>You can't gauge Australia's general policymaking from what was an unprecedented event in our history, we were in a state of emergency, it can be hard to get every decision right in such a situation
That is the perfect time to judge people. If somebody is willing to abandon their principles when it is a challenging situation then you can't trust them. Anybody can stick to their principles when everything is going well.
I don't think we should just ignore the 99% of the rest of our political history, including the actual policies we have right now, and the politicians we have right now, in favour of painting our own commentary of Australian politics overall based on the pandemic response. We should call it what it was, which was neither left nor right, but a bout of authoritarianism. That is something Australia actually does have a trend towards.
I agree that might be when you judge a politician, hence why I brought up voting, but that isn't even what we are talking about.
That is the perfect time to judge people. If somebody is willing to abandon their principles when it is a challenging situation then you can't trust them. Anybody can stick to their principles when everything is going well.