Opinion: At the risk of stating the obvious, Australia’s current approach to COVID is a bit of a mess, writes Waleed Aly
At the risk of stating the obvious, Australia’s current approach to COVID is a bit of a mess. Mainly that’s because it embodies one very simple contradiction: just as numbers are set to explode into the biggest wave we’ve ever faced, compounded by a wicked flu season, governments are steadfastly refusing to introduce restrictions, and are instead ending some important COVID measures.
This leaves us with the bizarre spectacle of the prime minister advising concession-card holders to stock up on RATs while they can, instead of ensuring they can continue to get them. Of the government expanding access to antivirals while making changes to telehealth the AMA says will make it harder for people to find a doctor to prescribe them.
And third, that concession-card holders don’t need free RATs now because RATs are much cheaper than they were in January, as though this doesn’t also suggest the cost of providing them should be more affordable.This matters because the current strategy of both levels of government seems to be to ask us nicely to do the responsible thing.
One of the reasons the rules-based approach worked so well for two years is that Australians, in spite of our larrikin self-image, are fantastic rule-followers. We’re a country of compulsory seatbelts, compulsory bicycle helmets, compulsory voting. In all such things we are early adopters, or just outliers. Our sensibilities mean we quite like government regulation in exactly the way Americans don’t.
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