Canberra has played host this week and last to lots of interstate anti-vaxxers and sundry other protestors (and whilst I’m on that, can someone please explain to me the significance of the Red Ensign flown upside down?). The protests have been fairly peaceful, but I have heard from security officers that they have been coughed and sputtered at by unmasked protestors and verbally abused. If the protestors carry on like the extinction rebellion rabble, they will not help their cause one jot.

Now I’m no anti-vaxxer. My wife, an ex-nurse, and I made sure our kids were always vaccinated and my godfather who spent his adult years in a wheelchair wished there had been a polio vaccination available when he was young. All my family have had our shots, in my wife’s case and mine, three of them.

I was, however, somewhat concerned to hear that the ACT Government seemed to be going down Comrade Dan Andrews’ Victorian path in seeking to extend and expand the emergency powers given to the Health Minister and Chief Medical Officer (an unelected official) in a bill introduced in December last year. In a sop to the concept of “community consultation”, the Assembly’s health committee was holding an enquiry into this bill but only gave contributors until 14 January to put in their submissions, i.e., during the Christmas period.

The ACT Government seems to have ample powers already to manage the pandemic and has generally done so effectively. There is a strong argument that they should be now looking to wind those powers back and now that we have all moved on, we should be looking for an end date to these very strong powers which have been given to unelected bureaucrats rather than extending them. Businesses must be supported and the Territory allowed to recover economically. We now need to get on with it. The fact this Territory has vaccination rates close to 99 per cent enables us to do so. 

I have argued before that it is for the elected government to decide what it needs to do to protect the community and unelected officials are there to give advice that a government either takes, ignores or varies. Arbitrary power can be abused by public servants. Governments need to be vigilant to ensure there are relevant checks and balances in place. Extending timeframes and granting new powers to unelected bureaucrats is unlikely to be the best way to go.

A similar measure drew thousands of protestors in Melbourne where police and other officials have hardly covered themselves in glory at times during this Covid crisis. Similar protests have not occurred locally, possibly because most people were simply not aware of the amendment as it was introduced so close to Christmas.

I hope the Assembly has a good hard look at this and does not just rubberstamp it as it often does these days on important issues.

with Bill Stefaniak

Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Canberra Daily.

Want to share your opinion on Bill’s article or any other local news?

Email [email protected] with ‘To the editor’ in the subject field; include your full name, phone number, street address (NFP) and suburb. Keep letters to 250 words maximum. Note, letters may be shortened if space restrictions dictate.