Something most states have done wrong is refusing to give money to the people so that they don’t need to work during social restrictions – so of course there is resentment.
It shouldn’t take long, it’s not handouts forever. It should take around five weeks. It would cost a fraction of what governments have paid to bail out companies, what they have lost by permitting their economies to be crippled by the pandemic, and the extra they have had to spend on hospitalisation.
China’s infection figures prove that it works – no matter the Chinese government’s other sins, which are many. The Chinese government didn’t support the people out of the goodness of its heart. They did it to protect the economy. It worked, and it continues to work.
As to Australia, just one of the eight Administrative Territories, New South Wales, made restrictions voluntary. Nearly all the increase is there:
https://www.endcoronavirus.org/green-zone-rankings#aus
Covid has bled a little into other territories, but the majority of the continent is still free of covid. One Territory has had no covid for well over a year.