Opinion: The vaccine blame game hurts us all

The ongoing tit-for-tat between politicians over the coronavirus response is juvenile and unhelpful, writes Kylie Lang.

From the outset, the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in this country has been marred by political pointscoring and, all too often, embarrassingly juvenile behaviour from those charged with the vital responsibility of being leaders.

No wonder the public has had a gutful.

We’re sick of the bickering over border closures, lockdowns, quarantine arrangements and now immunisation that is based on political colours.

Scientists and researchers around the world have raced the clock, collaborating to develop a vaccine.

Frontline medical workers have put their lives on the line caring for patients, including when we didn’t know much about the virus.

Ordinary citizens and businesses have been largely co-operative in stopping the spread, often at great personal and financial cost.

All this, for the common good.

‘’We’re all in this together’’ is a mantra we’ve heard countless times from the lips of our elected officials.

Well, it is high time they ponied up and practised collaboration.

Deputy Premier Steven Miles. Picture: Tara Croser

This week Deputy Premier Steven Miles accused Prime Minister Scott Morrison of using the COVID-19 vaccine rollout as a distraction from the treatment of women in Canberra.

Miles also said last week’s snap Greater Brisbane lockdown could have been avoided if Canberra had supported a national quarantine centre at Wellcamp near Toowoomba to take returning international travellers.

No mention of the Federal Government requesting more details on the centre proposal before giving it in-principle support.

And certainly no mention of the health department, that Miles used to run with a large degree of ineptitude, failing to vaccinate frontline workers who unwittingly sparked the cluster that sparked the shuttering, yet again, of our economy.

It was all about attacking a Coalition Government that doesn’t fit his trade-union brand of politics.

Opposition Leader David Crisafulli. Picture: Dan Peled/NCA NewsWire

LNP leader David Crisafulli responded, refreshingly at first, by calling out such “childish tit-for-tat”.

“All of this is unhelpful,” Crisafulli said, also acknowledging the Federal Government had its own issues around the vaccine rollout and the swipe by National Party deputy leader David Littleproud’s swipe that Queensland had done “three-fifths of bugger all” by only vaccinating 60 per cent of eligible people and was “holding this nation back”.

But then, as if he couldn’t help himself, Crisafulli said Miles was “trying to morph into this role of being the attack dog” but “it doesn’t work for you, mate, because you don’t have the strength or the intellectual capacity to do it”.

Back to the sandpit we go.

The reality is that neither side of politics is doing a blemish-free job of rolling out the vaccine.

Greater transparency is required from the state and federal governments about what is actually going on.

One minute we’re told the Federal Government hopes to have four million people vaccinated by March. That is then revised to four million by October due to the European Union blocking a large chunk of our vaccine supply, and now that date also looks impossible because of safety concerns around the AstraZeneca vaccine for the under 50s.

We’re told the Federal Government, responsible for 70 per cent of the vaccinations against the State’s 30 per cent, has been too slow to immunise aged care residents and workers, yet also that the Queensland Government has been needlessly stockpiling supplies and failing to immunise fast enough.

Not vaccinating people on a Sunday, for example, because Queensland Health clinics are closed has been called out as a wasted opportunity.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Picture: Gary Ramage/NCA NewsWire

On Friday the Prime Minister and state and territory leaders met to discuss the vaccine rollout.

The outcomes of those talks should be for the benefit of all Australians and not stymied by ugly politicking.

We deserve a vastly improved and genuinely collaborative response.

Vaccination is too important to get wrong.

Quit the blame game and get on with it.

Kylie Lang is associate editor of The Courier-Mail

LOVE

* Former rugby league boss John Ribot describing his once-fierce rival, the late Tommy Raudonikis, on ABC radio as “a downright bloody good bloke”. Touch of class.

* The Regional Flavours food festival returning to South Bank Parklands after being scrapped last year due to COVID.

* Cookware sales at Coles jumping by 35 per cent in the past year – a sign that fast food might be off the menu and waistlines trimming?

LOATHE

* Misogynistic tweets, such as “women are all b-tches”, being linked to domestic and family violence. An unsurprising finding from University of New South Wales researchers but loathsome all the same.

* Young children being babysat by smartphones and tablets. The link between overuse of screens and behavioural and emotional problems again reiterated by Deakin University.

* Prince Charles being on the nose with Brits as the next monarch. Prince William, aka Duke of Cambridge, might be the favourite but it’s not right.