Mark McGowan was damned if he did, and damned if he didn’t. He knew the decision to postpone opening the borders on February 5 would be unpopular in some circles, while others would breathe a sigh of relief, just like well-known WA writer Julia Lawrinson, who posted on Facebook: “Thank you Mark McGowan from every immune compromised person in WA.” Lawrinson’s post drew plenty of support.
WA nurses’ union chief Mark Olson expressed a similar sentiment, saying his members were relieved.
“There are nurses, midwives, carers working in our public health system that know we need more time,” Olson told the ABC.
We might never know whether Olson’s statement that the “premier has saved hundreds of lives with this decision” was melodramatic, but it would have struck a chord with the many West Australians who wanted McGowan to delay opening the border.
But in stark contrast to the nurses, doctors’ union national president Omar Kharshid took to Twitter to say he was “gutted”.
“Seems WA premier Mark McGowan is a one-trick pony when it comes to COVID-19,” Kharshid tweeted.
That sounds more like a sledge you’d expect from McGowan’s political opponents rather than a professional doctorly opinion.
Or maybe even from the media. The state’s daily newspaper The West Australian, which has in the past been a strong supporter of McGowan, took off the gloves and accused him of squandering the time his government had had to prepare opening up: “658 DAYS AND HE’S STILL NOT READY” screamed its front page. “An abject failure of leadership,” opined its editorial.
But given that Omicron has been in the country only since late November — and it’s Omicron that McGowan is citing as the game-changer — the 658 days figure might be a powerful headline but it’s one that is hyperbolic.
Contrast that with McGowan’s statement that it would be “reckless and irresponsible to open up now”.
“I can’t do it,” he said.
This echoes an earlier reference to his conscience and fear of being responsible for mass deaths. What’s this? A politician with a conscience?
McGowan has looked at the other states and territories who have opened their borders and seen the consequences: rampaging Omicron, hundreds of deaths, tens of thousands sick, hospitals at breaking point, staff almost at the end of their tether.
Deeply Catholic Dominic “let it rip” Perrottet and deeply religious Scott “push through” Morrison don’t seem too much troubled by their consciences and the sickness and deaths that emanate from what seem to be inept judgments and their political rather than health decisions.
Culpable negligence, on the other hand, is very much to the fore for McGowan.
Omicron is beginning to get a foothold in WA, but it will be interesting to see how moral rather than political or economic accountability is assessed in the COVID wash-up.
Mark McGowan just might be judged as a politician who’s motivated by right rather than might.
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“Deeply Catholic Dominic “Let it rip” Perrottet and deeply religious Scott “Push through” Morrison don’t seem too much troubled by their consciences and the sickness and deaths that emanate from what seem to be inept judgments and their political rather than health decisions.”
Of course they are not troubled by their consciences. They both believe that death is not be feared and there is no need for grief about it. It is just a step into a better world from this vale of tears, so long as you have faith. Those lacking faith deserve what they get. It would be strange and hypocritical for them to try to prevent or delay any of these souls going to their just deserts. Instead their main political concern is serving business. Which should not surprise anyone, they keep on telling us their job is serving business.
Some complicity with NSW LNP govt. starting the let it rip policy whereby QLD and Vic. were compelled to follow, with infections crossing borders and constraints?
I fervently wish we had him here in Queensland.Our Annastacia was doing a sterling job protecting us but the pressure from the Freedom, Freedom rabble, the MSM and demands from businesses to open up were too much.Well, they got their wish and now Bribane is a ghost town, small businesses who previously were coping now have virtually no customers because a lot of people are afraid to venture outside.We have gone from Doughnut Days with no new cases or deths to hundreds of cases and tragic deaths.
Possibly due to the total reliance of Qld economy on tourism – she could only re$i$t commerce for so long, despite the last big election win.
Not entirely tourism. Palaszczuk has done astounding work year in, year out, for the QLD mining industry. Once she’s done with politics it would be a scandalous display of base ingratitude from Adani if it does not offer her a seat on the board.
Quite right re mining – what I sought emphasise was the role of tourism is creating jobs at the local, level for the unskilled who also pay tax and spending their pittances locally.
It would be merely taking in each other’s laundry without constant input from non locals.
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I agree Ian Kemp. Same here. Most of the letters published in our local “rag” slagging off our Premier’s decision appear to extremely upset they still have to quarantine. Ed Sheeran managed it at short notice for Michael Gudenski’s funeral. Yes, he could afford the luxury. He could also afford not to bother, but he did. As Mick J sang, “you can’t always get what you want”. I say, you’re also a long time dead.
Thank you for an article that gels with what I hear and see from my neighbours and workmates in WA.
Sure, McGowan and his constituents are looking to the east and saying “no thanks”. Who would want to be where NSW is now? I get it.
What I don’t see, however, is any coherent alternative plan or vision for how WA is going to come out of this. All I hear are vague suggestions that the hospitals aren’t ready ‘yet’ (like an undisciplined school kid asking for another extension on his assignment that he’s had two years to work on) and that boosters should be rolled out (although most people are freshly vaxxed in WA, and immunity from boosters will wane too, so a large cohort always has a suboptimal level of immunity). Or are they waiting for the omicron-specific vaccines? (Obviously still a way off and with a lot of uncertainty.)
Is there ever going to be a right time?
And no, I am not supporting ‘let er rip’ / Perrottet / Morrison etc. etc. But surely there are possibilities somewhere in between?
A good start would be waiting until Lagevrio (molnupiravir) and Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir + ritonavir) are available in Australia, which should be here in the next few weeks, which both start arriving in a few weeks. Lets hope the Feds have actually ordered them, not just announced it.
McGowan is right, COVID is out of control in the East and letting people in would seed thousands of cases very quickly.
Underfunded health systems, which have been run down over years, cannot be built back up over night. Staff who were trained but left the “industry” cannot easily be lured back – a great many experienced nurses, for example, have moved on to greener pastures. Training new staff takes years. Nursing, which was once offered paid on the job training for teenage recruits became a 4 year tertiary degree some decades ago with associated student debt etc. Australia doesn’t train anything like enough medicos – at 7 figures a throw – no we let other countries pay to train them and then attract them as migrants, depleting their countries of origin of trained medical staff. This is our idea of foreign aid these days.
If you are a parent, ask yourself, would you want your child to become an intensive care nurse, swaddled in PPE and bathed in the virus every working day, absorbing the cumulative trauma of watching isolated people struggling and dying in a Covid ICU? Experienced staff are getting burnt out and ill and even senior staff are quitting. The staff we already have are decamping en masse and trying to attract replacements is difficult in this crisis – the pressure and danger of which is not being shared equitably across the community.
Building new hospitals or adding new capacity to the existing ones requires planning, lengthy construction projects, staff recruitment from the available pool and $$$ and again takes literally years. Face the reality of Australian infrastructure build outs. It takes us years and 9 figures to build a modest extension to an existing train line. It cost 165 million dollars and more than 12 months to complete the Chandler Highway (Yarra) bridge duplication. (consider that the main 400m dual flyover which crosses the actual freeway was built when the original 8k of the Eastern Freeway was constucted and that the cost of that freeway in its entirety was $110 million in 1977.
This inability of infrastructure to keep up with the burgeoning population pre-Covid is not seen just health. One blessing of the pandemic is that another two years worth of migration (and counting) has not been dumped into the outer suburbs of the major capitals (100K p.a. each for Melbourne and Sydney). This has been the only way we maintain the illusion of “economic growth”. Some industries cash in but the rest of us get declining standards of public services from transport to health and education.
For the better part of forty years we have been told we don’t have to build it, we can buy it – usually on the never-never. I dare to hope the coming generation will be the first to truly push back against this insidious ideology.
The hospital that my wife works at has had a building crew in throughout the xmas holidays converting an old ward into a new Intensive Care Unit (ICU) to be ready for the disaster that was promised for Feb 5th. It seems now that we have extra time but I think you’re being melodramatic in suggesting that WA has no health system.
RE: hospitals being unprepared – the regional funding is based off the NSW rural modelling, in a landscape where costs-to-deliver-like-services are significantly higher (as much as 5 times higher – helicopter fuel for 3 hours of travel is not cheap). Combine that with federal agreements with the AMA re: how many doctors can be trained that haven’t been updated in time (ie: by 2016), and a decision by all involved that it’s more cost effective to poach overseas doctors to make up the shortfall (hard to poach doctors from overseas when global borders are closed!) and you might imagine there’s been very little that could be done other than throwing money at hardening metro hospital waiting rooms against transmission and a drive for more nurses.
WA’s new federally-run Bullsbrook quarantine centre which was meant to open next month has been delayed ’till June/July (see: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-07/wa-bullsbrook-quarantine-facility-delayed-to-july-2022/100742500). Given it’s a federal government facility and an election is happening before June/July it would be deeply surprising if it wasn’t open sooner.
Between that date and the projections of 75 per cent of eligible population boosted by 2 March plus Nevervax becoming available next month for the shot-shy I’d be unsurprised if WA is still closed off in July.
I wouldn’t be surprised if its never built – Bullsbrook was in Christian Porter’s electorate of Pearce, old boundaries, but now just falls within Melissa Price’s safe federal coalition seat of Durack, new boundaries. So need need really to waste any more money on that boondoggle. Ms Price has proven to be perfectly adept at holding her seat without doing anything of any substance at all, certainly nothing as grand as building a quarantine facility. Whatever the WA government may want will be irrelevant to any federal attempt at ‘planning’ anything, which probably just proves McGowan’s reasoning and decision on the border is correct, as well as being widely supported by the public.
Extremely well described Bruce.
I used to have the great fortune to live in melissa price’s electorate. Who? you might ask, as would 9/10 of the people living in that area. After a couple of exposures in the media confirming her complete lack of qualification, she just disappeared, apparently relying on the old liberal proverb “round here they’d vote for a baboon if it had a blue arse”
I work in WA Health. We are opening new beds and staff are being recruited, but it all takes time.
We could get a new bed up in a few days (space & equipment), but staffing it is much harder.
We would not have been ready to cope with a full on omicron surge starting on Feb 5th, especially since WA Health is already overstretched and thus underperforming. This is a legacy of decades of population growth outstripping Health expenditure, and it will take years to fully rebuild. I don’t think it’s reasonable to blame the current Government for the whole thing.
Sure, they could have done more before the pandemic, but a lot of people missed preparing for that.
Well hang on, there was a plan…. hold off until the vaccination target was met, then open the borders with no quarantine. But the complete mismanagement of the virus in NSW – with VIC as collateral damage – has put the mockers on that. Why would anyone re-open borders when NSW has so many cases they have given up on contact tracing? Let them get over the current Perrotet-o-plague, get numbers down to something that can be tracked, then we can talk about opening the borders. Not hard. We don’t need NSW tourists. We don’t need to go to Melbourne on holiday. Going on living is a pretty good option.