WE’VE NEVER BEEN SO UN-AUSTRALIAN
It’s not a race but our leaders are turning Covid into a contest. Yet every dig, insult and attempt to undermine each other erodes our trust and confidence.
WHEN it comes to Covid, we’ve learned that it isn’t a race … but is it also a contest?
Apparently, the answer is yes. Because State of Origin scuffles have nothing on our border biffs as the blame game escalates.
Every day we watch our premiers attempt to disguise their own bad news – whether that be more restrictions, Covid case blowouts or closed borders – in a flurry of accusations pointed at each other.
It seems the only thing our premiers can agree on is blaming the Prime Minister (who infamously insisted that vaccinating the country was not a race).
The sad fact is there is plenty of blame to spread right across this sunburnt country.
From Scott Morrison failing to secure enough vaccines and then failing to roll them out, from NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian failing to lockdown Sydney hard and fast enough and then locking down the Tweed Shire despite zero cases, to our own Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk erring on the side of over-caution when it comes to AstraZeneca … the mistakes that our country and our leaders have made have been anything but few and far between.
And they sure aren’t shy when it comes to letting each other know about it.
We have Ms Palaszczuk blaming Ms Berejiklian for border closures. “If there hadn’t been the cluster outbreak in the northern beaches (of Sydney), no one would have had to take these measures (to close borders) and everybody would’ve been seeing their family and friends over this Christmas/New Year period,” she said last year … in a statement that could scarily be recycled for Christmas 2021.
Then we have Ms Berejiklian blaming Ms Palaszczuk for economic damage caused by said border closures: “She (Palaszczuk) is now the victim of a policy she put in place herself.”
There’s Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews blaming Ms Berejiklian for a soft and slow lockdown this winter: “You only get one chance to go hard and go fast.”
And then there’s Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg describing the Victorian Premier’s request for more Covid economic assistance as “petulant, childish and playing politics”.
Talk about being one, big, dysfunctional family.
Rather than pointing the finger at each other, it’s time for our leaders to pull their finger out when it comes to what they can control – and that includes boosting our country’s morale.
I honestly can’t think of another time when I have felt so un-Australian. And, ironically, that’s not my fault.
Instead, it’s because we’ve stopped thinking of ourselves as citizens of a country and instead as residents of a state.
And while I’m 100 per cent happy that I’m living in Queensland, it’s concerning to see the schadenfreude levelled at our sisters and brothers over the border.
Instead of sympathy and empathy, we feel a sense of victory. Our state did it better – ha ha, sucks to be you.
And yet, all we are doing is modelling the behaviour of our leaders.
Not only is it cruel, not only is it futile, but it’s damaging.
Every dig, every insult, every attempt from one premier to undermine another only serves to erode our trust and confidence that our leaders are actually leading.
To be brutally honest, I do blame both the Prime Minister and Ms Berejiklian for the extended mega-mix of a mess we’re in.
Surely shoring up our vaccine stocks was the No.1 job for our No.1 leader.
And as for Ms Berejiklian, I suspect her slow and soft lockdown was the result of trying to score more political points as the anti-shutdown queen.
If I knew how virulent and truly transmissible Delta could be, how could she not?
But you know what? It doesn’t matter. Placing blame is like shutting the gate after the horse has bolted.
Right now, we need to focus on the practical measures we can take to find that horse – and that means getting vaccinated and following public health orders.
It means that we need to stop treating Covid as a state versus state or state versus nation contest, but all work as a team.
By all means we must learn from our mistakes.
And even when it comes to blame, there will be a time and place – the voting booth.
But until then, let’s get in the game and help out our mates across the country and across our borders.
Instead of sympathy and empathy, we feel a sense of victory