We could be living on different planets.
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In Britain, the current debate is: "Will Christmas be cancelled?" as confusion reigns over how many family members Brits are allowed to see.
In Australia, the debate is: lobster or ham?
[Let's not even mention the United States, where the latest figures have 201,649 cases a day and 2957 deaths. The total number of deaths in Australia is 908.]
Just contrast the experience of "contact tracers" in Britain and Australia, those diligent people who track down people who might be infected with the accursed virus.
Guess where this one lives: "I have been shocked and disgusted by my experience. The most common negative experiences include frustration at unanswered calls, calls going to voicemail repeatedly, calls being blocked, phones being slammed down when you introduce yourself, and sometimes an unpleasant attitude when the call does get answered."
"I've had a few shocking exchanges," the British nurse told the BBC. "When I asked one person to go through the questions with me, the answer was: 'Oh, I can't just now - because I'm in Starbucks.' Now, this person has had a positive test and should be isolating."
Contrast that with the experience of another nurse, but this time an Australian one.
"I think you really build up a rapport with them. Sometimes they just really need a chat," Sue Reid told The Canberra Times.
Britain is being pulled apart by dissent, while Australia feels normal. We go about our business and pleasure.
A theory: there is a level of anger and dissent in Britain (and the US) even over basic public health measures. "If the government says it, I'm not going to listen - and to hell with my fellow citizens."
Australians, in sharp contrast, did the right thing (with the exception, to my mind, of a few Lycra-clad cyclists and Black Lives Matter demonstrators).
It seems to me to be no coincidence that two of the countries with the worst record on controlling the epidemic were the countries of Trump and Brexit.
Neither the United States nor the United Kingdom are united. In fact, they are split down the middle, with swathes of both countries decimated by deindustrialisation.
In the town where I grew up, in Old South Wales, unemployment is high. The Sony factory has gone. The Ford engine plant is shut. A new car plant has gone to Germany instead. The collieries just up the valley are long gone. One in six households are "workless".
Bridgend voted 55 per cent to 45 per cent to leave the European Union. It seemed to me to be a cry of anger from the forgotten. In June, at the height of the first lockdown, the disaffected and drunken youth of Bridgend fought in a "mass brawl". Pride has gone.
You could repeat this picture across the wastelands of Britain or the United States.
In these communities, there is no great sense of social cohesion.
Despite what you may think, that is not the Australian situation.
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The academic Judith Maxwell said social cohesion "involves building shared values and communities of interpretation, reducing disparities in wealth and income, and generally enabling people to have a sense that they are engaged in a common enterprise, facing shared challenges, and that they are members of the same community".
The Scanlon Foundation has been charting "social cohesion" in Australia for more than a decade, asking tens of thousands of Australians a host of questions to elicit what it calls "a nuanced understanding of public opinion".
In 2019, it noted the contrast between what people actually told them and the way the "public discussion is focused on problems facing the country and deterioration in the quality of life".
But it actually found a much brighter view among ordinary Australians: "In contrast with this negative outlook, the annual Scanlon Foundation surveys find much evidence of stability (or complacency)."
Complacency, among Australians. Who would have thought it?
In 1972, Gough Whitlam said: "We can double and treble social benefits, but we can never make up through cash payments for what we take away in mental and physical wellbeing and social cohesion through the breakdown of community life and community identity."
Not only is social cohesion nice, it is also an economic benefit.
The Brits are meant to be good at it - the Dunkirk Spirit, the Blitz and all that - but Dunkirk was a long time ago.
- Steve Evans is a Canberra Times reporter.