Of course, we should always treat surveys with a healthy degree of scepticism and critical awareness, but, the surveys still could be right, and as realists we need to take that on board. The Australia Talks National Survey has some disturbing news for our side of the Covid debate, with the majority of people accepting lockdowns and restrictions of freedom. And, apparently 54 percent of those surveyed were fine with the government making vaccines compulsory. Of course, our side of politics will reject all of this, with our eternal belief in “we, the people,” using various rhetorical strategies, but, like the gay marriage debate, maybe this is so, social conditioning is strong for most sheeple. It makes opposition difficult indeed, given this level of social conditioning and brainwashing. But, opinions can change, especially if adverse effects are going to be as severe as those authorities quoted at this blog believe. We will see.
“All these years, we've thought ourselves a larrikin nation, ill at ease with authority figures.
But a crunchy session with a global pandemic has brought out something absolutely unmistakeable about the Australian character — actually, what we REALLY like is to be told what to do.
The first Australia Talks National Survey since the advent of COVID-19 – a study of 60,000 Australians — reveals a lavish spectrum of ways in which Australians have enjoyed being bossed about in the past year.
Eight in 10 agree that the nation should keep its international borders shut until the pandemic is under control globally.
State governments enacting tough lockdowns enjoy rapturous levels of support.
And 70 per cent of Australians agree that "sometimes people's freedoms need to be restricted to keep Australians safe" – a whopping 16 percentage point consolidation of this national view since the last survey 18 months ago.
The last time Australians were asked to consider the balance between personal liberties and group safety, the nascent threat was more about terrorism.
But when confronted with a genuine health crisis, it seems our preparedness to make sacrifices intensifies further.
When asked between March 2-8, before health authorities recommended Australians under 50 take the Pfizer vaccine, 85 per cent of us said we believed that all Australians who can safely get a COVID-19 vaccine should do so, even if it's not mandatory.
And more than half of us – 54 per cent – went further, saying that the government should make vaccination compulsory.
This view was strongest among the young (63 per cent of 18-24-year-olds) and older Australians (64 per cent of 65-74-year-olds and 69 per cent of those over 75) with enthusiasm lower among the middle-aged.
There was a varying degree of enthusiasm for mandatory vaccination according to political preference, too: Labor and Greens voters were keen to start jabbing compulsorily (60 per cent and 61 per cent respectively), while Coalition voters were more lukewarm (53 per cent) and One Nation voters were having none of it; only 16 per cent of them backed the idea to any degree.
Apart from exposing our latent natural appetite for subjugation, COVID-19 also changed us, according to the survey.
As expected, we've become more relaxed about the prospect of working flexibly.
Twelve per cent of Australians are now working from home at least eight hours a day – triple the pre-COVID rate.
During the height of the pandemic, it reached 25 per cent.
And the taste of commute-free life was sweet; 44 per cent of Australians believed they'd be happier if they spent less time hiking to and from work, a response rate 12 percentage points higher than in the last Australia Talks survey.
On the question of whether COVID changed us for better or worse, opinions are mixed.
Nearly half of respondents (47 per cent) reported their sense of priorities had improved since the onset of the pandemic.
Twenty-three per cent feel that their relationship with their spouse or partner is better, and 32 per cent of respondents say they're more tech-smart than they were (though 63 per cent say their technology skills have stayed the same).
Thirty-two per cent of Australians feel less fit and healthy than they were before the pandemic, and 30 per cent report that their mental health has deteriorated.
Looking closer at the mental health situation, something becomes incredibly clear: Australians' state of mental health post-COVID is directly dependent on age.
Put simply: the younger you are, the more likely you are to feel less mentally well now than you did before the pandemic.
Among 18-24-year-olds, a full 52 per cent say their mental health has deteriorated. But those aged over 75 are in a much more chipper state; only 11 per cent of them feel worse now than they did pre-COVID.
Respondents' degree of mental ill-health also varies by political sentiment.
Greens voters were the most likely to report a deterioration to their mental health (45 per cent) while Liberal and One Nation voters were toughing it out on 22 per cent and 20 per cent respectively.
Post-COVID, most Australians are strongly supportive of the way Australian governments – federal and state – handled the crisis.
The Morrison Government won 67 per cent approval for its handling of COVID, while the attitudes toward state governments ranged open enthusiasm in Victoria, Queensland and NSW (70 per cent, 77 per cent and 83 per cent, respectively) to hysterical fandom in South Australia and Western Australia (both on 90 per cent).
Australians also have congratulated themselves on their conduct during the crisis; 78 per cent reported that they complied "very well" with public health orders and restrictions.
When will we be back to normal?
Well, 69 per cent of respondents – when prompted to nominate a timeframe for Australia "getting more or less back to normal" – plumped for within the next two years. The most common answer was "between 12 and 18 months", but 8 per cent felt that things will never get back to normal.
What is normal, anyway? What is certain from the second Australia Talks survey is that we've changed in ways we never could have foreseen the first time around.”
One wonders what such a survey would uncover if performed after another 10, then 20 years of all this stuff, and more to come.