Grateful for Government

18 October, 2020

If Coronavirus has taken centre stage this year, politicians have been not too far behind. 

New Zealand's Prime minister has been praised for her handling of the Coronavirus, and rewarded with a landslide victory in the country's recent elections. Australian Prime minister Scott Morrison was scoffed at for allowing 30 min haircuts during the peak of the pandemic. Victoria's Premier Daniel Andrews faces court charges over his 5km radius restrictions and 8pm curfew. They're still hunting for who was responsible for hiring security guards whose slack and unhygienic interactions with infected travellers sparked the state's 2nd wave. (Update: currently its no-one's fault. Not even the security guards....??). Donald Trump and Joe Biden are now mutable when engaged in debate.  

Suddenly those who 'don't know don't care' about politics have taken interest (offence) and found themselves protesting on the streets. We've all got an opinion on how our country/state/city should be run and are not afraid to share it on social media. I know we're tired, we're cooped up, we're broke. I also know we shouldn't be comparing country to country, but I think sometimes it can give us perspective. 

Prime minister Jacinda Ardern, by her strict measures, reduced NZ's Coronavirus daily cases from peak 89 to currently  <2-3. What a dream result. There were, however, a few things working in the country's favour: the fact that it is an island nation; its small population of 4.8million relatively spread out over its 268,000km²; natural social distancing since most Kiwis live in houses with big backyards; the relatively low reliance on public transport due to high car ownership (and... lack of efficient public transport!). Ah, New Zealand. We love New Zealand (hence over 10% of us are in Australia...??)... could there be a more heavenly place on earth? (Answer: currently, no). 

This side of the ditch, Premier Daniel Andrews, by his strict measures (too strict, according to some... even though they were incredibly lax compared to NZ), has reduced Victoria's daily case numbers from peak 715 per day to the current 1-7. Remember, this is the 2nd wave, where the horse of community transmission had bolted. Victoria is a non-island state of 6.7 million unevenly spread over approximately the same land area as NZ. 4 million (nearly the entire population of NZ) are concentrated in Melbourne, where people live in social housing towers, apartments and townhouses. (You know, I didn't know what a townhouse was until I moved to Melbourne!). These things make it hard. Very hard. Yet I can't help thinking our leaders have done a bloody good job to get us where we are now. 

Through lockdown, as part of Christian Veterinary Mission, I have been doing lectures online for Indian Veterinarians. Its been lovely to get to know some of the participants, and heart-breaking to hear of their ongoing crisis. One vet said there were 300 cases that day in his small village as he showed me the peafowl he was looking after.  'Esther, pray for India,' they said. 'We need God to intervene. We need healing on this land'.  'There is no lockdown in India anymore,' they explained. 'Our government is not like your government. There is no money to support people with welfare payments if they stay home. There is no choice but to keep our country open, to keep the economy going...and infection keeps spreading..... we need your prayers.'

I was taken aback, and ashamed, by this. Here in Melbourne, we complain our human rights are stripped because we cant go to visit our fav coffee shop 6km away or our mother-in-law 7km away (which is worse I am not sure).  Mandatory masks restrict our life giving O₂ (because smoking doesn't...?). Job keeper payments are being cut whilst our hair is not (again which is worse, I'm not sure....). 

But India has none of those terrible problems. They have worse. Note - this is not an attack on the Indian government. In my limited knowledge, its not that they don't care. They simply cannot afford to lock down the country. But they also do not have the means to accommodate such a high number of infected people. People are 'free' and so people are dying. 

And so with little hope in the government to fix things,  the Christians put their only hope in God. They are praying as if their lives and their nation depends on it, because it does. They are asking us, whiny, sour-faced Melbournians, to pray for them too... geez, how desperate must they be? 

And how desperate are we not?. Instead of praying, we protest. Instead of compliance, we complain. Or we comply and complain. We look inwards instead of outwards and upwards. 

To end, back to NZ: being the nerds that we are, my family stayed up late last night watching as our nation's election results rolled in. Then we phoned each other to discuss. Now, us Fans aren't 100% fans of Labour party policies. 'But its not all bad', Dad said in his wisdom. 'I'm just grateful we have a stable government'. Again, comparison to those less fortunate isn't always recommended (I'm addicted to donuts and 100kg overweight but hey at least I'm not anorexic...). But in a world of 'entitlement' and 'my rights' it is good to not take things - like our leaders - for granted. Remember, India looks at our lockdown with envy. We need to train ourselves in gratefulness. Start with the small. Look outwards and look up. You might even find yourself 

Grateful for government.