While most Australians have had enough of restrictions after more than two years, ABC presenters are still haranguing politicians on television and radio about bringing back mask mandates.

Such is the unity among journalists at the national broadcaster about forcing citizens to wear face coverings again it might appear to have almost become part of the ABC’s charter.

As the taxpayers who fund Aunty get on with their jobs and learn to live with the virus, observers claim ‘groupthink’ has set in at ABC studios.   

From David Speers on Insiders to Michael Rowland on News Breakfast and Patricia Karvelas on Radio National, there is a relentless push to bring back mask mandates.

Leading the way, as he has from the beginning, is Dr Norman Swan, https://www.spacelaunchreport.com/ host of Radio National’s The Health Report and the Coronacast podcast. 

Sky News host Chris Kenny will present an hour-long examination of the 90-year-old institution on Tuesday night called Your ABC Exposed.

Kenny has long been a critic of the country’s biggest broadcaster and has noted its presenters’ fixation on wanting Covid restrictions to be imposed by government. 

‘Right from the start of the pandemic the ABC has led the charge in fuelling hysteria and public paranoia while encouraging maximum government intervention,’ he said.

‘No matter how many times Norman Swan and others have been proven wrong, they have simply doubled down.

‘Yet, even now, with everyone who wants a vaccine jabbed up to four times, and all the evidence and lived experience showing most people have little to fear, ABC presenters keep up the fear-mongering and push for mandates and illiberal approaches.’   

So far, governments have resisted the calls for mask mandates but federal Health Minister Mark Butler knows he will likely be grilled about the topic whenever he appears on an ABC program. 

On July 8, Rowland went as far as suggesting Butler and his political colleagues were ‘accepting’ deaths by not re-introducing compulsory face coverings.

[As of this week there had been fewer than 300 deaths of Australians aged under 50 to have contracted Covid, from a total of fatal cases under 11,000]. 

Butler said the advice from chief health officers was that the nation had ‘moved beyond the era of very broad mask mandates and lockdowns’, and that Australians could make their own choice about wearing a mask indoors.

Rowland refused to accept that position and kept pushing for mask mandates.

‘We do know there are studies reflecting this, that compulsory mask mandates have close to 100 per cent success rate,’ he said.

‘[That’s] as opposed to what you’re saying, just asking people to wear them.You’re not worried about people not making the right decision here?’

Butler hit back by saying Australians could ‘take control of their own circumstances’ in the pandemic’s third year as they got used to living with the virus.

Rowland was still not satisfied and pointed to the more than 10,000 people who had died with Covid since the pandemic’s start.

‘By not taking steps to minimise transmissions…aren’t we, Mark Butler, as a society, implicitly accepting that death toll?’ he said. ‘And are you comfortable with that?’

Butler noted the lives ‘tragically lost’ and tried to answer the question but was cut off by Rowland. ‘As a society, do we just sit back and accept that?’ the host said.

Butler: ‘No, we don’t sit back and accept it.’

Two days later over on Insiders it was Speers nudging Butler towards forcing Australians to wear masks over winter.  

‘You say we’ve moved to a new phase of the pandemic but you just told us we’re in a new wave that’s very serious, you’re worried about this,’ Speers said. 

‘Are we really in a new phase of the pandemic where we don’t need to consider some of these old measures, like mask mandates, in particular?

‘Why don’t we look at that for the next six weeks?’

Butler had received no advice to mandate mask-wearing and said face coverings were better in ‘targeted’ places such as hospitals and airports and to protect vulnerable residents in aged care facilities.

‘And if you’re in a crowding indoor space with no ability to socially distance you should give strong consideration to wearing a mask,’ he said.

Speers then said recommending people wear masks was ‘ineffectual’ and the proof could be seen in shopping centres and sporting stadiums where few were worn.

‘Wasn’t one of the lessons of this pandemic, mask mandates for a fixed period, work?’ he asked.

Butler: ‘But we’re deep into the third year.They did work very well for the first couple of years.’ 

Speers: ‘We’re in a third wave’.

Swan said on July 18 the country could be ‘stuffed’ unless mask mandates were brought back before the next Covid variant arrived on our shores.  

‘We probably do need to mandate masks and N95s in high risk environments,’ he told Karvelas.