The grim tweeter
Does Australia need to have a conversation about an acceptable national death toll?

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has sparked fresh controversy with her latest pushback against the “national plan”, including a misleading use of the Doherty Institute figures. After yesterday calling for further research into how COVID-19 will spread among unvaccinated children, while suggesting that she might keep her border closed until kids are vaccinated, Palaszczuk has today doubled down, telling the state parliament she wanted a detailed paper about the effects of the Delta strain on children. She then tweeted out dramatic death rates she claimed the modelling “predicts” six months into an outbreak, under the NSW “model”: 80 deaths per day, or 2240 per month. These latest comments – from the same state that brought you “young people shouldn’t take AstraZeneca or else they might die” – has sparked widespread frustration, with Palaszczuk accused of “scaremongering” and intentionally misrepresenting the modelling. There is no doubt that the Queensland premier is being alarmist here, as the dramatic figures are based on minimal restrictions and only partially effective TTIQ capabilities (test, trace, isolate and quarantine). This is far from what is being planned, even in freedom-happy NSW. But could her inflammatory use of the numbers have a purpose in triggering a conversation about what exactly is the acceptable death toll? The other side of this debate, in refusing to share or even talk about worst-case scenarios, may be keeping Australians in the dark about what is to come. Just how many deaths are governments – both state and federal – willing to accept? And what will the public accept?

Palaszczuk’s latest comments have been widely condemned, and the federal government was quick to call her out for fearmongering. (And her remarks conveniently play into the Morrison government’s attempts to depict Labor as fearful and unreasonable when it comes to opening up the country.) In today’s federal COVID press conference, Health Minister Greg Hunt noted that the “selective misuse” of the modelling “breaches good faith and damages public confidence”, and he pushed back against the suggestion that children had not been considered in the plan, insisting they were not at great risk from the virus.

Meanwhile, federal Labor figures, who have been working to shake off the perception (enabled by Queensland and WA) that Labor is “against the plan”, were asked about Palaszczuk’s comments throughout the day. Labor leader Anthony Albanese, attempting to hold a doorstop to talk about his proposed defence force review, refused to be drawn on whether the premier was out of line, stating that he supported the plan but that more work was needed on how and when children were going to be vaccinated. (“We do need to open up when it is safe to do so”, he added.) Shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers, a Queenslander himself, also refused to say that the comments were scaremongering, saying only that the premier was reflecting genuine anxiety within the community.

There is no doubt that Palaszczuk is cherrypicking from the Doherty Institute modelling (as everyone is wont to do, it seems), painting an alarming portrait of what life would be like if the nation reopened at the 70 per cent threshold, and at the same time pushing for the threshold to be higher and to include children. As Guardian Australia’s Katharine Murphy has pointed out, the figure in question (80 deaths per day after six months at a 70 per cent vaccination rate) does come from the modelling, but it’s based on a scenario where only a partial TTIQ regime is in place (something that could very well happen, if cases rise beyond the capacity of the contact-tracing system, as they seem to be doing in NSW). The modelling, Murphy notes, doesn’t actually make forecasts; it only lays out different scenarios, with the number of deaths in the first six months varying from 13 to 1457 depending on inputs. But ultimately that raises a question, one that the federal and NSW governments don’t seem to want to answer: what number are we aiming for, and what restrictions are we willing to leave in place to achieve that? NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian spends a great deal of time talking about the need to come to terms with COVID deaths, claiming she is leading the debate and being brave and honest enough to say difficult things. But how many deaths is she actually talking about? It’s not particularly brave or honest to talk about death in the abstract, while refusing to acknowledge the actual numbers and how those numbers will be affected by different courses of actions. (A reminder here that Berejiklian won’t even reveal the worst-case scenario predicted for October.)

Palaszczuk has rightfully copped a lot of flak for her inflammatory numbers – numbers that are most likely beyond what even Josh “open up by Christmas or else” Frydenberg would accept (although it’s hard to say, with the treasurer still refusing to guarantee support for future lockdowns under any circumstances). But perhaps her provocative tweet can provoke a proper conversation about what is actually coming next – what death toll is realistic, what death toll is acceptable, and what are we willing to sacrifice to keep the toll acceptable. While polls have been quizzing voters on what they think of the national plan and the importance of ending of lockdowns, Guardian Australia’s Essential Poll is the only one that has so far checked with Australians about what level of death they would countenance, with the majority (61 per cent) preferring that it stays under 100 per year. Berejiklian, the woman who is supposedly leading us out of this, has talked about the need to start focusing not on case numbers, but on deaths. So let’s start talking about them.

---

GOOD OPINION Time to act “Family and sexual violence in Australia is endemic … it should be treated as something that’s business as usual for governments to find solutions to and provide funding for.” Nine Media Jacqui Watt, chief executive of No To Violence, says previous national plans to reduce violence against women and children have failed to make a difference, as experts call for more concrete action ahead of next week’s national summit. BAD OPINION Malcolm in a muddle “Senator Hanson and I actually want something meaningful and strong that gets the money back, gets the money back to the people’s government.” AFR After blocking plans for a JobKeeper register with a last-minute amendment limiting disclosure to publicly listed firms (which are already required to include JobKeeper funds in public reports), Senator Malcolm Roberts says One Nation wants to establish “a real audit” of JobKeeper. What went wrong with Australia’s withdrawal from Afghanistan Coalition forces had been planning their withdrawal from Afghanistan for months, but it’s now emerged that intelligence reports failed to forecast how quickly the country would fall, and the impact that would have on the evacuation. LISTEN NOW The Number 114 The number of days Sydney will have been in lockdown if stay-at-home orders are extended until October 18, when NSW is expected to have fully vaccinated 70 per cent of over-16s. If so, Sydney would surpass Melbourne’s 112-day ordeal from last year. ABC News The Policy Govt pursues national cabinet secrecy “Where Commonwealth legislation makes provisions to protect from disclosure the deliberations and decisions of the cabinet and its committees, these provisions apply to the deliberations and decisions of the committee of cabinet known as the national cabinet.” Guardian Australia The government has introduced the COAG Legislation Amendment Bill 2021, aimed at ensuring national cabinet’s right to cabinet confidentiality, and circumventing independent Senator Rex Patrick’s Administrative Appeals Tribunal win. The list   Books Desire’s conspiracies: ‘The Right to Sex’ “In 2018, philosopher Amia Srinivasan published an essay in the London Review of Books titled ‘The Right to Sex’ … I found it revelatory. In a sea of hot takes responding to Rodger’s words and actions with understandably righteous outrage, Srinivasan’s approach was one of firm and serious probing. One of the core questions it asks is: if nobody is entitled to sex, and individual choice is the paramount consideration for each sexual interaction, how do we make sense of the fact that some people are discriminated against to the extent that they are denied affection and intimacy? What is the middle zone in which we grapple with how our preferences are shaped by social and cultural forces? If the conversation is only about consent, what do we do with the politics of desire?” The Monthly Politics Morrison’s path to victory “Morrison has done almost everything badly since he emerged as the Liberals’ compromise candidate out of the ashes of the party’s culture war over Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull. As McGowan keeps pointing out, Morrison repeatedly misleads: even at a 70 or 80 per cent vaccination rate, the removal of all restrictions and border closures – which is what Morrison and Berejiklian consistently imply – is not what the Doherty Institute or the national cabinet plan envisages. But last month Morrison became Australia’s longest-serving PM since Howard, which was something nobody could have predicted when he took over three years ago.” The Monthly News Afghans in Australia: ‘I am human first of all’ “Since he arrived in Australia Ali has called his mother in Kabul every day. In the past few months – as foreign troops withdrew and the Taliban conducted its swift and strategic takeover of the country – Ali’s conversations with his mother have become more and more distressing. She is anxious and afraid. She worries constantly that the Taliban will target her children. Belonging to the ethnic Hazara minority, the family is considered progressive in their pursuit of education, women’s rights and freedom of speech. ‘We value education,’ Ali says.”  The Saturday Paper