Editorial: How long will you leave us scratching our heads?
There will be numerous questions after today’s National Cabinet and the public deserves detailed, transparent and clear responses to each of them, writes Jenna Cairney.
Opinion
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TODAY, as is the case most Fridays, National Cabinet will meet to discuss the coronavirus pandemic.
There are some hot-button issues that have very publicly been dividing Australian states. Border closures is something Prime Minister Scott Morrison is firmly against.
Yet the Premiers of those states who have chosen to take a no-nonsense approach to border control – in Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania in particular – have seen popularity surges with residents believing the closures keep the virus out of our states.
Other than in Western Australia, where adoration for Premier Mark McGowan seems only to swell the more he pulls away from the rest of Australia, residents are starting to ask questions about the closures.
In Queensland, we’ve seen some heartbreaking examples of double standards. Grieving families have not been able to spend final moments with their loved ones yet movie stars are given special privileges to quarantine in exclusive resorts.
And in Tasmania, Premier Peter Gutwein’s decision to pick December 1 as the date for borders reopening despite earlier moves to establish travel bubbles with states without any cases of the virus have left many scratching their heads.
In the early days of dealing with this deadly virus, the public was by and large happy to be compliant.
But as the crisis drags on and we see strange decision-making, the public is starting to ask more questions.
In Melbourne, for example, Premier Daniel Andrews enforced an 8pm curfew and no one seems to be able to explain why.
In Queensland, 30,000 people are allowed to head to the Gabba for an AFL Grand Final but you’re not allowed to dance at your own wedding.
And in Tasmania, you can play any contact sport, but you can’t drink standing up and despite the state fully eradicating coronavirus, you still can’t have more than 20 people over to your house.
If you dare question any of these anomalies, you are told by a stony-faced Premier that they are simply following the public health advice with very little detail or data about said advice.
Today there will be discussion around borders no doubt.
And there will also be a push from Mr Morrison for more states to take their share of Australians returning from overseas into hotel quarantine.
Two weeks ago when this issue came up, Mr Morrison said Tasmania had expressed an interest in helping out.
Mr Gutwein said Tasmania could not help out without first having an international airport but denied he was trying to leverage the opportunity to upgrade Hobart Airport.
Nevertheless, there is angst in the community about an arrangement potentially being struck for two reasons. Firstly, the source of the Victorian outbreak was overseas travellers in hotel quarantine.
Secondly, if the Premier is so desperate to keep the borders closed to keep coronavirus out, it seems inconsistent to then entertain the possibility of removing one layer of protection by allowing international arrivals straight to Tasmania.
There will be numerous questions after today’s National Cabinet and the public deserves detailed, transparent and clear responses to each of them.
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