Talking Point: Local pollies should take a step back

Charles Wooley: No place for well-meaning officials at time of virus crisis

BYE FOR NOW: With Minnie and Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney World President Josh D'Amaro waves to guests gathered on Main Street USA, in the Magic Kingdom in the final minutes before the park closed on Sunday night in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. Picture: Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)/Orlando Sentinel via AP

AROUND the world the term “business as usual” is being replaced by another paradigm, “the new normal”.

America, the home of free enterprise, went to the extraordinary length of shutting the door on Europe. This was new and surprising because in democracies, governments are so often hostage to powerful vested interests such as airlines. Even in the public interest, our leaders can be slow to react in ways that might harm the bottom line of business.

Accordingly, business lobbyists have been out and about for weeks now, spruiking the line that all this alarm is an over-reaction. On our small island where power and influence are tightly held it is even harder for our State Government to take sensible and pre-emptive action; like shutting down the lucrative cruise liner business and popular large public gatherings such as Salamanca Market.

David Walsh was prudent in closing down Dark Mofo and likewise in shutting Mona. His self-deprecating remark, “I’d rather be a rich coward than a poor hero,” should not have been taken literally. Walsh, the creator of “the wall of vaginas”, might have known that the kind of people who inhabit the world of Facebook and Twitter do not always understand irony.

Walsh has only done what Disneyland and Broadway have done in the US and what a host of Australian sporting events are doing.

In Italy a complete lockdown on public gatherings has been imposed by the Government acting in the interest of public health.

Much more authoritarian control is likely to be exerted in Australia, but until things get worse, it’s still a matter of self-regulation and social responsibility that is needed by everyone. At New Norfolk, which has been traditionally known as The Valley of Love, the local mayor has put out his hand for a share of the $2 million the State Government would have otherwise given to Dark Mofo. (You might have preferred to see the cash shoved into our ailing health system, but that’s rarely how these things work).

Ben Shaw, the mayor of the Derwent Valley, wants to stage his own version of Dark Mofo. “A massive night-time street party, fire pots, lights, local producers and business coming together,” enthused mayor Ben, outlining his grand vision of “feeding and watering the locals and whoever else wants to join us in the foggy depths of winter” (Mercury, March 13).

Either Ben doesn’t follow the news, or perhaps he simply has a greater faith in the restorative value of all that fresh air up there in the Valley of Love.

Ben Shaw is only one out of 29 local council mayors in Tasmania. So, there is every chance his idea might go viral.

Meantime, let’s hope that our national government moves soon to take total control of what is increasingly looking like a national disaster.

No longer can things be confidently left in the hands of local politicians. Even if they mean well.

Tasmanian journalist Charles Wooley is a reporter for Nine’s 60 Minutes and has a column in TasWeekend magazine in Saturday’s Mercury.