Unmask The Experts

Australian leaders have been well advised during this crisis, and the nation has avoided a catastrophe. But now we must turn to different advisers to save the economy. By Nick Cater.

How good are Australians in a crisis? The number of active cases of COVID-19 has fallen steadily for the past six and a half weeks. At the start of April, there were almost 5000 known carriers of the virus in Australia. Today there are a tenth of that figure.

If you want to know what a health crisis really looks like, turn to Britain, where 2642 fatalities have been announced in the past week, pushing deaths per million to 521. In Australia there have been just 4 per million, putting us 104 places below the Poms on the COVID-19 death ladder.

Which suggests it is safe to let the experts stand down and put the politicians back in charge. The extraordinary powers given to medical officers and police chiefs should be withdrawn to allow the hard work to begin.

Last week’s unemployment figures are just a taste of the post-COVID-19 misery ahead. JobKeeper payments have kept Australians in employment for now, but not every job is salvageable. Hundreds of thousands more are likely to be out of work when the payments are wound back and businesses assess the damage.

COVID-19: Read the MRC’s complete coverage here

By any reasonable measure, the health crisis has been averted. Yet the experts who were so swift to alert us to the danger in the first place are slow to admit it.

A second wave, however unwelcome, would almost certainly be smaller than the first. We are far better prepared for its arrival thanks to the investment in testing, tracing and additional hospital facilities. 

Credit also belongs to the great Australian public who have sacrificed much to beat this virus. Those who still have jobs should be allowed to return to them.

As the Prime Minister was at pains to point out on May 1, opening up the economy involves risk. There will be further outbreaks. More people will be infected and some could die.

Yet we are beyond the point where the pain averted by keeping people at home is greater than the pain it causes. And we are well beyond the point when the damage to the economy ($4 billion a week, according to Treasury) can be seen as a necessary or proportionate response.

Let us recall the reason for taking these drastic measures in the first place. In late March there was a genuine perception that the virus was spreading exponentially, pushing us towards the point where the supply of acute hospital beds would outstrip demand.

The lockdown, together with the work of Health Minister Greg Hunt, ensured that didn’t happen. The number of Intensive Care Unit beds were tripled to more than 7000.

Fewer than 100 were occupied by COVID-19 patients at the height of the spread of the virus. Yesterday there were 11.

With our borders closed, the risk that another wave could be large enough to swamp our health services is infinitesimal.

The risk is even lower in South Australia. A swift response from Premier Steven Marshall, the closing of state borders, enforced quarantine for South Australians returning home and the appointment of a State Coordinator under the Emergency Management Act allowed SA to contain the virus better than most.

Only one new case has been detected in the state during the past three weeks. Of the 439 cases identified, 435 have recovered. The other four, sadly, have died.

Yet bars and pubs remain closed. Cafes and restaurants are limited to 10 patrons at a time, making reopening a loss-making decision for most.

Police can issue a $5000 on-the-spot fine to anyone reckless enough to invite more than seven guests to a wedding or 20 mourners to an indoor funeral.

Under whose authority is this extraordinary power given to the police? The authority of the Police Commissioner himself, Grantley Stevens, who was appointed State Co-ordinator of Emergency Management on March 22.

Now that South Australia is, as near as dammit, COVID-19-free, Stevens is entitled to give himself a pat on the back, drop in at Government House and relinquish his emergency power, which will otherwise not expire until the end of May.

Don’t hold your breath. Like the health experts appointed to save us from becoming the Italy of the south, Stevens is in no hurry to return to his day job.

The state’s chief public health officer, Nicola Spurrier, put on a “Fri-yay” top to celebrate the “fantastic” news of the state’s clean bill of health, but seems less than eager to step out of the limelight. There was no room for complacency, she warned. There was always the threat of a second wave.

Expert as Spurrier and Stevens might be in their respective fields, health and public order is not the expertise we need at this moment.

The challenge for Australia right now is avoiding a deep and damaging recession. The experts we require are those who can assess the national interest, weigh risks and assess competing public policy goals. We need experts who can balance the need for a healthy population against the imperative of a healthy economy, particularly in South Australia, where unemployment is at 7.2 per cent, the highest in the country.

In other words, we need the expertise of parliamentarians whose jobs depend on recognising the public interest. The power to make decisions should be removed from unelected officials and returned to those with a popular mandate.

Demanding as it might be to lead a government during a pandemic crisis, the hard road is yet to come. Extraordinary public health measures that impinge on individual liberty were popular six weeks ago when the shops were out toilet paper. Today, they are a burden that an increasing number of Australians want removed.

Having controlled this virus better than almost anyone expected, normalised social distancing as polite behaviour, reduced the number of international arrivals to a trickle and reduced interstate travel to essential business, it behoves governments to lift restrictions as quickly as possible.

The speed of economic recovery will depend on the willingness for businesses to take risks by investing and hiring in spite of the uncertainties that will bedevil us for a year or more.

Governments must lead by example before the culture of risk-avoidance that takes hold in a pandemic becomes entrenched in public and commercial life.