Politicians are elected to lead, not hide behind the boffins

Governments have made a mantra out of following expert advice. Their job is to weigh up expertise, not to pick some and ignore the rest.

By Saul Eslake 14 June 2021 Australian Financial Review

Australia has for the most part been well-served by the willingness of the federal, state and territory governments of both major political persuasions to be guided by advice from epidemiologists and other medical experts in their responses to COVID-19.

That approach stands in stark contrast to that of the Trump administration in the US and, at least initially, the Johnson government in Britain (among others). And the results – 1179 cases and 36 deaths per million population in Australia compared with 100,356 cases and 1793 deaths per million in the US, and 66,134 cases and 1,886 deaths per million in the UK – bear out the wisdom of Australian governments’ willingness to follow “medical advice” (although there have been other factors involved in these differences).

However, more than a year after the onset of the pandemic, it may be appropriate to question the continued unquestioning reliance on “the medical advice” as the rationale for every government decision pertaining to the pandemic.

In the first place, such advice is far from uniform or monolithic. All along, the advice given to premiers and chief ministers by their respective chief medical officers has clearly differed – as evident from the differing willingness of various state governments to enforce lockdowns in response to virus outbreaks.

As one example, Tasmania is the only jurisdiction in Australia which deems it necessary to require everyone arriving in that state to apply for what amounts to a visa. The Tasmanian government has not, so far, thought it necessary to explain why it thinks it necessary to impose a requirement that no other state or territory government has done – beyond the focus-group-tested cliches about “making no apology” for “doing whatever it takes” to “keep Tasmanians safe”.

But it is becoming increasingly clear that there are serious differences of opinion among medical experts and epidemiologists as to, for example, the length of time for which Australia’s international borders remain closed.

The federal government insists that its intention to keep Australia’s borders closed until after the next election is based on “medical advice”.

We shouldn’t blindly assume that all the ‘medical advice’ available to the government is what the government says it is.

But that isn’t the opinion of all the “medical advisers” upon whom the government has chosen to rely.

For example, Nick Coatsworth, formerly the federal deputy chief medical officer, last month told the Royal Australian College of Surgeons that “we must not resist” pressure to open our borders “when a significant majority of our community is vaccinated” – which in last month’s budget was assumed to be “by the end of the year”. On the contrary, he said, “we [the medical profession] should be leading the calls” for reopening Australia’s borders.

Similarly Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton has been reported as telling healthcare workers that Australia must at some point “abandon its fortress Australia approach” and that “a time would come when the Commonwealth would have to reopen international borders and accept that there would be cases of COVID-19″.

So we shouldn’t blindly assume that all the “medical advice” available to the government is what the government says it is.

In this area, as in almost all others, governments can, and evidently do, pick and choose what advice they seek out, from whom, and what advice they accept or reject.

The second important point is that in every area of government policy and public administration, democratically elected governments ordinarily do not base their decisions solely on the advice of “experts”.

Rejected advice

Governments routinely and regularly reject the advice of their own economic experts in Treasury, other departments, the Productivity Commission, and the Reserve Bank. Often that’s because such advice conflicts with governments’ political objectives and priorities. Sometimes it’s because governments (properly) choose to give greater weight to other considerations (including social, environmental, or national security concerns which the expert opinions of economists cannot be expected to cover.

Governments frequently reject at least some of the recommendations of royal commissions they themselves have established (most recently into aged care quality and safety), and which are typically led by people who are either experts in the matters being inquired into, or (as serving or retired senior judges) have a demonstrated capacity to seek out and examine evidence and draw the right conclusions from it.

The Morrison government rejected, ignored, or at the very least failed to act on the recommendations of the review of hotel quarantine by Jane Halton, whom it presumably (and if so, rightly) regards as an “expert” on matters of public administration (including as a result of having previously been secretary of the Department of Health).

This government has consistently rejected the overwhelming consensus of scientific advice regarding the urgency of action on climate change – because, it says, it gives greater weight to other considerations (including the impact on communities heavily reliant on the production of fossil fuels, and on electricity prices).

And governments have also routinely rejected the advice of health experts in other areas. If they had meticulously followed “medical advice”, cigarettes and other tobacco products would be a lot harder to buy (legally) than they are, and there would be a lot less sugar in soft drinks, for example. In doing so, governments have (presumably) weighed up the advice from medical experts as to the lives that might be improved or saved, and the acute healthcare costs avoided, against other considerations.

Various factors must be weighed

And so, with absolutely no disrespect to the undoubted expertise of the government’s medical advisers in the areas in which they are indeed experts, their advice shouldn’t be the only thing governments take into account in deciding, for example, when to open Australia’s international borders, or for how long Australians are to be subject to ongoing surveillance of where they go and whom they meet.

Nor is it reasonable to expect the government’s medical advisers to have taken those considerations into account when offering their professional advice to ministers. That’s the responsibility of ministers, not subject-matter experts.

The real point is that, in democratic societies, people entrust the responsibility for making momentous decisions of this nature – decisions they cannot make individually – to elected representatives, whom they expect to weigh up “expert advice” from various fields of expertise against other considerations, not least among them the fundamental rights and freedoms we tell ourselves every Anzac Day that our forebears risked (and in so many cases gave) their lives to uphold and defend.

If our elected representatives aren’t prepared to do that – preferring instead to pick and choose which “experts” they are going to rely on, and then use those experts as an excuse not to make their own considered decisions – we might as well just hand the job over to unelected technocrats (as some other countries choose to do).

But we couldn’t call that democracy.

Original article here