Peter Law opinion: Doctor Clay Golledge broke golden rule in war with Premier Mark McGowan but border must fall at some point

“Never, never go to the nazis.” That’s the lesson infectious diseases specialist Clay Golledge is learning the hard way this week after he likened the McGowan Government’s border closure to nazi Germany. The senior doctor appeared ashen-faced when interviewed by 7NEWS reporter Geof Parry outside his home today as the potential consequences of his moment of Twitter madness dawned on him. The tweet that apparently threatens his career was posted on Monday night, hours after Mark McGowan announced all coronavirus restrictions — except the hard border — would be removed on July 18. “So phase 4 is out and of course it’s all due to our hard border that we can do this or that is what the Premier would have you believe,” Golledge tweeted. “We have seen a somewhat anodyne underperformer transmogrify into a messianic megalomaniac that will lead us to salvation ... unless you are in hospitality, tourism or associated businesses or have family, friends and loved ones over east. “Good people can be brainwashed into believing the spin. We saw an extreme example of this in Germany in 1933.” It’s those last 11 words that have plunged the doctor into a world of pain. As a stunned Tourism Minister Paul Papalia said: “Never, never go to the nazis.” There’s no doubt his moment of online stupidity was offensive and he had to apologise. But if we park the nazi comparison, his broader point is worth exploring. Golledge appeared on The West Live the following day to insist he was not likening McGowan to Adolf Hitler, but simply saying “people can get fooled on mass” and we need to be “careful about charismatic leaders”. “Mark McGowan is a very smart, astute politician who can sniff the wind of popularity and let’s face it, politicians exist to get re-elected. That’s their raison d'être, to get re-elected, and to get re-elected they have to be popular,” he told host Jenna Clarke. He argued the hard borders had “done their job” in buying time for the health system to get ready and with only 16 coronavirus patients in hospital across Australia it was time WA was reunited with the rest of the country to avoid more damage to the economy. “But people just don’t believe it, people just want to feel cocooned and safe and trust in what the Premier is saying and trust in what (WA’s Chief Health Officer) Andy Robertson is saying as well, which is in contradiction to majority expert medical opinion across the country,” he said. Golledge continued: “What most West Australians don’t understand is how much it is hurting not just the economy of our State but nationally as well. We are going to be digging ourselves out of this hole for years to come if we stay locked down like this. “We have to accept that we are in a suppression model phase, not an eradication phase. That means we deal with the little outbreaks as they come ... we’ve got to accept suppression and accept that it will not be a perfect world, but it will not be a world of anarchy like the UK or the US.” Golledge went on to say that while the border should be lifted to allow free travel within Australia, “we don’t let people go berserk” by going to nightclubs or packing out stadiums. This, I believe, is the nub of the issue — McGowan had a choice. He could have lifted the borders in July in line with every other State and Territory to allow a level of endemic virus to again circulate. That scenario would inevitably need to be managed through continued suppression. Instead, as we learnt on Monday, life will go back to normal in WA in just over three weeks. It’s expected this will be marked with a sellout western derby at Optus Stadium. For those of us with no desire to travel and whose livelihoods doesn’t rely on interstate movement, this is unashamedly welcome news. We’re now even dreaming of luring the AFL grand final to Perth. But as I wrote here last week, McGowan — and the rest of us — remain boxed into a corner over the border and as long as community transmission continues in Victoria there’s no obvious way out. McGowan might have looked like Muhammad Ali doing a “rope-a-dope” this week but the glow he enjoys each time restrictions are lifted soon fades. The Premier told us he had planned to announce August 8 as the tentative date for lifting the border, but that was delayed because of the “dire” situation in Melbourne. There was no explanation for how he came to circle that day on the calendar. It was also unclear what had changed in Dr Robertson’s advice that other jurisdictions must record 28 days without community transmission before the border could come down. I don’t accept Golledge’s claim that West Australians are being brainwashed by a charismatic politician into being so scared of COVID-19 that they want to remain cut-off indefinitely. Instead, I believe most people understand there is a trade-off: life can go back to what it was like before coronavirus if we keep the borders shut. But there will come a point in the coming months where this is simply not sustainable. Only then will we know what our “new normal” really looks like.