The federal government’s embrace of “early interventions, short, sharp lockdowns” as the most effective response to outbreaks of COVID was more than just hypocrisy, given its earlier attacks on the Andrews and McGowan governments. It was also the conclusion of a large-scale experiment in responding to a pandemic.
The experiment has been conducted with two different approaches, which might be described as “interventionist” and “market-based”. As the names suggest, they reflect different ideologies and different political mindsets.
The interventionist approach, exemplified best by the Andrews government in Victoria, relies heavily on locking down communities, suspending a lot of ordinary economic activities and providing government support for those affected until case numbers are low enough to safely reopen. It also relies on closed borders and tight quarantine requirements for the small number of people allowed into the country.
The market-based approach prefers to avoid lockdown, adopting a technocratic approach in which contact tracing, using data acquired mainly from apps, is the primary means of keeping on top of COVID, while people are allowed, with certain restrictions, to continue their normal economic activities and move about. Income support is regarded as unnecessary. Adherents of the market-based approach are also uncomfortable with closed borders and would like to see more people enter the country.
You can mix and match some of these elements, of course: the Morrison government, until recently, has been a strong supporter of the market-based approach but was responsible for the most stringent border closure of all — despite helping Clive Palmer challenge Western Australia’s border restrictions and even now criticising Premier Mark McGowan for his resistance to allowing easterners to enter his state.
When Josh Frydenberg produced Treasury modelling to back up his changed view that “early interventions, short, sharp lockdowns” were the best way to address outbreaks in economic terms, it was somewhat superfluous: the Berejiklian government in NSW has been giving us a real-time demonstration of how the market-based approach cost far more than the interventionist approach.
Not merely did her pro-business “lockdown lite” initial approach — influenced by the views of her party’s business base — fail catastrophically in terms of preventing a Sydney outbreak, it enabled the spread of the virus beyond Sydney to the rest of NSW, and thence to Victoria and the ACT.
Sydney now looks set to stay locked down well into September, inflicting a massive blow on employment and economic growth on its own, and risking further economic damage courtesy of the spread to other states and territories. The market-based approach has delivered the worst possible outcome for markets — an irony presumably lost on business figures and their media supporters who continue to complain about lockdowns and closed borders.
It’s of a piece with one of the broader characteristics of the last 18 months — how bit by bit the core beliefs of neoliberalism have proved at best wholly inadequate and often downright harmful.
The government’s rejection of deficit hysteria and embrace of massive fiscal stimulus supported a rapid recovery (and delivered windfall profits to the bottom lines of many corporations). Closed borders and the abatement of a steady flow of temporary workers helped unemployment recover quickly. The Reserve Bank abandoned its obsessive focus on expected inflation and made higher wages growth a central policy objective. Effective lockdowns proved the key to rapid recovery — until a market-based approach derailed everything in eastern Australia.
The question then is whether governments and business will understand the lessons from the grand experiment, or simply revert to status quo ante economic thinking about the need for governments to curl up into as tiny a ball as possible and let markets get on with maximising individual freedom and personal welfare, and skewing policy towards the demands of business.
In particular, will it inform the decisions of the NSW and federal governments in coming months as they feel the temptation to declare victory over COVID once vaccination reaches 80% and decide that lockdowns and other restrictions are no longer needed?
Like all Liberal/National party governments this Federal one is reactive not proactive.
I could go on, but the general picture is quiet clear. Mr. Morrison and his Government are a disaster for Australia.
When the only actions, are to spin the situation to suit the Government’s re-election, and minimise the people’s realisation, that the fault lies with the Government of the day then failures, like the evacuation of Afghan people who helped Australian forces, are to be expected.
This is what happens when you gut the public service.
And when you fill the gaps in the public service with sympathetic head nodders
The husband and wife team of Martin Parkinson and spouse heading up departments nodded their way to a massive salary and pension
9. They didn’t learn from their own mistakes
10. They didn’t learn from mistakes made in other States, so each Premier had to make the same mistake locally.
11. They didn’t plan anything, no contingency, no war-gaming.
On the plus side, they took control out of Morrison’s hands, and along with Jacinta Ardern forced his hand on locking down international borders (although the number of exemptions makes that a lockdown-lite too)
Oh I wrote Jacinda, why would spell check change that to Jacinta?
Don’t worry about typos or speech to text robot mistakes or whatever, we know what we mean when we post and it doesn’t detract from the post!
A disaster for Australia indeed. I’d go further and suggest that in so many ways, the ideological machine that expresses itself in the form of the current government has done as effective a job at destroying, dividing, threatening and perverting civil society and institutions as any supposed hostile foreign power could. In this sense, forget China or radical Islam, we should identify the real enemy. It tends to wave our colonial ensign or wear it as a mask.
Most countries around the world were not prepared. It’s novel. Even socialist democrat countries messed up. Who would’ve thought?
“Were not prepared”
It’s now more than 18months into this pandemic. Plenty of time for detailed planning, especially with regard to effective quarantine and effective public communication… what do we get? Crickets.
“It’s novel”
It isn’t. You’ve never heard of the Spanish Flu, brought back from WW1? It’s just an excuse for lack of preparedness, lack of effective public policing and communication. We’ve had pandemics throughout human history. Ever heard of smallpox or the black death? Surely we’ve learned our lessons by now. Pandemics are spread by the movements of people. The privileged few still allowed to travel due to their wealth are those who are continuing to spread the virus. We haven’t learned a thing in a thousand years of documented pandemics.
This is what happens when those in power choose people for their loyalty instead of competence. This is what happens when you destroy public servants with legislated protection to provide information without fear or favour. This is what happens when governments hide incompetence behind secrecy provisions.
“Even socialist democrat countries messed up”
Yes they did. Did we learn from their mistakes or did we ignore them and make the same ones?
Great post but the likes of a self asserting diva has no need for being informed; such is the state of holiness in which they dwell in their own small minds.
Thanks Scotty or is that you Gladdy Negligent. You’re wrong again.
The Asian countries that experienced previous sars knew about public health measures enforced them and their populations observed them. But due to the massive corruption in India that Modi heads up, which means no money for health services or anyone other than his mates Adani etc, we got a variant, same reason in the UK and Brazil and S Africa. A bin diva for sure; like the binchicken Gladdly killerjiklian
And it was known for decades that the incursions into forests by the ever expanding plague of homosapiens meant viruses would be more frequent and deadly, we knew the cause but never stopped. Just because you know nothing doesn’t mean the rest of us are as ignorant or shrug our way to acceptance of poor deadly governance.
You have called it BK. Well done!
In particular, will it inform the decisions of the NSW and federal governments in coming months as they feel the temptation to declare victory over COVID once vaccination reaches 80% and decide that lockdowns and other restrictions are no longer needed?
This 80% figure is widely reported, but it’s actually 80% of those aged 16 and above. Given the increasing number of children contracting COVID-19, this 80% figure should be seen for what it really is: something like 64%.
Indeed – Scotty playing with figures again. It’s not the number of “eligible” Australians and it’s not the number “vaccinated”. It is the number or all Australians who are fully vaccinated. Anything other than that is just meaningless.
and even 80% of everyone in Australia (Australian or not) may not be enough … particularly if another variant arises
Quite…and then what happens?
Boosterizm?
At last, something within Scummo’s ken!
Then we pray that the LNP hasn’t achieved Trump’s success in manufacturing ‘freedom’ fighters. I’m praying now as read lamba resists current vaccines.
Indeed, very scary
For biological reasons, virus mutations have a tendency to crop up as vaccination rates rise. As vaccination rates increase and SARS-CoV-2 has fewer people to infect, it inevitably evolves in a way that lets it thrive in new, less auspicious environments.
https://www.salon.com/2021/08/18/lambda-variant-prophesies-future-mutations/
um thanks Allan? Damn evidence prevents me from imagining I’m living in a different reality!!
Absol-effing-utely, DF. And anyway, 80% is nowhere near enough, even of the total population.
McLaws said this on the ABC today – that needs rework given didn’t take into account that children are now transmitters.
LONDON, United Kingdom — The effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 declines faster than that of the Vaxzevria vaccine, formerly known as AstraZeneca, according to a new study published on Thursday.
“Two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech have greater initial effectiveness against new COVID-19 infections, but this declines faster compared with two doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca,” researchers at Oxford University said.
The study, which has not been peer-reviewed, is based on the results of a survey by Britain’s Office for National Statistics that carried out PCR tests from December last year to this month on randomly selected households.
It found that “the dynamics of immunity following second doses differed significantly” between Pfizer and Vaxzevria, according to the university’s Nuffield Department of Medicine.
Pfizer had “greater initial effectiveness” but saw “faster declines in protection against high viral burden and symptomatic infection,” when looking at a period of several months after full vaccination, although rates remained low for both jabs.
Who’d have thought, right.
Will governments and business learn from the experiment – and will voters??
Calls to let people visit graves in Sydney’s west
Faith communities are calling on health authorities to allow people to visit the graves of their loved ones at Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney’s west.
The cemetery’s administrator, Lee Shearer, says she’s working closely with police to find a way forward, after the cemetery was closed to all except funeral attendees due to coronavirus fears.
Samier Dandan from the Lebanese Muslim Association says while public health is paramount, one or two people visiting the grave of a loved one should be allowed.
“We’ve had one case of a mother who has promised her only child that she would go and visit him once a week, this is her commitment to her past loved one. We are trying to understand really, truly the parameters around that and how we can be a little bit more compassionate,” he said.
Oh please stop it.
I doubt any of their loved ones would applaud risk of contracting or spreading delta. Hopefully ways can be found to create meaningful ceremonies at home, eg plant a bulb weekly that could be transferred to grave type of thing.
I am seriously over the migrants who refuse to observe public health measures for whatever reason, whose so called community leaders must be asleep at the wheel, whose social media websites promote conspiracy nonsense, who work for peanuts and drag down wages and conditions.
What’s the point apart from being consumers for the Coalition’s business mates! I have generalized and will draw the race card, but unless we expect them to comply instead of always scream racism or bigotry and disadvantage, we are not going to win this one, not in Sydney or Melbourne.
And last year the total disregard of the public health measure by many who preferred to celebrate their religious festivals, this one being Eid, led to the deaths etc of many, a catastrophic result and again this year it’s a repeat right down to the same school at the epicentre. But mention this and a barrage of bullsh…erupts. Even leaders in their won countries were pleading with residents not to do the Eid family gatherings.
The AIBC are trying a bit of blackmail again saying no FTA with India unless we repatriate migrants from India and PAY for their flights! Many of these went over for the Hindu religious festival as they do every year, or to get the arranged marriage out of the way, to visit family, etc etc. during the pandemic. Now we get a photo of Abbot wearing a turban with his hands joined in prayer with the business leaders in India and are told we must pay for their flights back if we want an FTA. FFS I’m over it. The foreign labour hire companies are part of the destruction of our wages and conditions. It’s a Howard result and many benefit, but not the foreign workers. Of course the foreign students do as they get permanent residency in the end.
I’ll now put on the armour before the head kicking begins. But we need a better result from immigration other than the one the Coalition have given the nation. Unsustainable never ending population growth….absurd.
The constant references – for decades – to “community leaders” ought to suggest a culture of obedience that is antithetical to a modern person in a western society.
Victoria: Of the 57 locally-acquired cases, 54 are linked to known outbreaks and 44 have been in isolation for the entirety of their infectious period. This means that 13 were infectious in the community.
The rise in infections is partly connected to Al-Taqwa College in Truganina, outside of Melbourne, where students and staff are currently in isolation.
Is there an equivalent obfuscatory euphemism in Dismal City for the Silver City’s obligatory “SW suburbs“?
The closest Gladys can come is referring to areas where “…2 or 3 households who constantly visit each other” is the norm for – I wonder whether there are any other distinguishing features of those so behaving?
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2016/08/the-great-immigration-subterfuge/
20,000 non Australians a month?? If there were only 1 reason to vote the LNP out covering this up is damn good one.