It is true that the government faces an awesome list of problems. The NSW floods were first on Albanese’s list upon return. Albanese and Perrottet toured flood-affected areas together on Wednesday and declared immediate federal-state co-operation in response. The prime minister announced additional federal government financial support for affected NSW residents, on top of existing assistance, from 2pm on Thursday.
The speed and co-operative tenor of the engagement between the Labor prime minister and the Liberal premier was positively striking compared to the truculent Morrison-Perrottet relationship.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet in the flood-affected Hawkesbury region.Credit:James Brickwood
It was a sign to the states that Albanians will be a good faith player – a crucially important change flowing from the election given the range of problems involving both levels of government that need urgent attention.
Health is high on that list.
Pre-pandemic, state hospital systems already lacked safe margins of staffing, resources and infrastructure that would enable them to deal with a crisis.
When the crisis inevitably came – in the form of the COVID-19, but if not that eventually something else – the system was stretched to hilt and, at times, beyond it. And it is still.
illustrationCredit:Dionne Gain
State premier around Australia, of both political complexions, have shown little sign they know how to, or have the will or resources to, fix their hospital systems.
This is being demonstrated right now as COVID infections rise, state health systems reel under COVID-driven absenteeism, and a thousand Australians die every three weeks from COVID – some of them prime age and otherwise healthy.
This presents a big challenge for Health Minister Mark Butler.
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The well-known longer-run issue is how to help the states fix health systems they are constitutionally responsible for without the federal government bleeding cash.
But the immediate challenge is how to snap out of itself, and lead the states in snapping out of, their sleepwalking into a blowout in already serious COVID absenteeism, disability and death. This includes states like Victoria and Western Australia which set high public policy standards earlier in the pandemic but then followed the low bar approach of NSW.
By the end of January 4000 Australians had died of COVID since the pandemic began. At the beginning of July the total number of dead had grown to 10,000. With the new immunity-evading BA.4 and BA.5 variants, this is set to worsen still.
Medical leaders are knocking themselves out, urging governments to act. Cowed by the reaction to lockdowns and mandates, politicians have adopted a “nothing to see here” stance based on the false and lazy idea that it’s a choice between mandates or nothing.
Jeroen Weimar, while Victoria’s COVID response commander last year, cited research showing that mandating mask-wearing yielded more than 90 per cent compliance while voluntary mask-wearing yielded around 50 per cent.
NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant and Health Minister Brad Hazzard on Tuesday.Credit:Louise Kennerley
Managing to get even 50 per cent compliance right now could make all the difference in getting the COVID Reff rate (the effective reproduction number, which shows the number of people infected by each positive case) below one – the key to containing and reversing the current surge.
But it won’t happen with messaging like that from NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant, who lamely tweeted on Wednesday: “One of the little things you can do to protect yourself and others through this next wave is to wear a mask in indoor public space…”
Nor was Chant’s appearance at Wednesday’s COVID press conference good modeling of what’s needed. Chant had a tired-looking surgical mask, according to overwhelming research evidence a tiny tool against COVID compared to the dramatically more effective N95 masks.
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Images count. Humans are herd animals. We do what we see other people around us doing.
If leading health officials won’t model pandemic-appropriate behaviour, what hope of getting citizens to?
When Mark Butler appeared maskless on the weekend to make a juvenile diabetes event surrounded by dozens of children at close quarters, it sent a very bad message. Forget social distancing. Forget masks. pandemic? What pandemic?
It falls to Butler to lead the states and the nation in explaining what people need to know to stay safe, in a big persuasive public health campaign like many the federal government has run before. “Slip, slap, slop” and “Life. Be in it.” are among the classics. The big, sustained campaign promoting condom use during the AIDS crisis is another. It’s not rocket science.
More distance and fresh air. Get your booster. Mask up – and make it N95 not surgical. Butler needs to get on with the job and persuasively spread the word, and not just in relation to jabs.
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.