Comment

The coronavirus pandemic has shown that profound social change is possible. It has caused a dramatic transformation in the way major problems are addressed, not only by government, but also in the ways we live, work, travel, purchase, entertain ourselves and interact with others. Long-ignored questions have become suddenly vital.

Perhaps the government simply cannot visualise it. It is possible they are unable to fathom what is happening, to appreciate its size. Morrison’s response to this crisis is piecemeal and shambolic. His press conference on Tuesday night was the sort of policy improvisation that could have started with the words “Yes, and…” The prime minister is balancing the health of the public against the health of the economy, and doing neither very well.

One savvy business sage who this week was in Gadfly’s ear thinks the fast-failing enterprises in the United States might see Bone Spurs Trump become the first president in office to go bankrupt. The value of his gilded city towers and hotels is crashing with each passing moment and given they are leveraged to buggery with either Deutsche Bank or the Russian mafia, the whole rickety edifice will soon be underwater.

If anything crystallises the brutal impact of the coronavirus crisis in Australia, it is the thousands queued outside Centrelink offices around the country this week. The lines began forming the day after the prime minister announced that vast sectors of the economy were to be shut down, with income support for those affected. Here was the intersection of life or death measures, crashing the livelihoods of millions and again exposing a government response that was poorly thought through and executed.

What is clearly different with this outbreak is that SARS-CoV-2 is completely new to us. Unlike with flu viruses, to which we all have some prior immunity, the world is experiencing a ‘virgin soil’ pandemic, where everyone is both susceptible and a potential transmitter. This doesn’t mean it’s unstoppable, though.

Really, we should not be surprised. Panic buying isn’t an aberration – it’s the logical extension of a political system based entirely on selfishness and indifference, on the hoarding of wealth and property. It is what happens when government persuades the public that it is the problem.

The Pussy Grabber, Boris the Bonker, Schmo Morrison and dreamers of the alt-right all struggled to come to terms with the alarming rate at which coronavirus is spreading. Their denialism is instinctive and they only pulled out their fingers when it was too late.

There in the prime ministerial courtyard of Parliament House, Scott Morrison finally admitted his world had crumbled. ‘Life is changing in Australia, as it is changing all around the world,’ he began his news conference midweek. ‘Life is going to continue to change as we deal with the global coronavirus.’

For decades, Australians have been sold an imagined poverty. We have been told we need to ‘rein in’ government spending – that if we want to spend more on health or education, we will need to spend less on the age pension or childcare. But the reality is that if we had a bigger public sector today, we would be better prepared to weather the health and economic crises triggered by the coronavirus.

This was the week the virus tipped over, morphing from the biggest story in the world to the only story in the world. There was only the virus. And the fear and the panic, which have begun to take on a life of their own. The gap is troublesome – the vast chasm between the health threat posed by COVID-19 and the intense response provoked, so far beyond anything seen before.