Charles Wooley begs the question, who can you trust?

Some things never change, like the awful venality of lobbyists and commercial spruikers. It masquerades under the various titles of public relations, promotions, image management, and it forms a long array of respectable sounding self-appointed ‘councils’.

Chinese paramilitary police wear protective masks as they guard the entrance to the Forbidden City as it re-opened to limited visitors for the May holiday, on May 2, 2020 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

Who can you trust?

Some things never change, like the awful venality of lobbyists and commercial spruikers.

(Spruik Aust Colloq; to harangue or entice prospective customers into a show, strip joint etc.)

The tawdry trade of spruiking is as old as fairgrounds and snake oil. It is a profession with little sense of shame other than to dare not speak its name. It masquerades under the various titles of public relations, promotions, image management, and it forms a long array of respectable sounding self-appointed ‘councils’ in so many areas of our national life including business/tourism/pharmaceuticals/ hospitality/manufacturing/mining and agriculture.

I’m not naming anyone in particular here. Ours is a tiny town and you know who they are. Just read the paper or listen to the news. But it’s much bigger than us.

I remain firmly with the acerbic Dr Samuel Johnson who said 300 years ago that all self-styled professional bodies were nothing less than “a conspiracy against the general public”.

I’m also firmly with the late John Martin, a crusty old Chief of Staff in the Hobart newsroom of the ABC who told me when I was starting out, “There are only two questions in journalism.

The first is what’ve they got to say?

And the second is who is paying them to say it?”

I travelled the world and worked alongside a lot of wise people in much bigger places, but I think that was the most important instruction I ever received.

But today journalists frequently quote gun-for-hire spokespeople as if they were part of a bona fide, publicly elected body whose only intention is the betterment of humanity in general.

Those scribes have forgotten, or never received, Mr. Martin’s lesson that spruiking is just a well-paid job.

A couple of weeks ago it was the spokespeople for Big Gas telling Australians that unless we pay the European price for our own Australian gas, then the whole economic order will be unhinged, and ruin will surely follow.

Aside from a few neo-conservative economic commentators not many believed it. Worshipping at the altar of unfettered economic market forces just doesn’t wash with most Australians.

They don’t like socialism but nor do they applaud cynical greed.

Australians favour the middle-ground, and elect governments to both keep the ship steady and when necessary to regulate excessive self-interest, and act for the common good.

There’s a lot of latent meaning in that compound noun “Commonwealth”, which originally defined the democratic temper of our nation.

Clearly that is a word which the spruikers are now well paid to ignore and even to countermand.

A good example this week was the Business Council of Australia (BCA) warning against the government’s requirement that visitors from China test negative for Covid-19 before entering Australia.

A health worker takes a nasal swab from a traveller arriving from China at a Covid-19. (Photo by Jung Yeon-je / AFP)

The Chinese, true to form, haven’t been too forthcoming about how serious their health problem is. Federal health Minister, Mark Butler as diplomatically as he could, cited the “lack of comprehensive information” rather than using the word “secrecy” which might have undone Penny Wong’s recent good work in Beijing.

With reports of millions of Chinese being infected, Butler said, “Case numbers are climbing very quickly and there are concerns about the possibility of the emergence of new variants.” Adding delicately, “There is no evidence of that right now and this is a measure taken out of an abundance of caution.”

But the BCA countered, with a “spokesman” warning, “We can’t afford to retreat when it comes to keeping the economy and the borders working.”

The BCA’s view is that business as usual must be “Just a part of living with the virus.” A clear call to just bring it on.

“We have to take a risk-based approach to managing these challenges.”

Who is the “We” they are talking about?

Is the BCA taking the same risk as vulnerable Australians, the same chances as the folk in nursing homes or the medical staff in our critically overworked hospitals?

Or are the business moguls and their spruiker minions somehow magically protected in the ivory towers of corporate indifference.

Beijing saw the Australian entry requirement to Covid test as “discriminatory and political” and threatened “retaliation”.

It is unlikely that Australians travelling to China would object to being tested before they entered that country.

A passenger wearing a face shield and mask amid the Covid-19 pandemic boards a domestic flight at Shanghai Pudong International Airport in Shanghai on January 3, 2023. (Photo by HECTOR RETAMAL / AFP)

Most people would consider the test to be mere commonsense.

Not so Peter Dutton, who takes the position of Leader of the Opposition so seriously he opposes everything the government does. Had Albo allowed untested entry of Chinese citizens into Australia, Dutton would surely have raged about the dangers of such lax policy.

Remember until this turnaround the Coalition has been no friend of China.

Always, it is of course a matter of who you can believe. By the middle of this week more than a dozen nations had imposed restrictions on travellers from China. But some world medical experts including our own Chief Medical Officer, Paul Kelly, were saying that mandatory testing was an over-reaction.

Meanwhile there was also plenty of dissent from world epidemiologists who suggested it was all too late; the horse had already bolted. And from America came dire medical warnings of a new more infectious New York strain of Omicron, “worse than all of the others”.

If my old mentor John Martin was still around, while thanking him for long ago identifying the bogus persuasions of spruikers, I would now be asking, “Who should we believe when even experts seem to disagree?”

But I have long concluded there is rarely an absolute truth in human affairs. The best we can do in a free society is to establish the credentials, countenance all honest opinion and proceed as Health Minister Mark Butler says, “With an abundance of caution.”

Meanwhile those duplicitous spruikers, while they often come from the media, are rarely accomplished journalists.

Otherwise, the Business Council of Australia spokesman would have discovered and surely made good use of a quote from Chairman Xi this week.

With Chinese hospitals reportedly clogged and mortuaries overflowing the President, reassured his people, “Epidemic prevention and control is entering a new phase and the light of hope is right in front of us.”

From the most powerful man on the planet but with greater flourish, that is exactly what the spruiker from the Business Council of Australia wants us all to believe.

Let’s hope they are both right.