Gleeso: Labor needs to stop playing pandemic politics
There’s no doubt that the early vaccine rollout could have been handled better by the Commonwealth, but Labor leader Anthony Albanese is not helping — and it will backfire, writes Peter Gleeson.
Opinion
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Labor leader Anthony Albanese’s reluctance to embrace the benefits of the Astra Zeneca vaccine is not helping Australia’s response to the pandemic. It’s a serious misstep and his Labor colleagues are not impressed.
Worse, Labor state premiers have politicised the nation’s Covid-19 response, resulting in an ad hoc, lethargic uptake of the vaccine. There’s no doubt that the early stages of the vaccination rollout could have been handled better by the Commonwealth.
For a variety of reasons, Australia has not taken up the vaccination program like most other countries. Our tardy start and the ongoing tension between the Commonwealth-States has forced us to play catch up.
Early on, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the vaccination rollout was not a race. We now know with the Delta variant, that it surely is. Queensland’s chief health officer, Dr Jeannette Young, even suggested people aged under 40 should avoid AZ, a position she spectacularly backflipped on after copping criticism from her peers.
Albanese has been all over the shop on coronavirus. Handled well, he knows it is Scott Morrison’s passport to winning the next election. Handled poorly, Albanese knows he’s back in contention. That’s why the PM has staked his political future on getting 80 per cent of the country vaccinated by Christmas.
It is unfortunate that Australia’s political system has not helped us cope, albeit we stand at the top of the tree when it comes to preventing deaths, compared to countries such as the United States, Brazil, the UK and Indonesia.
Talk has now swung towards so-called “vaccination passports’’ for people who have been properly inoculated. There are suggestions that without the passport, people who have not been vaccinated will not be allowed to undertake international travel, and even be stopped from going to the footy or the races.
It’s a legal minefield, especially for employers. The civil liberties equation of vaccine passports is important. There are people in this country right now who simply can’t have the jab, for medical reasons. A reader has pointed out that he suffers severe allergies when given the flu shot, so the Covid-19 jab is now not an option, on his doctor’s advice.
Australians should not fear losing their livelihoods because for their own personal reasons they are not prepared to get the jab. Regulating this grey area will not be easy for authorities. It’s not like we have the pandemic play book in front of us as a guide.
Morrison knows that his political career hinges on what happens over the next six months.
The federal Coalition has nailed the economic narrative. The stimulus payments made last year have kept the economy going.
However, tourism operators and small businesspeople are hurting badly from consistent and repeated lockdowns. Morrison’s challenge will be to ensure the fatality count remains low, while at the same time phasing in a return to some sense of normality, with high vaccination rates ending lockdowns.
He needs the states and territories on board. Silly political gamesmanship is cheap and counter-productive to the national interest. People are quick to write Morrison off as his popularity depreciates off the back of a negative narrative around coronavirus.
But Labor needs to be careful. Australians know when somebody is not rowing in the same direction and the Labor Party runs the risk of putting politics before the country’s long-term prosperity. Federal Labor is dropping all of its “reformist’’ policies around tax to ensure it doesn’t hurt its chance at the ballot box.
It knows that average Australian voters want security and stability in uncertain times. That’s why Morrison will rebound and win the next election.
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