Opinion: You won't like this but you need to read it, because it is a warning that touches your life.
Australia is floundering, stumbling about in a fog. The country may well be seriously broken, and has certainly changed forever.
But nowhere is feet-on-the ground work being done to assess what that means and how to cope with it.
Ignoring a problem does not fix it but there is the sniff of an answer. I will get to that later.
What has emerged, and is not being faced, is a form of community wide PTSD - post traumatic stress syndrome.
https://omny.fm/shows/neil-mitchell-asks-why/why-brian-mcnamee-is-still-frustrated-at-the-victo/embedIt is driven by years of horror, deprivation, suffering and uncertainty around the COVID-19 pandemic which politicians and the public are trying so hard to ignore they are endangering our hope of a cohesive future.
The politicians made so many errors during the pandemic crisis, including massive and unnecessary assaults on basic human rights, that the last thing they want to do is revisit them and answer to them.
The public has a different reason to ignore what should be ignored. Just the mention of COVID-19 triggers horrible memories, as people still struggle with the devastating financial and mental health backlash.
Most people want to put those hideous days of pandemic panic behind them.
Who can blame them?
But, the pandemic continues to bite, and not only in hospital wards and mortuaries.
Government needs to look at the dramatic interventions we all endured, the fractured nature of the states and the national cabinet, and then dump the spin long enough to assess whether it all worked
Some employers report the work ethic has changed since the COVID-19 days of "free money" and the wide introduction of working from home. Productivity, the pulse of any economy, is threatened.
The streets have become more violent. The public mood has soured. In Victoria home invasions are soaring. Serious stabbings have increased.
Around the country kids stacking shelves in supermarkets are being threatened and abused. Shops have signs warning customers to treat staff decently.
School refusal has increased. Road rage is back . Average people are treating average people with disdain and aggression. What? In good old egalitarian Australia?
But it doesn't stop at public mood. The world economy is in confusion, in part as a pandemic hang over. The health system is staggering, and showing signs of a critical lack of self confidence.
I won't revisit what happened in those bad years. But many people suffered lifelong hurt, like watching family die on an iPad and then being unable to attend the funeral. We have our memories.
Much of the horrible measures were needed in the early days of medical ignorance around this awful virus, But in later months some leaders seem to wallow in the unquestioned and brutal power. Democracy was frozen.
So now, we need to peer through this fog long enough to do two things.
One, assess the community damage and work out how to deal with it.
And two, commission a full medical and political review of what was done, what worked, and how to prepare for the next pandemic.
Neither is being done properly, or with any enthusiasm.
'We have to hold a proper review of what was done and why so we can learn from it'
Dr Brian McNamee, an under-acknowledged businessman who deserves to be called one of the best in Australian history, is now chair of the pharmacological company CSL. He has built this from a $23 million business to an international monster worth $145 billion.
He is a qualified doctor of medicine and understands this industry of drugs and drug development better than most in Australia. His company produced AstraZeneca vaccine during the pandemic.
Now, he deserves to be heard as he rings alarm bells. Dr McNamee agreed to a very rare interview with me on my podcast "Neil Mitchell Asks Why?" . It is online now.
This is his key point on the pandemic aftermath:
"It was in my view outrageous a lot of the things that were done.
"We spent so much money, we locked people up for so long. A lot of people failed to go to funerals of relatives. Playgrounds were closed. We had a set of policies unreasonable in a democracy.
"I think we have to hold a proper review of what was done and why so we can learn from it."
Bizarrely, Dr McNamee was not consulted during the pandemic. Not even a telephone call.
The better news is that he believes the medical assessment of the pandemic is underway and lessons are being learnt.
Sadly, not only has consultation been poor, it seems even now nobody in government is listening or acting with urgency.
The Australian Centre for Disease Control is being established but won't start serious work until next year. Its brief is vague and bureaucratic.
There is no indication it will assess the critical errors in policy and their lack of effectiveness.
And it has no brief for rebuilding the shattered community and the pain it still suffers. It must be broadened.
Dr McNamee is spot on: government needs to look at the dramatic interventions we all endured, the fractured nature of the states and the national cabinet, and then dump the spin long enough to assess whether it all worked.
Then, there is the underlying PTSD.
How do we energise kids who see a future without hope or excitement?
How do we re-engage 8–10 year olds whose early years were spent learning in the living room?
How do we ensure 16-18 year olds emerge into the world on a friendly basis?
How do we address burnout? It is almost common now for senior executives and sports coaches, even a premier, to walk away with the belief there must be something better than this.
How do we re-establish vibrant cities and get more people back into the office with all the social benefits that brings?
Last week, there were 30,846 COVID-19 cases in Australia, and many more unreported. There were 196 deaths, 2743 in hospital. The slow burn of this wave is as dangerous as the occasional peaks. Long covid is a health tsunami waiting to hit.
We need to recognise that too, not ignore it.
No politician will bring back masks, or reduce numbers for dinner at the pub. I get that. We have to live with this.
But the errors can't simply be ignored. Inevitably another pandemic will come. The world must be prepared and have a better understanding of what that could mean.
Here's the beginning of a plan
Each government should appoint a minister for COVID-19 recovery, responsible for the community PTSD, the medicine, and the economic effects of the post pandemic era.
They should meet monthly as a group, like a national crisis cabinet, to assess where the country is going and whether enough is being done to understand what went on over those dark times and how people are coping.
It is staggering this hasn't already happened. The politicians are too busy ignoring the bad days to ensure there are much better ones ahead.
This was arguably the most significant event in our history. It touched every life directly.
The health crisis continues and the community crisis is developing. To any politicians who think we do not need to assess the mistakes and establish what amounts to a Centre for Covid Recovery I recommend this:
Look at the half-empty cities and the thousands working from home. Look at the faces of the kids, and the teachers and the shoppers and retail workers.
Dig out the crime figures and see how respect for social order is faltering. Talk to industry about the simmering community anger and the withering productivity.
There's a country out there going about its business. But at times it barely resembles Australia.
On his podcast "Neil Mitchell Asks Why?" the commentator and radio host interviews well-known and interesting guests to find out why they made the choices they made.
Neil Mitchell broadcasts on 3AW from 8.30am weekdays.
