But there was a failure to lay the groundwork for a clear plan B, instead leaving uncertainty and confusion buttressed by spin and overblown fear.
There has been much talk of “learning from the mistakes of the east” but there are already calls for the rules around close contacts and isolation to change with low levels of Omicron circulating behind closed borders because of workforce disruption.
Yesterday it was revealed the rules of international students will change for the third time in a week, adding to the impression that it was all being made up on the fly.
This government runs a masterful media operation but too often that is all it runs; content to dominate the day with “lines” rather than thinking strategically about the longer term.
This tendency is exacerbated by the crisis-response nature of COVID-19, where policy by necessity is developed quickly, concentrated in a handful of key people in DPC, WA Police and Health who have been going non-stop for two years without the time or space to step back and take a longer view.
Has as much institutional effort been put into preparing for COVID’s arrival as has been keeping it out? We will find out soon enough.
While he appeared to have cover from giants BHP and Rio Tinto, other parts of the mining industry have been critical of the border delay.
Set to quit town: Woodside chairman Richard Goyder, who is also chairman of the AFL Commission.Credit:Getty Images
Many operations have been running on thin human margins for months now and their workforces are tired and need reinforcements.
Large corporations have found it difficult to attract talent from outside the state for six-figure mid-to-senior tier roles because qualified candidates are baulking at the uncertainty of the border situation.
The constant harping about “the East” and the idea the rest of the country is irrelevant to us is about to crash into some tangible economic reality, brought about by all things, the weather.
The idea the west can do without the east is as ignorant as the failure the other way to comprehend WA’s resources sector’s contributions to tax revenues, superannuation savings, national exports and the balance of payments.
Both notions need to die in the interests of national unity and social and economic reality.
A ‘one in 200 year’ rainfall event of more than 200 millimetres at Tarcoola in South Australia has knocked out the freight rail line that connects Adelaide to Darwin and Perth.
This is no small deal because 80 per cent of the containers filled with all manner of consumer goods that travel from east to west do so by rail, not road.
“For context, we operate 50 return services between Adelaide and Perth each week,” the chief executive of rail operator Pacific National Paul Scurrah told 6PR Breakfast listeners on Tuesday.
“They are 1.8 kilometre trains, they have 330 containers on them that are double-stacked. It’s huge volumes.
“Each one of those 330 containers has 1500 cases of beer on it, has 25,000 rolls of toilet paper on it or 15,000 cans of food. 900 boxes of bananas would fit in one of those containers.
“The point being the supply chains in our country are fairly fragile.”
They have been even more fragile in recent weeks with so many truck drivers, meat workers and logistics staff taken out by either Omicron infections or isolation requirements – a point Mark McGowan has made in WA’s COVID-zero favour.
But trucking industry sources say there is growing weariness among truckies with WA’s testing and isolation regime, meaning more are staying on the eastern seaboard, which has mostly moved on.
WA Transport Minister Rita Saffioti said: “There is a lot of volume that goes to shopping centres and distribution centres that comes by rail.
“So, we are working really well with the Commonwealth and also the South Australian government, as well as other governments, looking at all sorts of different options … We’re all in this together.”
That’s the spirit.
As top end of town abandons him, McGowan finds himself on wobbly economic tracks
Source: Philippines Alive
