There exists a political opportunity to use the COVID-19 pandemic and its fallout to whip up hysteria and divide Australians – geographically, culturally, racially. So far, mainstream politicians have by and large avoided it, but it threatens to boil over at any moment. The “don’t come” signs popping up in regional towns are a sign of it, and this week’s alarmist language from federal agriculture minister David Littleproud, who called caravans the “cruise ships of the outback”, doesn’t help. The crackdown on Bondi backpackers is part of it, too. As is rising racial abuse, which Victorian premier Daniel Andrews today called out, tweeting: “A health crisis is not an excuse to be racist. We’ve seen some disgusting behaviour directed towards Asian-Australians over the past few months. And it’s getting worse.” Rising Sinophobia is also part of it, and the prime minister was on thin ice with 2GB’s Alan Jones this morning, agreeing furiously about the health threat from Chinese wet markets. 

Let’s give Scott Morrison the benefit of the doubt, since his language has been strenuously inclusive all week. “Every Australian matters,” the PM repeated many times today, when asked how he’d respond to those sideline narks suggesting the economic pain of lockdown and stimulus is not really worth it to save a few elderly people. Morrison also addressed the wet-market question in his press conference this afternoon, and was at pains to point out that he hadn’t raised it – Jones had. Not much of an excuse, but Morrison has repeatedly thanked the Chinese-Australian community for their response to the pandemic, saying on Wednesday, “They’ve showed us the way”.

Osmond Chiu at the think tank Per Capita writes today that COVID-19 has resulted in growing racism towards individuals of Chinese and East Asian descent around the world. “Australia has not been exempt from this trend,” he writes, “with numerous reports of racist abuse in public spaces, refusals to be treated by medical staff of ‘Asian’ appearance, and even violent attacks.” A Sinophobic meme posted today by the St Kilda branch of the Liberal Party – it was quickly removed, but was retweeted here – is a dangerous example of the kind of sentiment the major parties need to stamp out.  

For the moment, there is a semblance of national unity in the response to the pandemic, here and overseas – call it the rally-round-the-flag effect. In Europe, however, political scientists worry that although far-right populists have been sidelined for now, as the economic impact is felt there will be a resurgence of such sentiment. It could easily happen here. Bob Katter’s call for northern Queensland to be sealed off from the south of the state was dismissed by Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who pointed out there was “no border” to close. One Nation’s Pauline Hanson, making light of the pandemic, has totally misread the public mood, according [$] to former Labor powerbroker Graham Richardson.

The prime minister was businesslike today, announcing a code of conduct to guide negotiations between commercial landlords and tenants – as an ex-Property Council lobbyist, he’s all over that stuff – based on the principle that any rent relief should be proportional to the drop in their turnover. There was nothing for residential tenancies, notwithstanding widespread anxiety about paying the rent as unemployment strikes hundreds of thousands of people.

Australia keeps getting told that we’re all in this pandemic together, but it’s remarkable how quickly we turn on each other.

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