“As I said just a few seconds ago…”

“We already covered this yesterday, but…”

“I’ve already answered this a few times today…”

Phrases such as these would be all-too familiar to regular viewers of the Premier’s daily COVID updates.

Steven Marshall doesn’t take too kindly to questions he feels have been dealt with previously, whether on an earlier day or mere moments ago.
The rejoinder is also a favourite of his when he’s pressed on an answer which lacked detail or simply didn’t make a lot of sense, as a handy way to simply repeat the offending statement.

This week, however, many of us were exposed to the same turns of phrase in a very different context – via a video link-up to a primary school classroom.

And while Steven Marshall’s use of the form generally has an undercurrent of petulance and passive-aggression, the teachers I’ve heard uttering similar qualifiers are doing so with practiced patience, if not a certain creeping exasperation.

I tell ya, if you’re minded to complain about journos asking the same questions over and over again, come check out my kids’ school Webex hook-up, a hot mess of chaotic cross-examination and confused inquiry.

Mind you, just sitting there watching the horror show unfold gave me renewed appreciation of the person suffering through it all, and made me just feel really, incredibly sorry.

For myself.

Sure, the teachers and students didn’t seem to be having much fun either, but they can get in line as far as I’m concerned.

Still, at least the week thus far has provided a much needed moment of clarity.

Some media types, once they reach a career crossroads, branch out into tutoring or teaching.

I will not be one of those types.

Still, at least the teachers endeavoured to answer all the questions and ensure everyone present left the daily Q&A fully briefed.

Marshall’s regular chats, by contrast, tend to consist more of well-practiced soundbites preceded by a daily rundown of COVID stats whose very form has become so familiar it is almost approaching pantomime.

The script never wavers – only the specific data changes.

Begin by expressing regrets at the “sad news” of the day’s fatalities, then pivot to the daily case numbers, hospitalisations et al, and – increasingly of late – enthuse about the downward trajectory and what it might mean for the future easing of restrictions.

Recently however, as the sense of crisis surrounding the spiralling caseloads of the previous month has dissipated, a new element has been introduced to proceedings.

The daily COVID briefing has increasingly been rolled into a concurrent political event, generally a ‘good news’ funding announcement or update on some potentially popular project.

A couple of weeks back, I made some cautious noises about the prospect that the daily COVID meetings and briefings might, even inadvertently, politicise the pandemic in the lead-up to an election now a mere six weeks away.

That the Premier claiming a seat at the table – the head of the table, no less – in the room where the level of ongoing restrictions is decided may constitute a conflict of interest at a time when it is possible, at least, that public health and political expediency may be at loggerheads.

But the way the briefings have evolved since then is hardly inadvertent – it is blatant.

We saw it first when the Premier’s daily update was preceded by a lengthy media conference announcing new funding for Surf Life Saving SA, complete with various industry guest stars to enthuse about the largesse.

For those tuning in from home for the latest on the Omicron outbreak – perhaps desperate for info that could affect their livelihoods or dictate how they spent the first two weeks of Term One – they had to first endure several minutes of a routine we’ll call ‘Government Patting Itself On Back’.

This format has continued intermittently since then – just in case anyone had any doubts that it might have just been an unfortunate one-off.

Today was a case-in-point: anyone tuning in for the latest on COVID first had to sit through almost 20 minutes of Transport Minister Corey Wingard spruiking major roadworks south of Adelaide.

It’s not that any of this stuff ain’t important, or worthwhile, or necessary.

It’s that conflating it with the daily COVID update deliberately politicises the pandemic response.

Six weeks out from an election, this should not happen.

It also gives the Government a ready-made audience for its good news pronouncements, with the number of eyeballs fixed on the social media feeds mid-outbreak likely to be exponentially higher than they might otherwise expect for a fairly turgid update on their spending commitments.

That all this is overtly political is emphasised by the fact that SA Health’s Facebook page has stopped taking a live broadcast of the daily COVID feed – still conscious, presumably, of the recent dressing-down the agency got from the state Ombudsman for posting content from the Premier’s own page that could reasonably be construed as partisan.

More troubling still is the prospect that all this might continue into the campaign proper: that a Government seeking re-election might conveniently roll important public health updates in with, say, major announcements about election commitments.

The point may be laboured: governments should not seek to politicise public health emergencies.

As Marshall himself tends to say regularly, we’ve been through all this before.

But, like primary school kids on a Webex chat, it seems to be a concept the Government just can’t grasp.

Tom Richardson is a senior reporter at InDaily.