Merrick Watts On Why Our National Reaction To Covid19 Is Truly Australian

We think of ourselves as relaxed, carefree, and suspicious of authority. But are we?

Merrick Watts joined The Briefing’s Tom Tilley and Jan Fran to discuss what it really means to be Australian in the time of Coronavirus – and why he thinks sport plays such a big part of it.

Speaking today on the daily news podcast, Watts weighed in on whether our reaction to the pandemic has been truly Australian.

If we were relaxed... would we be panic buying toilet paper and pasta? If we were so carefree... why do we have so many laws? And if we were so suspicious of authority, why would so many millions of people have downloaded the tracing app so quickly? 

But Merrick reckons while we’ve been compliant – that doesn’t mean we’re under the government’s thumb.

“It’s truly the Australian spirit in action, we’ve got behind the wheel as a nation and we’ve seen this as a challenge. Every member of the team needs to do their part.”

“I keep thinking about it in sporting terms: We will follow the coach’s instructions as long as we see the wins on the board. I think because the Government both on a state level and a federal level have made really intelligent moves, I think Australians are going “this is a good game plan, we’re seeing the wins on the board,’ If it wasn’t working, we’d all be at the beach drinking Coronas.”

He also questioned whether, deep down, is beating Covid19 just another chance to beat New Zealand at something?

Listen to the full chat here:

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