CV19 The Australian Experience
In the brief interlude between phases of the Covid pandemic Australians took the opportunity to look back and ask ourselves – why did we do so well? I was quick to remind people that ‘it ain’t over yet’ and until it is we won’t really know which country has handled the virus the best; comments that may have had weight in May ’19 when I first started making them, but not in November with several vaccines close to release.
The re-emergence of the virus in NSW, followed by smaller outbreaks in a number of other states, has challenged some of the self-congratulatory talk appearing in the media, especially with state borders being slammed shut again leaving many people in a state of limbo leading to recriminations between state leaders. The re-emergence has reminded us of the now stark differences between the states in the approach to handling the virus with NSW a clear outlier, to the extent that it could be said that there is no longer, if there ever was, an ‘Australian’ approach to dealing with the virus.
The approach being followed in NSW is so different from the rest of Australia that it should be treated separately in international comparisons, where people talk of the Swedish approach, the New Zealand approach, and the lack of any approach in the US & UK. NSW is attempting to live with the virus, albeit in very low numbers; all other states cannot countenance even a small number of cases so appear to be constantly striving for eradication.
The different targets set by each state result in different restrictions applying within each state. The approach in NSW is labelled, in some ways smeared, as ‘pro-business’ because the NSW Government is attempting to limit the impact on normal life, including business activity, of any restrictions imposed.
Whatever the real motivations behind the approach of the NSW Government, there is a strong sense that Gladys Berejiklian is attempting to treat us like adults by her unwillingness to prescribe controls over our every action, and instead, providing us with the information we require to make informed decisions for ourselves on what actions we should take.
There is strong opposition to her approach, from the leaders of other states and from many people in the community, evidenced by the many comments on social media calling for the NSW government to lock us down again, which begs the question – are we all just children?
Rather than answer that question directly, let’s instead consider the factors that have contributed to Australia achieving a comparatively low infection rate.
Many commentators have attempted to answer the question of why Australia has done well, and when reviewing their thoughts you would do well to keep in mind the words of Bertrand Russell – “every person, wherever they go, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with them like flies on a summer day”.
An example of the type of article I refer to is this piece by Hartcher in the Herald. Hartcher is the Political and International Editor of one of Australia’s most prestigious newspapers, and this is his conclusion in that article,
The clear-cut winners are effective governance, centrist politics, scientific expertise and social trust. The more a country had, the better it did. Everything else was distraction or destruction.
Let’s examine his assertions to determine the extent that they hold true, or are just comforting convictions.
Let’s start with scientific expertise. Hartcher is asking us to believe that Australia has higher or better scientific expertise than the USA, Britain, France, Germany, Italy or Spain. I simply don’t believe it. Even though Australia has a much stronger scientific community than is acknowledged in our media, I don’t believe that our scientists are so much better than those from other countries that it accounts for our success in handling the virus. Australia did not decode the genome sequence of the virus, nor have we developed an effective vaccine.
If Hartcher’s point is that Australia is more likely to follow scientific expertise than the countries I have listed, how does that explain our lack of response to global warming or more abstrusely, our drug laws; both issues where the science is very strongly against our national position. If we’re so ready to accept scientific advice why do we continue to treat addiction as a crime and not a health issue? If our success comes from our politicians being more willing than the politicians of other countries to take advice from experts, and in doing so impose incredibly tight and economically devastating restrictions on our lives, where is the carbon tax – the universally agreed, by experts, best policy tool for effecting change to the level of greenhouse emissions.
To another of Hartcher’s points, centrist politics – what does that even mean? To suggest that centrist politics enabled Australia to deal more effectively with this pandemic is to ignore the entire history of Australia’s response. Let’s never forget that the federal government was extremely reluctant to close the borders and was effectively pushed into it by the state premiers. Basically, there has not been a single Australian response; the Australian response was a collection of responses by the states. That the initial response of each state was very similar to the response of other states doesn’t make it a centrist policy, rather it shows the willingness of state governments to follow expert advice, and that on this issue the experts were strongly aligned. Forgotten by Hartcher when writing his conclusion was the response to Scott Morrison’s ‘plan on a page’, the A3 sheet containing the plan for the easing of the lockdowns – most states said that it was an idea, not a plan, and they would do their own thing.
Centrist politics – the two biggest outbreaks in Australia, Ruby Princess and Victoria’s second wave, and now the Avalon outbreak, were caused by essentially the same trigger – a failure of quarantine. Even though we live in a country where the party in government at the national level has emphasised its stringent approach to border control – quarantine is actually the responsibility of the states during the pandemic, with each state managing its quarantine system differently. If the national borders are managed at the state level – how is that an example of centrist politics?
The reaction to the recent Avalon NSW cluster, with each state closing their borders to NSW at different times and with different rules, shows the complete lack of co-ordination at a national level, and the lack of agreed guidelines across the states for responding to outbreaks.
Australia has done better than other countries in limiting the spread of the virus though, that much is certain. Understanding why is proving tantalisingly hard to determine, with each inquiry at some point leading to a search into the heart of the character of the nation as a group, and as individuals. Many countries have imposed some form of lockdown, each to varying levels of success. The challenge has been to explain the relative level of success of the lockdowns.
Before we get too carried away telling ourselves how good we are, we must never forget that Australia had an opportunity to react far earlier than most other countries. By the time Italy knew they had an issue – they had a big issue. The level of infection was so high it was out of control. How would this have shaped the response of Australians if we were faced with the same situation? Would we have seen another side of The Aussie – not the ‘do the right thing’ obedient side but the – ‘it’s all BS so might as well enjoy ourselves’ side. What if, when we were asked to lockdown, instead of there being 100 cases per day there were 50,000, would we have obeyed, or would we have all reasoned that there was no point, that the horse had bolted, and ignored the instructions, not out of sense of protest, not as a statement of our freedom, but because we didn’t see the point.
Much has been made of the fact that Australia is an island state, and can therefore more easily control its borders. While this is true, the response of the various Australian states, and other countries shows, that it is possible to effectively limit movement across terrestrial borders, rendering this argument moot. Not enough is made of the fact that Australia is distant from most other countries, and the virus simply wasn’t carried here in large enough numbers, prior to our governments becoming fully aware of it, as occurred in Italy and other parts of Europe, to trigger a massive outbreak.
Simply put, Australia had a much smaller outbreak to contain when restrictions were put in place – partly due to the quick response to the Chief Medical Officer’s recommendation to close the border – so that the restrictions had a smaller task to achieve, therefore the evidence that they were being effective came more readily, providing a virtuous feedback loop to the support for restrictions.
This still leaves open the question of why the restrictions were barely tested or challenged by Australian’s, why we ‘did the right thing’. This goes to the social trust element of Hartcher’s statement. Do you remember that ad campaign many years ago on littering, “Do the right thing”. That in essence was what we were asked to do – and we did it. Not for any doctrinaire reason, not because we all understood the science, but because by and large, we do the right thing.
I posit four reasons why Australians ‘did the right thing’, and abided effectively to the lockdown rules; contrary to popular belief we are an obedient people driven in part by an overbearing conformity, our protests take a different form than other countries, there is a residual collectivism, and we are imbibed with small c Christianity. Each of these elements are interlinked, to the extent it is difficult to determine cause and effect. The last reason I put forward with the least conviction although it may in fact be the strongest, and having only been able to arrive at that conclusion after looking past my own prejudices and comforting convictions.
This essay is not the place to explore the reasons why Australians are an obedient people, suffice to say that we are. I suspect that the myth we hold about ourselves as anti-authority stems from reporting of our soldiers during WW1&2 and we have held onto it in the absence of any continuing evidence. A good discussion of this point can be found here.
I see another driver behind the natural obedience of Australians being the inability to accept non-conforming behaviour. Australian culture has a tendency to preference conformity to existing social norms above allowing points of difference to exist. Over time Australian culture is dynamic in that what are considered social norms may change considerably, but at any point in time conformance is required. The pack mentality is evident in the response to wearing masks; unthinkable at the start of the pandemic that we would wear them, harassed now if we don’t. The desire for conformity drives the harassment and dob in culture evidenced during the pandemic.
That there were no real substantial protests to the lockdowns should have come as no surprise as Australian’s just don’t protest the way that other people in other countries do. As a comparison, the French and the Americans protest vigorously, out on the street; they throw rocks, they rip up the streets, they charge at the police. Australians will hold street parades and demonstrations, and at times there will be scuffles but our protests don’t devolve into the lawlessness and looting seen elsewhere so the likelihood of lockdowns being openly challenged was always low.
This is in line with the different way we live our lives, compared to other countries. Australian’s don’t live their lives out on the streets to the same extent that people in other countries do, so our form of protest is different. And unlike the French or the Americans, to use two examples, our freedoms and therefore our way of life weren’t gained by protests; they were gained by basically, just doing what we want. A more predictable reaction of Australians to the lockdown restrictions was that they would be ignored by being discretely circumvented. Small scale circumvention, compared to large scale protests, is less likely to lead to super spreader situations.
I have written elsewhere on this site about a diminishing of the collective spirit in Australia over recent years, but the response to Covid has shown that it has not completely disappeared. My view is that we have actively reduced the structures that support collectivism by attacking unions, privatising mutual societies, eliminating co-operatives and corporatising clubs and in doing so reduced the extent to which we think and act collectively.
Many would argue that the response to the fires last summer disproves my view of reduced collectivism; however I contend that only the existence of the local bushfire brigades is an example of collectivism. Raising money for people in need, as a one-off act, is an act of charity rather than collectivism.
Our willingness to modify our behaviour and lifestyle to abide to the strictures of the lockdown is a statement of our collective spirit as it required us to subservient ourselves for the sake of the benefit of others. This collective spirit should not be confused with a sacrifice of an individual for some esoteric notion of the greater good, but the sacrifice of one individual for another.
What is important to remember though is that this was not volunteered, but requested, which leads to an expectation that there will be no exceptions – it is this expectation that feeds support for the imposition of fines and what appeared at the time to be over the top policing.
The enforcement of the lockdowns and border closures dispelled any romance associated with collectivism through the stories of individual heartache and disruption. The many examples of people unable to travel to tend to sick relatives or friends, or farewell dying parents provided a stark reminder of the sacrifice that individuals are required to make in support of a collective outcome.
Lastly, did Australia impose and obey tight restrictions because there lingers still on our institutions and collective mindset the impact of a once religious society. Was our response to the pandemic shaped not by the beliefs of big C Christianity, but by the sense of pastoral care that is embedded within small c christianity?
What do I mean by big C and little c christianity. Big C Christianity is the act of belief by the individual, and the application of orthodoxy by an organised structured priesthood; it is the controlling, domineering use of power to control the lives of others along with the rituals of organised faith. Small c christianity is the absence of belief in a god but the adoption of the values inherent in the commandments and parables; it is the acts of kindness, forgiveness, charity and the openness to the possibility for redemption, but also in some the desire for retribution.
There are limits to the argument that Australia is imbued with aspects of small c Christianity, which is why I say these traits linger and influence, rather than overwhelm, our response to issues.
Maybe we didn’t honour the lockdowns simply because we’re just an obedient mob like I had been thinking, nor because we all understood the science, nor because we had wonderful governments, maybe we did it because we are still bound by the ethos of ‘love thy neighbour’, and when presented with arguments that place a desired behaviour within that framing we respond positively.
The success of Australia in limiting the spread of Covid, reminiscent of our success in responding to AIDS, is due in large part to the strong consistent advice by health professionals, the ready acceptance of that advice by politicians and the willingness of Australians to abide the impositions of that advice. No doubt we will see politicians and lobby groups mis-represent and mis-appropriate the reasons for this success in support of other aims.
