Damned if you do or don’t...
We have heard plenty of references about how circumstances surrounding COVID-19 have placed us on a ‘war’ footing based on a fight against an invisible enemy.
And like we might suspect during a war, our political leaders and their decisions and directions are perhaps more than ever under public scrutiny and subject to polarising views.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, working on specialist advice of health experts, has rightly won plenty of plaudits for decisive and profound action in meeting challenges the virus has presented.
He won more again at the weekend as he showed a hardened edge in hauling back the reins of an easing of restrictions after the number of virus cases started to climb again.
But like in any war, as economic ‘casualties’ have gradually increased, Mr Andrews’ command has also started to come under greater question and criticism. It was inevitable.
His political critics and rivals, who have long believed he and his government have had an ambivalence towards regional Victoria, are now saying circumstances amid the pandemic are revealing as much.
They claim statewide decisions are based purely on issues occurring in Melbourne and its suburbs with scant regard for what figures are showing in rural and regional Victoria. We all know that by luck, good fortune, good management, leadership and direction, or something else of which we are unaware, in our part of Victoria COVID-19 has been notable by its absence.
We made the observation a couple of months ago that a continuing lack of cases in the Wimmera and other regions might prompt the government to consider managing the crisis based on postcodes.
We might now be at the point where this is plausible.
But… what is the right thing to do? Play it safe or take a risk?
Mr Andrews has politically nothing to lose and everything to gain by maintaining a philosophically conservative approach and maintaining a blanket view of pandemic management across the state.
There is much to consider. Regions free of COVID-19, if kept isolated from locked-down Melbourne hot spots, might be able to provide an important spark for the state’s road to economic recovery.
On the other hand, backing off on regional restrictions might simply open the floodgates and change circumstance from bad to worse.
One thing is for sure. If there wasn’t before, there is a fundamental need now to seriously consider the role regional Victoria plays in the state’s overall health and vitality.
Most Victorians live in metropolitan and suburban Melbourne and so demand the lion’s share of political attention and investment.
The truth is the pandemic has changed all sorts of perceptions and rammed home the reality there is much more to the state than the collective surrounding Port Phillip Bay.