Melbourne has been in lockdown for 234 days, and it shows. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that in a city set to overtake Buenos Aires as the most locked-down in the world, the social fabric might start fraying around the edges.
So it was yesterday as chaos hit the streets, ostensibly a response to the Andrews government mandating vaccines on construction sites, then hastily shutting down the sector for two weeks via night-time press release.
A motley assortment of far-right anti-vax grifters, Ustaše sympathisers and, yes, a few bona fide card-carrying members of the CFMMEU tore through the streets and ended up blocking traffic on the West Gate Bridge as they belted out Daryl Braithwaite’s cover of “The Horses” (presumably because they wanted ivermectin?). Then, just to drive home the apocalyptic vibes, an earthquake hit Victoria this morning.
After copping heat for not holding a trademark marathon presser on the day Victoria seemed to finally unravel, Premier Dan Andrews fronted the cameras this morning to condemn the “ugly scenes”.
“The notion that that’s a group of people who speak for the [construction] industry, no, they do not,” he said.
Andrews is right. Most Victorians, whatever their thoughts on the seemingly endless lockdowns, are sensible enough to stay at home, get vaccinated, and want no part of that conspiracy-pilled nonsense. Sometimes the shrill discourse about rule-breakers obscures the fact that Australians are some of the most well-behaved, law-abiding people in the world.
But after several days of protest in Melbourne, it also can’t be ignored that there is a real blind rage at the Andrews government. That rage is often confused and unconstructive — which is why recent protests have drawn together such a bizarre assortment of contradictory political identities. But it’s still real.
The Andrews government, which has always used a sledgehammer as its default tool in fighting the pandemic, bears some responsibility for that rage. Successfully suppressing the devastating 2020 outbreak through incredibly harsh lockdowns reinforced the belief that everything must be treated as a nail.
And while Delta and vaccines demand nuance, and have forced a belated public shift in thinking and an abandonment of COVID-zero, the sledgehammer approach remains the go-to impulse. The construction shutdown was a classic example, with a sudden blanket ban on a single industry to punish the rule-breakers.
It came just as New South Wales, which still has more cases than Victoria, announced it would return its construction industry to full capacity. The Berejiklian government has tried (and at times spectacularly failed) to walk a tightrope on COVID restrictions. Notably it also shut down construction, but with a staged return and less strict vaccine mandate.
Victoria’s construction ban caused far more anguish, in part because of very different internal politics within its CFMMEU division. But the anguish is also because Melbourne has been in lockdown for more than twice as long as Sydney, and where one government fights COVID with a scalpel, the other continues with the sledgehammer.
Sledgehammer thinking is why Victoria’s roadmap out of lockdown didn’t arrive until Sunday, and when it did, provided one of the most cautious reopenings in the world, underpinned by some typically pessimistic modelling from the Burnet Institute.
Sledgehammer thinking also resulted in the persistence of arbitrary, theatrical restrictions that have little epidemiological backing but go a long way to building community resentment. Victoria shut down playgrounds. It will continue with the curfew until October 26, even though we knew last year it was always about police enforcement, not public health. When picnics are allowed, people still won’t be able to take their masks off to drink alcohol because once there was an illegal pub crawl.
Many of the Andrews government’s tough public health measures have been very effective. But the sledgehammer approach results in too many blunt, reactive decisions that do little more than make people’s already crummy lives a little more miserable. And it means that even if the construction ban was justified, the government had burnt through so much public goodwill on nonsense like curfews that some people are no longer willing to give it benefit of the doubt.
Still, most Victorians agree with the sledgehammer and remain willing to sacrifice freedoms a little longer. But that shouldn’t mean we ignore the very real anger that is simmering. Next time it might not just be the crazies out in force.
Has Dan Andrews got it right — or very wrong? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name if you would like to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say column. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
“The construction shutdown was a classic example, with a sudden blanket ban on a single industry to punish the rule-breakers.” Not sure I agree with the ascribed motive here.
A WorkSafe compliance blitz showed 50% of construction sites weren’t complying with COVID rules one way or another. While COVID case numbers rise, something like 15% have a link to a construction site. In the face of that information, what cobbler’s hammer would you use in pace of a sledgehammer.
There are more construction workers with COVID now than there are aged care workers. Given that the latter are mandated to be vaccinated, does it not also make sense to mandate it for construction. I’d note that mandated vaccination for aged care workers is the response to the flood of COVID through that industry in 2020.
Not everything is political, even if there is a politician involved. Sometimes the facts speak for themselves.
I believe the author is in fact coming out in defence of the large migrant essential worker in Sydney and Melbourne who has endured the bulk of the infections and spreading of the infections due to their insecure and underpaid work status.
Berejiklian has not enforced strict lock downs like Andrews and so the diverse community of which the author may see himself as being a representative of, has been spreading the virus.. 2 days ago 60% of the transmission occurred in one such suburb in NSW, and the same spreading in migrant suburbs occurs in Melbourne.
Rather than tackle why it is migrant workers in wealthy nations who are bearing the brunt of infection, I believe this author is a conservative and chooses not to address that topic instead he attacks Labor in Melbourne for imposing public measures that affect largely the diverse migrant communities due to their being the essential slave labour workforce that does not belong to unions and so experiences wage theft and says little about it. In addition they make up in those suburbs a great many of the small businesses.
I believe this is why the author is attacking Labor, instead of Berejiklian he is of a conservative bent and chooses to blame Labor.
This is the first time any kind of restrictions have been put on the construction industry in Victoria. They have worked the whole time. They were asked to comply with easy-to-comply-with COVID rules like the rest of us but didn’t . What did they expect?
Also the playground lockdown was bought in because they had become a place for adult social gatherings not children playing. The ban has been lifted but the point was made and now playgrounds have gone back to being playgrounds again.
I am tired of lockdown but it has an end in sight, when most of us are protected by vaccines. And that isn’t quite so far off now.
I could talk about the fracturing of society caused by decades of anti-worker neoliberal policies which leads to all sorts of splinter groups forming, but can’t marshall my arguments at the moment.
Today construction workers, last month playgrounds and children,….. tomorrow???
In no way do I condone the actions of those idiots yesterday but I’d suggest be careful what you wish for.
Hahahaha! Seriously?
Kishor, this is rubbish mate. Andrews took a sledgehammer to the building sites because there was 50%+ non compliance with safety rules. Gladys used a scalpel did she? Gladys used kid gloves and has so far caused many deaths and great suffering. It was cases from NSW that seeded this current outbreak in Melbourne. What is more Andrews is trying to come out of lockdown in a scientifically thoughtful way, Gladys is not. Her 70% is absurd and will cause deaths because her contact tracing is now in utter disarray. She is trying to impose this stupidity on the whole of Australia. Andrews is not. Not up to standard.
Well said, NSW efforts were more like using a blunt penknife than a scalpel. A poor piece of work.
Gladys needs several hundred more deaths to catch up to Dan. And she’s dealing with delta variant not the softer alpha variant like Dan was.
Gladys also has the luxury of the aged care home residents and staff being mostly vaccinated – a luxury that Andrews did not have last year.
I think the author is getting desperate for attention, piling on the less respectable Damn Dan bandwagon
I look forward to his article on how Berejiklian has crushed the nation and New Zealand by not taking action.
Or possibly he might like to do an article on why it is the migrant suburbs in Sydney and Melbourne which are the covid hotspots apart from being essential workers , some other reasons perhaps, we could even have an article on how immigration unchecked has led the nation into a downward spiral
Has the author ever been to Melbourne? The construction industry in Melbourne has been handled with ‘kid gloves’ until now. Because SOME construction sites and workers have ignored the HEALTH & SAFETY requirements (being followed by most Melbourne residents) construction workers are now a significant cohort of the people currently being infected. I look forward to seeing the ‘author’ writing a detailed expose of how and why the PM and his mates stuffed up the provision of quarantine facilities (the ones still on the drawing board next to the drawing board being used by the Navy for its ‘Submarine project’). I suspect such an article would be heavily ‘self censored’ because the Canberra press gallery is part of ‘The Bubble’.
Well this particular author does not appear to be interested in the facts just likes to do a little bit of racist dog whistling
WTF are you on about? I see nothing racist in Argentina’s comment.
WTF are you talking about Argentina is not the author of this article
Not some sites the compliance rates are appalling.
They’ve been travelling for months on public transport without, or improperly fitted, masks. Policing has been very hands off til now.
When I said SOME I was attempting to avoid further inflaming the situation. I agree the compliance rates in ‘construction’ are shocking and the breaches are in plain sight.. Whatever happened to the concept of a ‘safe workplace’? It will be sad but interesting to see how many of the construction workers who do contract Covid19 not only make claims under Workcover but also take action under Fair Work legislation if they suffer long-term health effects.
That safe workplace disappeared under the Howard industrial laws and the incredible expansion in immigration to supply cheap labour which also got rid of the safe workplace laws
Have to agree with you, Argentina. The construction sites were shown to be non-compliant on Covid health orders on a huge number of sites. It wasn’t just a few bad apples, it was half the barrel. Up until the stop work orders they had been handled with kid gloves, and clearly the industry was not cooperating, which is the fault of, let’s see, management first, the workers themselves second and the unions third.
Where were management of these big construction sites?
Crikey is getting awfully clickbaity.
No, those dim red lights in the distance are its erstwhile integrity, disappearing long since.
When doing a compare and contrast with the Victorian response, the writer says:-
“The Berejiklian government has tried (and at times spectacularly failed) to walk a tightrope on COVID restrictions.”
Er….by “at times”, you’d be referring to the almost criminally negligent response to the initial outbreak by Gladys, which is the sole reason this whole damn mess even happened in the first place?!?
Is that “the time” we’re referring to?
It is indeed a spectacular failure…so spectacular, it makes the whole “walking the tightrope” bit redundant.
That is not walking a tightrope, that is plummeting off the tightrope at the beginning of the tightrope walking act, dragging your fellow performers down with you, then staggering out from the pile of broken bodies and trying to carry on like it was part of the show.
The Vics are almost drained of their last drops of morale, because when they should have been enjoying respite and rewards, they’ve been dragged back down into the hole again.
And it’s because of Gladys B. and Morrison.
Unfortunately many migrants from India so used to voting for the corrupt Modi government are also Coalition aligned here
I’d argue differently. I think that aspiration and the search for better personal and family circumstances (ie financial security and the opportunity that goes with that) is a primary motivation for migrants and the Liberal Party has sold itself better as the party that encourages individuals to get ahead, or at least doesn’t get in their way with things like taxes.
You may like to research where the vote against same sex marriage was the strongest which suburbs we can do without importing more with this mindset
I’d like to know when they haven’t spectacularly failed. They seem to think their handling of the Crossroads outbreak last year was a success, when it was a total ballsup.
Imagine what Victoria would be like today if the press had written “You’re gonna be okay, Victoria has got this” stories, like the fluffing GB gets.
I don’t think this is a fair appraisal for a couple of reasons.
You suggest Berejiklian failed at the first opportunity, but NSW was more or less covid-free for the first ~15 months of the pandemic. Given that virtually every other country around the world has been battling this thing the last 18 months, it seems strange to describe the NSW case as a spectacular failure. Only in Australia, where zero covid has become the only acceptable possibility, would this be the case.
And as the outbreak in Victoria has shown, suppression strategies that worked previously have not worked on the delta variant. Speaking of which, I do not understand why Berejiklian is responsible for outbreaks in other states. The NSW outbreak was very well-known by the time cases popped up in Victoria, so why didn’t Dan Andrews implement tougher border measures? Blaming the source of the virus is like Trump blaming China. If it’s in your jurisdiction, it’s your responsibility.
It should also be noted that the NSW Government has brought home far more Australians from overseas than any other state – about as many as all other states combined. This is an achievement that seems to go unnoticed by the public; it’s bitterly disappointing that most other states reflexively close their borders and slash their arrivals quotas at the drop of a hat.
Lastly, the general framing of the situation as one that was totally under control before Berejiklian exploded this bomb is problematic. Things weren’t under control: our vaccination supply was terrible, our vaccination demand was sub-par and the mental energy we were putting into mapping a way out of the pandemic was basically zero. We thought we had solved the problem by just disappearing from the world. We were delaying the development and implementation of much-needed adaptation strategies for life with covid (something epidemiologists keep telling us we have to do). Of course, it made sense to delay this while vaccines were in development, but the whole country got caught napping and thought the border closures and snap lockdowns should just be a permanent thing, rather than the short-term fix they were meant to be.
When analysed in the fullness of time, I think this outbreak will be seen as an almost necessary step in our path out of the pandemic and back into the world.
Hi Wade thanks for a thoughtful response – here’s my thoughts on the points you’ve raised.
Berejiklian’s failure to manage the Delta outbreak decisively, in its earliest stage, with a circuit-breaker lockdown does not need to be viewed, imo, in a global context to judge whether or not it was a good call – it really only matters in terms of how it affects the nation.
Giving her a tick because she is part of a country that has fared well, to date, just means she get brownie points for the good work other states have done. When it was finally her turn to perform, she took the high risk option that she had gotten away with previously, introducing “guidelines” instead of lockdowns, mandatory mask wearing etc, even after she herself said that the Delta strain appeared to be transferable just by passing contact.
I can’t help but feel that her failure to act with firm resolution was due to a combo of hubris, and the pressure of Morrison, who was keen to parade her as the “gold standard” Covid manager for political points.
The Delta outbreak in Victoria, and the Vics’ inability to bring it to heel as they had done previously, makes Gladys’ initial lax response for the whole month of June even more egregious, not less .The “your jurisdiction, your responsibility” is a moot point, true in one sense that when working as part of a very large cohesive team, ie a nation, you need to break into smaller teams ie states, each one responsible for looking after its own backyard….but those teams have a responsibility to all the other teams as well, to do their bit, to increase the chances of group success.
Team Gladys’ weeks of inaction increased the likelihood of cross-border spread, and made the job tougher for every other state. By the end of the June, early July, the repercussions of her limp noodle response led to cases in Qld, NT, WA as well as Vic. NZ also, in August. So far, suppression strategies worked everywhere except Vic. Should Vic have gone into hard border closures at the beginning of June, at the first sign of Gladys’ do-nothing response? In hindsight, yes. It would have been met with a lot of aggro no doubt – if Gladys had just done her job, it wouldn’t be an issue. Which harks back to my point of the responsibilities states have to each other, as well as to their own bailiwick.
NSW bringing home overseas Aussies (which is a Fed responsibility) is a good thing I agree, but unfortunately, without effective quarantine facilities (another Fed responsibility), it comes with the risks that have directly resulted in the current Delta outbreak. Solution would have been purpose built q facilities, but that’s another one for the “never got around to it” pile that can be squarely laid at Morrison’s feet.
Your final observations about terrible vax supply and take-up I agree with, but again…surely that’s on Morrison once again. For a guy with a background in marketing, how long did it take him to start any sort of mass media campaign calling people to get the jab? I believe the main reason a campaign push wasn’t started much much earlier was because he didn’t have the jabs to fill the potential demand from such a campaign. So better for him to suppress demand, than expose his failure of supply. Who can forget the “It’s not a race” messaging, coming from the head guy, meant to be leading the way?
I agree this forced capitulation to Covid due to Gladys and Morrison will undoubtedly be a pathway out of this pandemic, because historically, these viruses always run their course. Even the Black Death had a pathway out, which was to basically kill everyone it could, leaving the survivors charged with antibodies to carry on and repopulate the planet. It was the original Darwinian survival of the fittest method, which we have since improved upon, thankfully.
I reckon a better path out, than the one we have been forced on, was completely imaginable – but here we, facing a fait accompli courtesy of Gladys and Morrison not doing their part for the team. They are not only responsible for past bad calls, but in pushing for premature easing of restrictions in the face of the Doherty modelling and common sense, I can see a whole new chapter of badness ready to be written in their book of achievements.
Thanks Glenn. I totally agree that a lot of this is on Morrison. Abysmal performance on vaccine supply and a complete failure to even engage on the topic of purpose-built quarantine facilities. Some can be sheeted home to media focus as well. My wife and I were watching ABC News Breakfast the other day when they displayed the vaccine numbers by state. We remarked that it was like watching a race…and a moment later realised the irony of what we’d said. With some leadership this could’ve been the focus from much earlier on. I agree that a better path out was completely imaginable, and I often argue with myself as to whether this alternative reality could have happened, or whether it is contrary to human nature. By that I’m thinking about the number of people – and I’ve lost count of the people who’ve told me this – who simply hadn’t bothered to get vaccinated before this outbreak as they hadn’t seen it as a priority. I guess we’ll never know…
cheers Wade 🙂
totally with you on the lack of urgency in the general public to vax, until Delta hit! I actually think Oz could get to 90% vaccinated, because, with human nature being how it is, the more people getting jabbed, the more desire there is to be one of them as opposed to being the odd one out.
Anecdotal case in point, my 80 year old mum who lives in Sydney. No way was she going to get the jab…til she was the only member of the family not jabbed. Now she’s gone for the jab, quite happily too.
Human nature…we’re individuals and herd animals simultaneously!
Ha, that’s interesting. You might be right on the 90% figure. The uptake has been impressive. Here’s to better times ahead!
The interaction immediately above is a beacon of reasonable commentary in an otherwise suffocating fog of partisan and/or irrational diatribes for/against lockdowns/harsh measures/curfews/whatever.
It’s also worth remembering (again!) that lockdowns were initially promoted around the world as a means of buying time, in order to have the public health system ready for the expected impact. In countries with a profound geographical advantage – notably, Australia and New Zealand – we began to kid ourselves that elimination was feasible. In early 2021, public health experts were recommending a public conversation about our tolerance of risk. But, as a population, we weren’t mature enough to have that conversation. So when the shit hit the fan – which I agree was a mixture of NSW hubris, Cth government incompetence and other State/Territory isolationist tendencies – we were still stuck in an outdated philosophical state. What happened via NSW, and then Victoria, was always going to happen at some stage. Blaming someone, whether government or elected official(s), doesn’t make any difference to our collective need to move on.
Thanks Michel, well said. I was in Germany for the whole pandemic until returning to Sydney in mid-June, and it definitely felt like stepping 12 months back in time. Our great geographical advantage and consequent ‘success’ lead to some kind of philosophical paralysis, like you said. Hard to see clearly in the moment, but it’ll be interesting looking back on this a few years down the track.
I’ve argued numerous times that I think we will exceed 90% across most of Australia. Some 66 suburbs in western Sydney alone are now at over 90% first dose, and I am also relying on well studied behavioural psychology of people wanting to fit in with the crowd which I have amateurishly described as the bandwagon effect. Good on you and Wade for a civilised discussion, by the way.
Forget, for the moment, about the management of the Delta outbreak in NSW and look back at the cause. An unvaccinated, unmasked limo driver contracted (and subsequently spread) COVID-19 from airline flight crew he transported to hotel quarantine. The was allowed to happen because the NSW Govt allowed airlines to make their own arrangements for this. In other States, the transport of international arrivals was integrated with HQ, and airlines didn’t get to pick their own transport.
The current outbreaks are a consequence of decisions made by the NSW Govt.
Nice work Glenn. 🙂