As NSW Treasurer, Dominic Perrottet, said recently with refreshing straightforwardness, “We've been incredibly successful during this pandemic but that doesn't mean that we rest on our laurels and sit still; we need to have our thinking evolve and look at new ways of doing things.”
Australia’s governments (politicians and the public service) have had over a year to stress-test worst-case scenarios to find the weakest links in our response to the pandemic, prepare for known knowns (such as quarantine and vaccination), and get back to work on other major challenges and opportunities facing the country. They have had 15 months to “have their thinking evolve” and to develop, test, and roll out solutions.
Two major issues now stand out: vaccination and quarantine.
From my personal experience two weeks ago, the NSW Government has aced the vaccination process. It clearly thought about it from the point of view of both the user (the NSW resident) and the public health need. It’s clear that multi-disciplinary teams developed and tested signage, queue management, and integration with existing NSW Government systems.
With this example of NSW’s success, it beggars belief that with so many months to prepare, the government that took on responsibility for vaccination (the Commonwealth Government) has been caught so flat-footed. Even if it’s not a race, why is Australia - one of the richest countries in the world - languishing at 111th worldwide when it comes to per capita vaccination rates? And, what are our governments doing about vaccine hesitancy when one-third of Australian adults say they are unlikely to get the vaccine?
Quarantine in the Northern Territory utilising the purpose-built Howard Springs quarantine facility has also been impressive. Experts were warning at the start of the pandemic that it would take at least a year – and more likely two – to get back to some normality globally. DFAT has always known there are thousands of Australians wanting to come home; more it seems than can be processed through current hotel quarantine arrangements. And for many months before governments accepted it, experts were explaining how airborne transmission of coronavirus make hotel quarantine not fit for purpose. Indeed, for every 204 infected travellers in hotel quarantine in Australia, there is one leak.
So, why has the government responsible for quarantine (the Commonwealth Government) been so firmly against dedicated quarantine facilities until the fourth lockdown in Victoria? Why wasn’t a cross-jurisdictional team mandated by National Cabinet in mid-2020 to create the specifications for a nationally-coordinated network of dedicated quarantine facilities, oversee transparent tendering, and start construction?
Finally, Australia cannot let the pandemic dominate public policy for another 15 months. As a country, we need to be doing more than one thing at once. Yes, we need to keep a keen eye on multiple facets of the Coronavirus – health, mental health, repatriating Australians overseas, jobs, and the economy. But we also need to get on with other reforms to ensure Australia can maximise and share its success across current and future generations, not just today and tomorrow but for the next 25 years and beyond.
This is why it is encouraging to see examples from NSW with the recent White Paper from the State’s Productivity Commission (itself an innovation by the NSW Government as recently as 2018) and the announcement of the Small Business Innovation Research program encouraging small and medium-sized enterprises to create solutions to five important challenges for the NSW Government from counting koalas to water purification.
Australia needs much more of this practical, forward thinking action and less of the “I don’t hold the hose” inaction, blame-shifting, and spin that has become all too common from political leaders, especially in Canberra.
Australia’s governments can start by adopting three approaches:
Create “the weakest link” units that include multiple departments / ministries, experts, and members of the public to continually update worst-case scenarios to reveal the weakest links in our response to the pandemic and develop appropriate responses – it’s hard to see any of Australia’s governments doing this well right now
Task inter-departmental and interdisciplinary teams specifically with preparing for known knowns in the medium-term response to the pandemic, with no need to focus on the immediate response (which is already covered by other arms of government) – NSW is showing the way here as demonstrated by its vaccination system
Mandate an arm of government to focus on the reforms and actions that are required beyond the pandemic to make the future Australians want and take any unnecessary ideology out of the implementation – again, the examples from NSW are encouraging