The ACT went into its first lockdown days after our first COVID-19 case. It wasn’t our last rodeo. Photo: Michelle Kroll.
Oh, the pearl-clutching. The assault on democracy that took us so close to tyranny. How did we get through it? The weirdness. The norms. Won’t somebody please think of the norms?
Oh, for the love of all that’s holy, stop it.
The Scott Morrison “power grab” whining has been going on for weeks now – it seems to be the only issue the Albanese Government is truly committed to.
Of course, this makes sense. It’s always fun to whack your opponents, especially when they give you the bat and drop their dacks. It’s also well accepted that Morrison hasn’t a leg to stand on. Norms, after all. Where would we be without them?
And there are so many questions.
Why take over so many ministries? Why indeed. Was he worried his Cabinet would succumb to the virus? Maybe – but he had the same chance of being felled as they did.
Was it a “power grab” as so many have suggested? Not at all.
True we have a Westminster system and the prime minister is first among equals, but the PM really isn’t an ‘equal’. Not in reality.
Remember the words of Churchill who noted that the position of the prime minister is unique: “If he trips he must be sustained; if he makes mistakes they must be covered; if he sleeps he must not be wantonly disturbed; if he is no good he must be poleaxed”.
Prime ministers have absolute power, which is why, when he didn’t know precisely what his prime minister said, Bill Shorten in April 2012 famously covered all bases with his PM, Julia Gillard: “I haven’t seen what she’s said but let me say I support what it is that she said.”
What was his view? “My view is what the prime minister’s view is.”
It was ridiculous. But Shorten was right. Contradicting your PM is a shortcut to the backbench.
So the most farcical aspect is that Morrison always had absolute authority. He didn’t need to be sworn in as Minister for Lint.
None of this makes the affair less galling. But not for the reasons you might think.
It’s galling because of the appeals to norms and the handwringing around how his actions upended the democratic process and how we do things in Australia.
Really?
Let’s go back. Some people seem to have forgotten the past few years.
We were quick to throw norms away like a used mask (after we’d worn it for a week). Photo: Michelle Kroll.
Morrison took the first of his 17 ministries (give or take a dozen) on 14 March 2020.
Less than a week later, Australians returning to Australia – that is, their homes, their country – were ordered into hotel quarantine. Some could not return for months.
Does that sound like a norm?
On 30 March 2020, Morrison became defacto finance minister. That was the day JobKeeper was born and six million Australians became government funded.
Does that sound like a norm?
In September 2020, a Ballina-based woman was compelled to travel to Sydney rather than Brisbane for urgent medical attention for her unborn twins because the Queensland border was closed to people from NSW. She lost one of her children.
“People living in NSW they have NSW hospitals. In Queensland we have Queensland hospitals for our people,” Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said.
Wrap your head around that for a second.
Does that sound like a norm?
Checkpoints at the ACT/NSW border … what were you saying about ‘unAustralian’? Photo: Michelle Kroll.
In August 2021, 300 soldiers hit the streets with police in Cabramatta to make sure people stayed locked in their homes. Brigadier Mick Garraway said the ADF wasn’t working as law enforcement officers but rather a “disciplined” support task force. Oh, that’s a relief.
Does that sound like a norm?
In September 2021, Victoria Police fired rubber bullets and beat protestors in the street because they didn’t want to be locked down and forced to take a vaccine (which, incidentally, doesn’t do what they said it would do, but we all took it, right?). They wanted to protest – which used to be a right – but were batonned and tear-gassed instead.
Does that sound like a norm?
In October 2021, Victoria ended its sixth lockdown. After hundreds of days locked in their homes, only able to leave when they had an excuse. After Australians were being tracked by their government with drones and attendees at BBQs checked by police, a state government granted ‘freedoms’, including being able to have 10 people in your home.
And you could go to a pub. If you were vaccinated. Which you had to prove.
Does that sound like a norm?
And that’s even before we get to the countless birthdays, weddings, funerals and death-bed goodbyes that governments and their cheerleaders insisted you miss. You wouldn’t want a dying cancer patient to catch COVID a day before they passed as their loved ones held their hand for the last time.
And don’t think about how many medical appointments were missed and surgeries postponed on the say-so of a far-off chief medical officer who wouldn’t know you or your needs from Adam.
So was what Morrison did weird? Sure, grab the Roget’s Thesaurus and go your hardest. Strange. Astonishing. Bizarre. Whatever.
But wouldn’t it have been great if those whiners who now have such great passion for rights and norms and traditions and the Constitution had the same energy and passion to stand up for the rights that were trampled over the past few years? Such as the right to free speech if you dared have some questions about the origin of the virus, or government “solutions” to “keep us safe”?
Instead, many in the media waved the flag and begged to be locked down harder, daddy, asked for masks to be compulsory (some still do) and for segregation by vaccination status.
If you’re sweating bricks now over what Morrison did, were you this upset when other norms were being trampled?
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