‘Won’t drag us back’: Scott Morrison makes Covid-19 pledge

The pandemic that is still claiming 50 lives a day has barely garnered a mention this election campaign, but Scott Morrison has made a surprise pledge.

Scott Morrison has promised there will never be another Covid-19 lockdown under his leadership, and says Australia “needs to learn to live” with the virus.

On a day where Victoria recorded 22 Covid-19 deaths, Mr Morrison was in the Geelong-based seat of Corangamite, where he spoke about the health implications of the virus.

With the death toll for the year already nearing 6000, Mr Morrison was asked when it was decided that that was an “acceptable number”.

Mr Morrison said while every death from the virus was a terrible loss, it was “always going to happen”.

Scott Morrison says Australia needs to learn to live with the pandemic. Picture: Jason Edwards

“As the number of case numbers has risen … as part of the national plan that we put together … what you see when you have case numbers of that level is that people … pass away,” he said.

“Many from other causes, but they will die with Covid and their deaths are recorded as a Covid death, but that doesn’t necessarily mean … that they passed away because of Covid.”

In recent days, the Prime Minister has shifted the blame on the slow rollout of Covid-19 vaccinations on the Health Department, admitting that if he’d had his time over, he would have brought in the military earlier.

Mr Morrison would not be drawn on whether all Australians would be urged to get a fourth shot, saying he would continue to follow the medical advice.

But, he added, there is one thing he won’t do should he be re-elected on Saturday.

The Prime Minister says he doesn’t want a return to daily press conferences. Picture Adam Taylor PMO/ via NCA NewsWire

“We are living with Covid, and we are not going back to those daily press conferences of talking about Covid every day, and putting the threat of shutdowns and lockdowns and interfering in people’s lives again,” he said.

“I will not drag Australia back to those times again.

“We will monitor carefully any issues that relate to new variants, but when it comes to going forward, Australians want to move ahead and that’s certainly what I want to do.”

Earlier in his press conference, Mr Morrison had attempted to spruik for the fourth day his scheme to allow first home buyers access to their super to purchase a house.

The Prime Minister has backed himself over the ‘bulldozer’ approach he took to the Covid-19 pandemic. Picture: Jason Edwards

He also attempted to brush off criticism of his “bulldozer” approach to dealing with big issues, citing there had been critics of his approach to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I have been very conscious about my approach for a very long time, and I have to tell you in the roles I have had it has served the country extremely well,” he said.

‘You could not have been weak and stopped the boats. You could not have been weak and stood up to the Chinese government. You could not have been weak and made the decisions we had to make during the pandemic where there wasn’t time to be going and consulting on every decision.

“And in crises, that’s what you have to do.

“We are putting the pandemic behind us.”