PUBLIC SEEING THROUGH PREMIER’S GOBBLEDYGOOK
POLITICIANS and bureaucrats have a history of trying to baffle the public with gobbledygook when they have gaffed or are not across things, and hope like hell the people swallow it. A health official shuffled into the southern stables of a horse trainer many decades ago to investigate the stalls and the street-smart man standing alongside him. You may have heard of him; Bart Cummings was his name.
Old Bart knew every walk of life and was waiting for the gibber.
After having a good look around, the health official turned to the Cups king and deadpanned, “Oh, Mr Cummings, you have far too many flies here”. To which the training great retorted, “Well how many am I allowed?”
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk tried it on herself this week when she scoffed that no-one could have predicted that 400,000 people would apply for border passes from Covid hotspots to holiday in Queensland. This is despite the Gold Coast alone welcoming 440,000 interstate and international tourists on average each month pre-Covid. Importantly, 86 per cent of the domestic market hailed from Covid hotbeds NSW and Victoria.
On Monday, the Bulletin asked the Premier how many people had been budgeted to enter Queensland. It was a simple question, requiring a simple reply. She did not answer.
We asked her again yesterday. Again, she did not answer.
The reopening of the borders was pitched as a golden opportunity for the city’s 60,000 small businesses to emerge from the cesspits of the pandemic. The government’s modelling and economic forecasts were a pivotal cornerstone to achieving that.
But the Premier has been found out. If she did not know how many people were coming for Christmas dinner, how would she know how much to cook? In the end, she put a small turkey in the oven when every other measure showed it should have been a banquet.
Queues at testing clinics exploded, contact tracing crippled staff, visitors became disgruntled and small businesses were brushed by tourists having to wait up to six hours for the all clear.
On Monday, the Premier said interstate visitors knew the rules before they arrived. Yesterday, she scrapped their day five PCR testing requirements.
City leaders say the inconsistencies and gaffes will cost the Gold Coast return travellers. Of equal concern is the lessons learnt from a two-year crisis that has flattened the engine room of the Queensland economy.
Eighteen months ago the Bulletin asked Treasury if it was working on an economic roadmap to ensure a state drowning in debt would rebound as quickly as possible. It said it wasn’t. Ms Palaszczuk got defensive, and said it was a health pandemic.
The Bulletin asked the Premier again on Monday if economic modelling had been completed to help get us out of this mess. She did not answer the question.