Revisiting the darkest days of the pandemic also brings back painful memories. The day that Australia closed its borders was also the day my wife and I first succumbed to COVID-19. In New York City,where we were living at the time,the pandemic was soon killing more than 800 people a day.
For all that,we still need to talk about COVID-19;both to make sure we have learnt the right lessons and to also understand the profound changes it has wrought.
Here in Australia,a country that prides itself on egalitarianism,the pandemic revealed its deep inequalities. The number of people who have died is three times higher among the “least advantaged” members of society than the “least disadvantaged,” according to the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The mortality rate for First Nations people is 1.6 times higher than for non-Indigenous people.
Fault Lines was the fitting title of the most authoritative report so far into the effects of the pandemic,which came from anindependent panel headed by Peter Shergold,the one-time secretary of the department of the prime minister. It found that women,children,aged care residents,people with disabilities,temporary migrants and multicultural communities bore the brunt.
The draining of superannuation funds was particularly prevalent in “the most financially disadvantaged parts of the country with the lowest superannuation balances”.
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In employment,the gender gap has been exacerbated. Australian women lost more jobs and working hours than men,and were also saddled with more unpaid work,such as home-schooling.
As well as exposing the country’s social,economic,gender and racial divides,COVID-19 led to a splintering of the nation. Western Australia and Queensland acted at times like they had issued their own declarations of independence.
“We will be turning Western Australia into its own island,within an island,” pronounced the state’s Labor premier,Mark McGowan,three years ago. “Our own country.”
Anthony Albanese has restored the primacy of the prime ministership. Remember when the 2021Australian Financial Review Power List elevated the state premiers above Scott Morrison? However,there are still times when Australia feels as much a state nation as a nation state. In February,as if to hammer home the point,WA announced its own “independent” inquiry into the pandemic.
A happier byproduct of the pandemic and its lockdowns is the emergence of a more community-oriented politics,as evidenced by the rise of the teals. This grassroots mobilisation has proven a good antidote to the toxic polarisation of the Morrison years,especially at a time when there is so much nation-rebuilding to be done.
Fortunately,the hermit kingdom of “fortress Australia” is no more. Over the past month,gloriously,Sydney played host to WorldPride. But I wonder whether Australia has yet fully reconnected with its roving diaspora,the expats who found it so hard at the height of the pandemic to return home.
Alas,we cannot simply turn the clock back to 2019 when few of us had heard of Wuhan province or Zoom. More than 15,000 people in Australia have died with or from the coronavirus. Lest we forget – because history tends to repeat.
Nick Bryant is a senior policy fellow at Sydney University.
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