MY SAY

HAVING accepted the rules of recent months, news that grandparents would not be allowed to attend grandkids’ sporting activities sent the blood pressure soaring. I mean, seriously!

You can go visit them in their home and have them at yours. You give them a hug because they are yours and you love them and they love you. But sitting in your parked car on the sidelines, watching them play footy a couple of hundred metres away is going to pose a threat to who and what exactly?

The steering wheel? God give me strength.

It was yet another of those weird decisions by the brains trust at Spring St, like the ban on golfing and fishing, and the opening of caravan parks, while at the same time keeping public toilets and shower facilities closed.

“Come along guys and help kickstart the economy, but you’ll have to pee in a bucket!”

Decisions no doubt made on the sometimes curious advice of this state’s chief health officer.

And with every state and territory having their own “chief health officers” — few of whom seem to agree on anything other than social distancing — the slogan “we’re all in this together” has become a bit of a joke.

Despite the Federal Government never having recommended closure of borders and some of the national top medical officers saying they cannot see any medical reason for keeping them closed, we still have Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Tasmania pigheadedly sticking to their decisions to shut up shop to the rest of the country.

Power play or paranoia? Who knows! One thing’s for sure, we might be one nation but we are certainly not “all in this together”.

While Victoria, NSW and the ACT have maintained open borders throughout, it seems the rest of the country is saying, “Bugger the economy, bugger business and bugger jobs” — a decision that will not only hamper the country’s long-term economic recovery but cause countless more business closures and job losses.

Sure the states have done a good job in keeping us safe. But as Scotty from marketing so eloquently put it, “We can’t stay under the doona forever!”

And with a blueprint for travel between New Zealand and Australia now on the cards, it looks as though at the current rate, Australians will soon be able to travel around that country and contribute to its economy before they can their own.

And that’s absurd!

The ongoing closure of some state borders in this country should, if nothing else, provide a wake-up call to the Federal Government to reassess and consider some serious changes to state and territorial powers.

In particular, the issue of border closure, which I’d have thought should be a decision made at federal level rather than allowing every man and his dog to do their own thing, the result being a massive and unnecessary hindrance to Australia’s economic recovery.

On another note, just to make your day and give you something else to worry about, as we head down the road of a more sterile existence with hand sanitiser, sprays and wipes confronting us at every turn, a question remains.

Will this surge in sterility do the job with COVID-19 but at the same time, leave in its wake, a whole nation of weakened immune systems, leaving us even more susceptible to every bug going around?

Who knows? But whatever you do, don’t sneeze, don’t cough — anywhere!