national economy
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews (Image: AAP/James Ross)

The Australian response to the coronavirus should be, by any rational assessment, a cause for pride. We're not a boutique little island like New Zealand. We're a continent nation with two major global travel hubs in Melbourne and Sydney.

Had we had a fully anti-science populist prime minister -- i.e. the one we will have, gifted by Murdoch, in 10 years -- or a couple of premiers of the same stripe, disaster would have been possible.

Terrible mistakes have been made but then corrected. The virus has revealed gaping holes in state process with regard to such emergencies, and they've been responded to, in varying degrees, in real time.