IN August this year, South Australian Senator Rex Patrick sought details of National Cabinet deliberations, using the Freedom of Information process.
In September, the Morrison government introduced a COAG Legislation Amendment Bill, which critics noted would keep National Cabinet beyond any FOI scrutiny.
The Bill went to a committee, and is not yet law.
We mention this because it looks increasingly as though the Commonwealth and the various state and territory governments are in the midst of a coordinated change in approach on COVID.
From the time the first cases arrived on our shores two years ago next month, Australia has used a containment strategy that was criticised as too-hardline by its opponents but recognised globally for our success in keeping coronavirus at bay.
Now, however, we see leaders in various states and territories using remarkably similar language that would have us "living with" or "living beside" the virus.
Yes, we know that National Cabinet has endorsed plans to "reopen" the country, but we don't know everything that is put before its members that give them the confidence to endorse a new more relaxed stance that Newcastle academic and Medical Journal of Australia editor-in-chief Nick Talley describes today as "ridiculous".
And if the COAG Bill is passed as recommended by the committee - but against the dissenting reports of Senator Patrick, Labor and the Greens - it could be 20 years or more before the National Cabinet's deliberations are opened in the archives.
In the meantime, the nation is seeing a rapid increase in COVID cases in all jurisdictions except for Western Australia, which in the view of its Newcastle-born Premier Mark McGowan is doing pretty well in its isolation.
Evidence is certainly amassing to show that Omicron is a less-damaging version of COVID than previous strains but Delta is still in the community.
COVID CATCH-UP:
- Perrottet hits out at Queensland border delays
- SA has 995 cases with 36 in hospital
- National snapshot
- UK hanging on to New Year before changes
- Two-thirds of NSW ICU COVID patients unvaccinated
But the health system is increasingly stretched - witness the "false negatives" blunders of recent days - and case numbers are rising by 10,000 a day nationally, regardless of the "personal responsibility" each of us are taking.
If Omicron was uniformly mild, and everyone was vaccinated, "letting it rip" might be justifiable.
Instead, what we have now is Russian roulette by virus.
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