Last week I quit my job as an economist in the Victorian Department of Finance and Treasury so that I would be free to speak out against the state’s management of the COVID-19 infection.
I had made a number
of criticisms of the state government on social media. The head of
human relations at Treasury asked me to remove them. I considered
deleting the few direct criticisms, but they wanted all indirect
criticism removed too. I resigned on the same day, the only honourable
course for a free citizen of Australia. I never dreamed I would see some
of the tactics being used to defend the state’s health. .....
So what happens now? Billions of dollars in income and wealth have been wiped out in the name of a virus that is no worse than the Asian flu and which can (even now) be managed by isolating the elderly and taking a range of voluntary, innovative measures. All the border closures, all the lockdowns, all the curfews in Melbourne will not eradicate the virus from planet Earth.
The problem for politicians now is to reverse course without losing their job. I don’t know how they plan to do it but if they don’t do it sooner rather than later the damage to Australia’s future would have become so great it would undo the good work of decades of reform."
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