Political Covid : How Australia's Leadership Played the Pandemic by Andrew Laming

Political Covid : How Australia's Leadership Played the Pandemic by Andrew Laming

Paperback, 190 Pages, $34.95

ISBN 9781922815354

March 2023 release

In this new world of Covid prohibitions, there was little appetite for a measured approach. The political risk of criticism for an inadequate response was simply too great. My view was that the precautionary approach justified going hard early, but once the science was available, we had to start being guided by it, rather than by fear or political self-preservation. State Governments as service providers didn’t have a dog in the fight. It was the Commonwealth writing the cheques that did.

***
Laming’s wit and sculpted prose along with his willingness to tell hard truths even where he disagrees with his own actions creates a must-read. It reminds us of a career ripped away by a jihad based on falsehoods, and leaves readers begging the question why this man isn’t still in Parliament.
- Vikki Campion

Laming has observed first-hand a bewildering period in Australian political history, with his rigorous assessment of government action (and inaction!) during the COVID era. His unassailable medical & business credentials as a medico and Harvard grad make him one of the all-too-few politicians in this country to have genuine credibility when he speaks. Our children will look back in a few decades at the inflationary effects of economic handouts and wonder what our current leaders were thinking. As Laming reveals from the inside, COVID risks leaving us in a black hole of political, medical and economic mediocrity in the midst of volatile geopolitics.
- Marcel von Pfyffer (Arminius Capital)

We need people like Lammo in politics to cut through the crap and bring ideas to Parliament.
- Dr Peter Sumich

contents

Foreword

1. Beginning of sorts

2. COVID calls

published op-eds

3. COVID

4. Health 

5. Economics

6. Education 

7. Social policy 

8. Aboriginal Australia

9. Politics 

10. Environment 

11. International affairs 

first speech 2004

12. First speech to Parliament 

Gender hysteria: the fall of Morrison