A quiet oasis of sanity and reason

THE public debate over the past four weeks in the letters pages and Talking Point opinion pages has been extraordinary.

No other media format, here or overseas, has provided the extensive public discourse and unfettered opinion about how a small island community should tackle a pandemic.

In an ideal world this level of discussion would permeate state and federal parliament, with the government of the day expected to detail a plan of action to be subjected to forensic examination by its political opponents.

Unfortunately, our political system has been hijacked by lobbies and donors and, rather than always doing what they believe is right, governments employ media advisers and PR consultants to develop strategies to sell whatever policies these often faceless lobbies demand.

For the best part of two years, the Tasmanian public had overwhelmingly backed the Gutwein government’s pandemic strategy. The letters pages were full of supportive voices. I wrote two Talking Point columns praising Gutwein, who appeared determined to prioritise the health of Tasmanians and take a rational and logical approach to an unprecedented crisis.

The thrust of this consensus was that Gutwein was dutifully following health advice from the national Cabinet and Public Health director Mark Veitch, aware that Tasmania is different to other states and territories in that it has a moat and is “not afraid to use it”, as the Mercury’s front page famously shouted.

However, since the weeks before the borders opened on December 15 the letter pages have been increasingly filled with concern from locals.

By new year the outcry swamped the letters pages, with daily hot topics on the issue featuring regulars and new correspondents writing in concern about the dramatic about-face on the pandemic.

After two years living freely, at liberty to enjoy Tasmanian life, we were cast into a world of masks with a potentially lethal virus running rampant.

Economist Saul Eslake took aim at this thinking in a news article (Mercury, January 10) by reporter Sue Bailey.

“Although I’m no apologist for the current government, I remain supportive of the decision to open the borders and of the Premier’s apparent determination to keep them open,” Eslake said.

Eslake rudely compared keeping the state’s borders closed to the isolationist regime of a hermit kingdom like the dictatorship of North Korea. It was a long bow from a lauded Tasmanian thinker who over the decades has been a voice of reason at times others turn to vitriol.

“Ever since the onset of Covid, the letters page of the Mercury has been full of letters from what appear to be small-minded people who, it would seem, have no relatives on the mainland and have no desire to go there themselves for work or pleasure,” Eslake doubled down.

Talking Point columnist Greg Barns, another intellect I admire, especially his defence of the harried, disadvantaged and poor, joined the fray.

“Mr Eslake’s perceptive observation is one shared by me. The small-island mentality of Tasmania is an insidious force that seeps into every nook and cranny,” Barns wrote, urging the government to ignore “letters to the editor and political opponents who want to turn Tasmania into an absurd Pythonesque fortress”.

Barns said Gutwein was on the right path: “To backflip at the behest of authoritarians would be catastrophic for democratic values.”

The astonishing aspect of the ensuing letters swarm in response to Eslake and Barns (who rose to the top of their fields as expert logicians and commentators but who had clearly resorted to hyperbole and exaggeration in their comments) was they were more articulate and reasoned.

Yvonne Stark, from Battery Point, pointed out Gutwein had “doggedly stuck to his date of December 15 to open the floodgate” while reliant on modelling for the Delta strain, “despite there being clear indication Omicron was wildly more contagious and an unknown quantity” and “the result has been disastrous for small business and Tasmanians who spent most summer in self-imposed home isolation”.

She is right and no amount of bravado can change it — Gutwein’s strategy, soundly rational for two years, became little more than a hopeful gamble when he opened the borders because at that point he knew bugger all about Omicron, and it remains an unknown quantity.

John Hunter, from West Hobart, pointed out that Eslake had taken “no account of the huge disruptions to the health service and to the lives of health workers” or of “the fact those who contract Covid may suffer long Covid for years” or that “Omicron may well not confer any immunity, so there is probably no gain in catching it”.

Those who support the Gutwein about-face are quick to throw about references to North Korea-style despots who want to “close the borders forever” and opine that “we had to open sometime” and “there was never going to be a perfect time to open”.

But most criticism from letter-writers has been much more nuanced and more about the timing of the opening of the borders. Chris Needham, from Kingston, explained that “no one is saying the Tasmanian borders shouldn’t reopen”.

“It comes down to timing, preparedness and planning, all three completely absent. Hence our current Covid chaos,” Needham wrote.

Many, including Bill Perry, from Kingston, said we should not have opened over the Christmas holidays but “weeks later after young schoolchildren were vaccinated”.

Perry pointed out the World Heath Organisation and many epidemiologists had said there was still not enough knowledge of the short- or long-term effects of the Omicron variant.

Others suggested the border should have stayed closed until 90 per cent of Tasmanians had had a booster after their preliminary jabs because this better protected against Omicron.

Public relations consultant Brad Stansfield hit back in Talking Point: “Anyone who thinks Tasmania could have continued with our zero-Covid strategy into 2022 is living in Cloud Cuckoo Land”.

It would be wonderful to hear from the Premier in Talking Point, but Stansfield’s contribution can at least be seen as a third-party view of an aligned government supporter to get an inkling of Gutwein’s reasoning (a former adviser to Senator Eric Abetz in the Howard government, chief of staff in the Hodgman state government, Stansfield is a partner at Font Media, which advises the state government).

Stansfield’s conclusion, if taken as the government’s proxy opinion, is revealing.

“If, as is widely hoped, Omicron flashes and burns the pandemic out over the next few months, the current trials and tribulations will be quickly forgotten by the voters who always looks forwards, not backwards,” Stansfield wrote.

It is a statement of hope, more like a Trumpian prayer than a strategy based on any statistical, factual or even anecdotal evidence.

The truth is we know not where Omicron, Delta or any new variety of the coronavirus is headed, other than, as an RNA virus, it replicates at an extraordinary rate and inherently mutates to survive.

The genie is out of the bottle, as it has been in Europe, Britain and the Americas for two years, and poses a lethal threat to some, especially the elderly — the Tasmanian community, ageing faster than other states, comprehends the potential for personal tragedy.

University of Tasmania retail scholar Louise Grimmer revealed in Talking Point that Tasmanians have stayed home since the borders opened.

“There is no denying it, even though we are not in a formal lockdown, Tasmanian consumers are effectively acting as though we are,” Grimmer wrote. “Since the border reopening, particularly since Christmas, the retail, hospitality and tourism sectors have all reported a decline in visitation and sales as people stay away.”

Letter-writer Lilian Macdonald, of Eggs and Bacon Bay, explains why.

“Here we are, two elderly residents, reluctant to even go to the shops because, at least in our view, there is a risk at present of contracting Covid if we venture into the general community. We are not alone in this,” Macdonald wrote.

“When Saul Eslake, Greg Barns and Brad Stansfield deride these genuine fears ... they might at least do us the courtesy of recognising we are not espousing authoritarianism or fascism in expressing our concerns. It is one thing to listen to ‘the economy at all costs’ Neoliberalism and quite another when impacted by ... this ‘let it rip’ philosophy.

“Before they belabour the rest of us with their mockery and their political ideology, perhaps they might pause to reflect on the needs of the lessprivileged here in Tasmania.”

There’s more sanity and wisdom emerging from quiet coves like Eggs and Bacon Bay than the hallowed halls of our state parliament these days.

Gutwein’s approach, at first driven by health science, is now a national political strategy steered by trade and business. The science is being used to minimise health issues while, fingers crossed, some type of pandemic cure is hunted.

So, why the dramatic and sudden change of tactics?

I suspect it has more to do with realigning national geopolitical focus to the West, and the impeding effect that may have on China’s globalisation. Yes, the infected trade bloc. That might explain why Western Australia, with an economy beholden to Chinese interests in iron ore, is so slow to join the pandemic party.

When things do not make sense on the surface, it can mean reasons are submerged, and I would be surprised if British and US strategists had not modelled a variety of pandemic scenarios and their affect on the global order.