(Staff article from The ABC NEWS on 01 September 2020.)
Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott has
called for COVID-19 restrictions to be relaxed, arguing officials have become
trapped in "crisis mode" and that governments need to consider
"uncomfortable questions" about the number of deaths they are
prepared to live with.
Mr Abbott said governments have approached the pandemic like "trauma doctors instead of thinking like health economists". He accused Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews of wanting to extend a "health dictatorship" by pushing for an extension of state of emergency powers. He said the media had spread "virus hysteria" and people should be allowed to make their own decisions when it comes to their own lives.
Speaking
in London to the UK think tank Policy Exchange, Mr Abbott said the media had
spread "virus hysteria" and people should be allowed to make their
own decisions. "From a health perspective, this pandemic has been serious.
From an economic perspective, it's been disastrous," he said.
"But
I suspect that it's from an overall wellbeing perspective that it will turn out
worst of all. Because this is what happens when for much more than a mere
moment, we let fear of falling sick stop us from being fully alive.
"Now
that each one of us has had six months to consider this pandemic, and to make
our own judgements about it, surely it's time to relax the rules so that
individuals can take more personal responsibility and make more of their own
decisions about the risks they're prepared to run."
Mr
Abbott said in hindsight, there had not been enough attention paid to keeping
coronavirus out of aged care facilities. But he questioned a strategy that he
argued had been adopted by most countries, of preserving "almost every
life at almost any cost."
"So
far, with Sweden the most notable exception, governments have approached the
pandemic like trauma doctors instead of thinking like health economists,
trained to pose uncomfortable questions about a level of deaths we might have
to live with," he said.
"Even if mandatory shutdown [in
Australia] really was all that avoided the initially predicted 150,000 deaths,
that still works out at about $2 million per life saved. And if the average age
of those who would have died is 80, even with roughly 10 years of expected life
left, that's still $200,000 per quality life year or substantially beyond what
governments are usually prepared to pay for life saving drugs."
Mr
Abbott argued governments had shifted from trying to flatten the curve to
achieving zero community transmission, a move he said had been justified by
following the medical advice of "unaccountable experts."
He
also said some officials were trapped in "crisis mode" longer than
they needed to be, because it boosted their public standing, and accused Victorian
Premier Daniel Andrews of wanting to extend a "health dictatorship"
by pushing for an extension of state of emergency powers.
"There
is absolutely no doubt that we had got to the stage in Australia of virtually
zero community transmission, until the extraordinary ineptitude of the
Victorian Government in the management of its hotel quarantine system produced
what has been the biggest outbreak in Australia so far, responded to with the
most severe lockdown tried anywhere in the world outside of Wuhan itself,"
he added.
He
said he applied for an exemption to Australia's international travel ban in the
"normal way" and that the trip, and his hotel quarantine on return,
would be privately funded. He also predicted Australia's borders would
gradually open over the next few months.
"The
Prime Minister today was in the papers saying that all internal border
restrictions should be gone at least by Christmas, if not sooner, and I suspect
that external border restrictions will be liberated as well," he said. "But
I think we can expect quarantine limitations and quarantine requirements to
exist for quite some time to come."
Police
have arrested more than a dozen protesters in Melbourne and Sydney, as hundreds
of people joined demonstrations against coronavirus restrictions across
Australia.
Hundreds of protesters marched from
Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance to Albert Park Lake. They were met by police
officers, who arrested 17 people and issued more than 160 fines. Smaller
anti-lockdown protests were also held in Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.
Earlier
today it was unclear how many people would be attending Melbourne's protests,
with some anti-lockdown groups shifting to online events ahead of the State
Government's roadmap announcement tomorrow.
However,
hundreds of people gathered at the Shrine of Remembrance in the city's CBD this
morning, despite warnings from health authorities. Around 300 protesters later
walked from the shrine to Albert Park Lake, where police made more arrests as
they attempted to contain the crowd.
In a
statement, Victoria Police said officers arrested 17 people, including one
person who was arrested for assaulting a police officer. Police issued more
than 160 infringement notices for breaches of the Chief Health Officer's
stay-at-home directions.
"As
a result of the protest, a police officer received lacerations to the head
after being assaulted by an individual who was in attendance," Victoria
Police said in a statement. "Our investigations into this protest will
continue, and we expect to issue further fines once the identity of individuals
has been confirmed."
The protest appeared to have dispersed by around 2:30pm, but a strong police presence remained around the Shrine of Remembrance. Many of the protesters were not wearing masks. Some chanted "freedom", while others shouted insults at the media.
A
woman at the Shrine of Remembrance was seen refusing to put a face mask on when
asked to by police, saying she was healthy and did not need to. "There's
no epidemic — it's just a pretext to keep us in lockdown," the woman told
reporters as she was leaving.
Police
officers on horseback met protesters at the shrine, and later near the lake,
and the ABC has witnessed several arrests. Interstate rallies held in
'solidarity' with Victorian protesters. In Sydney, NSW Police arrested a number
of people in Hyde Park and Olympic Park at protests staged in support of the
rallies in Melbourne.
Among
those arrested was a man who police say allegedly assaulted an officer. A
number of protesters are still demonstrating and the police operations are
ongoing. Hundreds of protesters also gathered at Brisbane's botanic gardens as
part of the 'Freedom Day' protest movement.
Around 200 people joined a peaceful protest in
Adelaide against coronavirus restrictions, a possible vaccine and privacy
breaches. In Perth, hundreds of people rallied at State Parliament as part of
the coordinated demonstrations.
Attendees Kenneth and Charmaine said they were there to "share our solidarity with our fellow human beings in Victoria". "They can't go about their own business, what they want to do, and we're concerned about that," they said. "Our economy is going to crash because if we don't start opening up borders and letting people have freedom of choice to do what they want to do, how are we going to exist?"
