bridging visa. Mark McGowan and Annastacia Palaszczuk should perhaps reflect on that.

Frankly, I can understand why both premiers would take a tough stance on borders. It is both politically popular and a clear indication that they do not believe their governments have the capacity to adequately contact trace in the event of an outbreak.

Clearly this is both lazy and populist and a far cry from the heroic efforts of the NSW Health response but it is hardly a hanging offence. However refusing to grant exemptions for people going through the most fundamental moments of human existence – the very beginning and end of life itself – is a level of either heartlessness or incapacity I have never seen in more than 20 years of political journalism.

It follows that there are only three possible reasons for this: 1. The premiers are so politically callous they are prepared to sacrifice these people on the altar of their strongman persona; 2. They know – but won’t tell the public – that their contact tracing capabilities are between negligible and nil; or 3. They are so beholden to bed-wetting bureaucrats and mindless bureaucratic processes that they have forgotten who is supposed to be in charge.

Whatever the reason, it only takes a brief trip back in time to realise how far our standards of political leadership have fallen.

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Sydney Domestic Airport departures hall looking quiet, with many flights cancelled due to the growing Covid-19 outbreak. Picture: Damian Shaw

Could anyone imagine Labor’s consummate Queensland everyman Peter Beattie telling a fully-vaccinated Covid-free couple they could not hold their newborn baby? Or WA’s thoughtful and compassionate Geoff Gallop telling a young man he could not see his dying mother? It simply defies belief.

Indeed, there is a sense these days that our politicians believe in nothing. They simply recite the lines, repeat the talking points, and parrot the advice without the slightest intervention of a rational or independent human thought.

Which raises the question: What is the point of them? If our elected leaders are incapable of applying a moral compass or practical commonsense to situations where the machinery of bureaucracy is clearly crushing people then what is the point of even having them? Why not just put the bureaucrats in charge and chuck the premiers’ half a million bucks a year on race five at Randwick?

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Gladys Berejiklian’s “calm, clever and sensitive navigation of the crisis” is a contrast to the behaviour of her interstate counterparts. Picture: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

In NSW, by contrast, the government’s calm, clever and sensitive navigation of the crisis continues without such drastic theatrics. But, again, this shouldn’t be a Labor versus Liberal argument. Had the state’s long-serving philosopher king Bob Carr come across a bureaucrat who had let a mother die without seeing her son that bureaucrat would have come very close to sharing her fate.

It is time we expected more of our political leaders. If they are locking us down with minuscule case numbers they should tell us why they can’t handle them. If they are banning people in the most tragic moments of their lives they should tell us why they can’t handle them.

And if they can’t handle either the broadest or most acute problems facing their electors then they should tell us why we should be expected to keep voting for them.

Originally published as What the ‘heartless’ Aussie border decisions reveal