INVESTIGATING THE ORIGINS OF COVID-19

This is an absolute must. The origins of COVID-19 MUST be investigated. There can be no procrastination.

All nations on earth, no matter how big or small, should take responsibility for actions that impact upon their citizens and upon the citizens of other countries.

It is in this context that Australia and other countries have called upon China to participate in the World Health Organisation investigation of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, China. An outbreak that has gone on to become a global strangling pandemic.

For China to round on Australia berating this country and others for asking that an inquiry be undertaken is both childish and suspicious. Along with the rest of the world, China should want to ascertain the cause of this outbreak, with a view to control circumstances that might otherwise lead toward a future pandemic.

It should have been the World Health Organisation (WHO) who called China out on this issue, rather than it being left to Australia to say what others were thinking.

Australia’s economic dependence on China as an importer and exporter of goods impacting on this country needs to be considered and reappraised. That China is our largest trading partner makes us beholden in a way that is tenuous and unhealthy.

Part of the answer to over dependence on one country in almost a sole trading manner may lie in market diversification.

We also need to return to the era if self sufficiency in manufacturing for we have surrendered too much capacity, relying ever more extremely on products manufactured overseas.

COVID-19 must cause us to pause and think.

We need to take forward greater independence and the ability to be self sufficient. We need to leave behind the dependence and the reliance we have placed on other countries and their economies for what we need in material terms. We need to become an independent country, not one with an economy that is beholden and subjected to the whims and manipulations of other countries.