Despite the national cabinet, we have devolved, at least partly, into six colonies pursuing their separate interests.
Consider mendicant states such as Tasmania and SA, which are heavily subsidised economically by the larger states every year. Leading the charge on closed borders this year, they take additional federal subsidies to fund JobKeeper and JobSeeker payments, shutting out their fellow Australians while putting their hand out for even more of their cash.
And, sure enough, when Tasmania ran into strife with an outbreak, it called for federal help and eased its border restrictions to accept defence force assistance. Shunning the rest of the federation to keep the disease out; appealing to the federation when the problems arise.
When Scott Morrison generously threw together the national cabinet to co-ordinate the pandemic response, there was terrific co-operation between the states when it came to locking down society and accepting federal funding to support businesses and individuals. But when it came to fundamental decisions — such as keeping schools open or starting to ease restrictions — the states have tended to go their own way and resist Morrison’s urgings.
And, most consequentially, when the states were given the responsibility for funding and imposing quarantine on international arrivals, not all of them responded to the same level. The most crucial states (because of the numbers of arrivals) were NSW and Victoria; one used police to enforce quarantine, the other outsourced it to the private security industry.
We are all left to endure the consequences. (It is passing strange that the Socialist Left Premier should commit his most telling error through a penchant for outsourcing, while a right-of-centre government decided there are some tasks that government can do best).
This begs the question about the lack of national response and co-ordination. It exposes the impotence of the national cabinet and the fragility of the federation.
So one state had quarantine imposed by overseas students recruited as contractors via WhatsApp, absent any training in their specialist task, without accountability, receiving below award wages and figuring it might be okay to go shopping, share a smoke or even have sex with the people they were supposed to be isolating.
The other appreciated the import of the task and ensured its health authorities and police force provided the oversight required.
One state kept closed its schools and exacerbated the economic pain within its borders while other states followed the national medical advice and kept schools operational. One state accepted the responsibility of keeping society as open as possible by tracing and contacting all people affected by sporadic outbreaks and isolating them, while others shut their borders to keep the bogeyman away.
Listen to the premiers. The pandemic response is about Queenslanders, Tasmanians, West Australians, South Australians, Victorians, and New South Welshmen. Suddenly no one wants to call Australia home.
In NSW, the government has done its best to stop mass gatherings such as Black Lives Matter protests; in SA, they gave the protesters a permit; in Victoria, they stood back and watched thousands gather without arresting them, but later they were happy to arrest and fine people protesting against wearing masks.
As a nation, we gave ourselves a critical opportunity to consider our next steps. The Prime Minister and the premiers deserve praise for flattening the curve and buying us that time.
What is deeply troubling now is that, as a nation, we are no closer to deciding what to do next. We have one state under lockdown, others pulling up the shutters, and NSW seemingly the only jurisdiction trying to do what we all need to do — live with the virus.
Having written in these pages for months about sustainability — the need to find a pandemic response that can last — it is depressing to see politicians who seem to think that endless shutdowns, endless debt and endless welfare are a viable outcome. Andrews keeps talking about getting to “the other side” as if Victorians must simply endure a few weeks of pain before they are delivered into the land of milk and honey.
But it has been clear for months that we might need to consider a future where a vaccine is not available for years; or might never arrive. We need to return to our initial discussion of flattening the curve and ensuring that the demands of the pandemic do not outstrip medical capability.
We spent billions of dollars boosting capacity from less than 2500 critical care beds to 7500 so we could cope with the pandemic demand. But COVID-19 cases have never used more than 100 on any one day, and even now are using only about 50 beds at a time.
Mind you Adam Creighton has led the charge with respect to questioning the cost of the lockdowns to all of society (including mental health, lifestyle and of course wealth) and saying they were an overreaction
