Is governing harder in the 2020s than in earlier decades? The instinctive, and popular, answer would be “of course it is”. While that’s also a correct answer, we should insert some qualifications.
Making the right or best decisions, especially in times of actual or looming crisis, has always been difficult. Consider the choices facing decision-makers, in Australia and abroad, during the Great Depression, when there was less understanding of how financial and economic systems worked than contemporary policymakers possess.
Consider also the choices that confronted leaders in past wars. Wartime prime minister John Curtin, grappling with decisions on which hung the lives of thousands of Australian troops, paced The Lodge grounds at night. And what of the challenges facing public health authorities trying to cope with the influenza epidemic that followed the first world war, compared with responding to the COVID pandemic in a time when vaccines could be developed quickly?
