The trouble with lockdowns in a democracy | ticker VIEWS

Let me start by saying this: Lockdowns work. They have saved thousands of people’s lives and avoided a full blown medical catastrophe. But they only work while they’re in place.

And after 18 months of this – we’ve worked out the problem with lockdowns in democracies.

I remember sitting in the Ticker newsroom at 5am on a Monday morning in January last year. It was a small office as we were just a startup media news company back then.

As I looked around for stories to put in our 8am news bulletin, the obvious choice was the situation in China. The pictures coming out of Wuhan were frightening but felt like a world away. Streets being disinfected by ridiculously menacing looking machines. It truly felt like a 90s sci fi film.

But it was the sudden lockdown in China that was the story. We’d never seen anything like it in Australia, and had never even considered the thought that the government had the power to force people to stay home, welding apartment complex doors shut. Forcing people to isolate from each other, closing 11 major cities across China. All by the way, allowing international travel out of the country. We shrugged it off as “glad we don’t live under a totalitarian state:”.

Then alarmingly, the first case showed up In Melbourne. We know what happened after that.

ENDLESS LOCKDOWN

The trouble with lockdowns is once they start, there’s no point lifting them. Even as vaccination rates increase in the UK, and Freedom Day is days away, there’s growing debate about whether it’s safe to do so. In Spain, despite the jabs, restrictions are coming back.

We should have worked out now that as soon as lockdowns are lifted, despite the best efforts of all of us to follow the rules, circumstances outside of our control means we end up back in lockdown.

There are too many variables. The states blame the slow vaccine rollout and the lack of federal government controlled outback quarantine facilities. The federal government blames the states.

And now in Australia, the two largest states are in lockdown, with no end in sight, in the dead of winter.

It was the obvious question late last year as the Victorian Premier urged forced us to stay in lockdown to get the rolling average number of daily cases to below five, and then eventually eradicate the virus. It’s as if we win. But this doesn’t end.

The problem was obvious at the time but conveniently overlooked by politicians. The flights kept arriving, the cargo ships kept arriving. It might be possible to lock the population down, but it’s impossible to remain an affluent nation without allowing people to return home, or for cargo ships to arrive with products to build homes or sell in stores.

It’s also impossible to continue your way of life in lockdown.

THE SOCIALIST REVOLUTION?

Perhaps the most frightening outcome of this situation is the empowerment of certain parts of society over others. And the tragic inequality that lockdowns have on society. For example, if you work for the government, your circumstances aren’t the same as someone who is a sole trader or an employee in private enterprise. When the government snaps, you are unable to go to work. If your job requires you to be at a workplace, then you are out of work. And government assistance isn’t enough to cover your costs.

Too many journalists have fallen for the theatre of the daily press conferences, rather than reflecting the concerns of the people who are suddenly unemployed.

While every vote is treated as equal, every circumstance isn’t.

Over the past year and a half, businesses have lost so many employees that people who were thinking of leaving before now have no reason to ever come back. In the TV industry, it’s now hard to find people to take jobs, because so many people left the industry for good. The legal industry is facing the same crisis, made worse by a lack of immigrants to fill roles.

I have friends who drive trams, and even though public transport patronage is well down on pre-pandemic levels, the drivers haven’t been impacted. Governments have swollen. Debts have ballooned.

And yet, we’re not fussed by that. For the past decade, debt levels in local, state and federal governments have soared, yet because the economies have been growing thanks to Chinese buying power and immigration levels, the threat of debt hasn’t been something on our minds. We might have a big credit card, but we have had the money to pay it. Move on.

But now without immigration, and with China buying less of our non-resource based goods, no one seems able to answer the question – what comes next?

NOT EVERY BUSINESS IS A BIG BUSINESS

The hardest part of watching thing pandemic and transition play out is watching it through the eyes of running a business. I’m no longer just a journalist, I am accountable for 20 staff. It completely changes how you look at the world. It’s not just about my career anymore, it’s about their job security, mortgages and expenses.

When I hear or report on conversations about “business should be doing more” my eye twitches. Because what they actually mean is big faceless corporations. The big companies with big profits. The Harvey Normans, the Coles, the banks.

But unfortunately, the rules imposed on (big) business often impact small and medium business – whether it’s by increasing superannuation, or assuming business doesn’t need anything in the budget because corporate profits have rebounded. But not every business received JobKeeper.

Then there are the things you can’t measure. For example, when the Victorian government slapped a levy on big business to help pay for mental health (which suffered greatly due to the Victorian government’s record breaking lockdown), the banks responded by not hiring back 3-400 staff they were planning to. Marketing budgets were cut. The flow on continues.

When you lockdown the people of Sydney and Melbourne, thousands of businesses suffer in every other state – yet they’re not the recipient of any government funding available to businesses in the locked down states. It’s all too convenient.

TALL, SUBERVIENT POPPIES

Victoria was only just in a full blown lockdown just over a month ago. We all abided by the rules, giving up our freedoms, our exercise, our happiness at the dreariest time of year in the hopes of avoiding another prolonged lockdown.

But it didn’t stop it. Because you can’t stop a virus or human nature. When those three revivalists arrived in Victoria, the Andrews government was off the hook. This lockdown hasn’t led to the usual blue faced anger of past restrictions. Most of us have given up fighting. When the lockdown for midnight Thursday was announced late in the day, it didn’t surprise me. People don’t need warning anymore. We’ve come to expect it.

And that’s the most dangerous thing. Anyone under 40 woke up yesterday in Sydney or Melbourne and could have thought this – I’m under 40 so can’t get the jab, despite so many young people being infected in Sydney. I can’t leave the country even if I wanted to. And there’s no way to send a message until there’s an election. It’s a health response for senior voters.

Former Labor powerbroker Graham Richardson wrote this week: “Australians demonstrate that the “tall poppy syndrome” is alive and well by constantly rubbishing politicians — that is, until they are in their company when many become obsequious and subservient.”

Perhaps the downside to these lockdowns is we have given up fighting for fairness and now find ourselves subservient to wide-ranging rules. I wonder what the long term impacts of that will be. It reminds me of what happened to travel and privacy after September 11. Bureaucrats rarely like to hand back power.

Anytime anyone questions the logic, the mob shout back “what about the health advice!?”

Well, my doctor says I shouldn’t drink. But I’ll raise my glass to that.