Plenty is being hidden from the Australian public.
TLDR: The Australian governments aren't sharing the research and modelling behind their "expert advice". And they aren't telling us their strategy for dealing with the crisis, especially the long term goals and how we get out of this mess.
While I don't think the governments (federal and state) have done a terrible job, even if I disagree with what appears to be our strategy, the two areas that they can be criticised for are about transparency.
The first is about how they are making their decisions. They say they are following "expert medical advice". But they won't show us what this advice says. The PM was directly asked about the modelling they were following and refused to give a straight answer, falling back on the "expert advice" line. This is in stark contrast to NZ, for example, where they have published their modelling for all to see (with caveats about how there is a wide degree of uncertainty).
It is a little misleading for them to say they are relying on expert medical advice when they won't provide that advice. The AHPPC is not a neutral, medical research and response group. It is part of the government and looks at implementing government policy. The Group of Eight, who the government uses purely for medical advice, advised that we go in to immediate lock down. The AHPPC doesn't believe this is "proportionate", which is to say, cost effective, rather than that it is the best medical advice. Which implies the government has access to some modelling about the costs and benefits of their policy, but they are not sharing it.
The second area where they are not telling the Australian public all they could, is their overall strategy, especially their long term goal. Sure, they tell us they are trying to save lives and jobs, but that is an aspiration, not a strategy. Again, if you contrast with NZ, NZ laid out a complete list of stages of response and what would happen at each stage. Our government said something like "We are at level 2 now because people aren't doing the right thing. Don't make us go to level 3. We'll tell you what that looks like when we get there".
It ties in with them not showing us the research behind their decision making, but the key strategic element they are not sharing is the long term goal. Sure, things are fluid and can change, and predictions will turn out to be widely off. But that hopefully doesn't mean the government doesn't have long term goals. Just they are not sharing them.
That Professor Blakely who Hildebrand was citing as a source for comfort for us all, says that the government has obviously followed a mitigation strategy of flattening the curve, though the government themselves aren't telling us that. It leaves me to speculate if they aren't sharing because the strategy seems to have some grim future predictions. Blakely predicts under that strategy we will have 30 000 (mostly young and middle aged, if a strategy to protect the old and drive down total deaths is used) to 130 000 deaths, peaking around October with hundreds of thousands of cases per day, with extreme social isolation measures like the ones we are in now going on, until the end of the year, possibly into next year.
If that is the strategy we are following, no wonder they aren't sharing. I hope that is incorrect, and there is better news than that. It would be nice if the governments would tell us what this better news is.
