Scott Morrison needed a national road map with targets and that road map has already changed the politics. The new metric by which the Prime Minister will be judged a success or failure is the 70 per cent adult vaccination rate before the end of this year to enable a national transition to stage two of the plan.
Morrison must seek to reach the following 80 per cent vaccination target before the federal election to secure transition to stage three – the point where domestic restrictions no longer apply to vaccinated people and caps are removed on vaccinated returning travellers.
An election short of attaining 80 per cent will be a target not reached – though super optimists suggest this target might even be achieved before Christmas. It highlights the point: the road map enshrines a vaccination race. The goal has changed, with Morrison saying the mission for Australians now is finding how “to live with the virus”.
He sees this as a mass participation project, a rallying of the nation, a responsibility for every person. The political transition is around two new issues – getting a high 70 to 80 per cent vaccination rate and creating freedom for the vaccinated to boost health and economic outcomes.
This is the only basis on which Morrison can get re-elected. The road map is a potential circuit-breaker but also an exacting test for Morrison’s leadership, a test with quantitative targets, either achieved or not.
Morrison sees the road map as an Australian venture to restore our place as a world leader in battling Covid, hence the event on Tuesday defining the road map as a fusion between the scientific analysis of the Doherty Institute and economic analysis of the Treasury.
The logic is tough – the battle against Covid will extend throughout next year and lockdowns may still occur in a rare and targeted way. There is no Freedom Day, just a steady march towards the light.
The big picture will be shaped by several critical questions. Does Australia possess the unity, social cohesion and leadership to secure the first-stage 70 per cent target by December? Can the nation manage the feral opponents – the anti-vaxxers, libertarians demanding faster action and fear merchants warning 80 per cent protection is not enough? Will the premiers honour the “in principle” national summit agreement or resort to sabotage when it suits them?
The first point about the road map agreed by the Prime Minister and premiers is that it is non-binding. It is a consensus agreement that depends on mutual self-interest. The premiers buy in, and this deal works only if they commit to the vaccination campaign and are ready to ease restrictions where they apply. The history of the past year raises serious doubts on this front.
The second point is that political responsibility will rest with Morrison. The Prime Minister has tied his leadership to the road map. Yet Morrison loves the idea of a mission. As the politics change, Morrison’s failure with the rollout delay will recede, to be replaced by the politics of mass vaccination coverage. Morrison has a new daily reporting script. It means lifting current two-jab numbers from just under 20 per cent to 70 per cent, a significant increase.
Anthony Albanese has no choice but to become an enthusiastic backer of the road map, hence his $300 incentive payments plan for people to get vaccinated. This typifies the shift in political debate that Morrison is keen to get. Incentives are needed, but of what type? Time will tell, but the debate is full of traps – witness Morrison’s put-down of the Opposition Leader, saying that offering cash is a vote of “no confidence” in the integrity of Australians, who don’t need cash to do the right thing for their health and their families.
The message from the Doherty Institute is that 50 to 60 per cent thresholds won’t do the job. Those soft options are the door to Covid recklessness. That means there is a new benchmark of political virtue and public good – how to get to 70 to 80 per cent with a mix of measures that, working together, best constrains the virus.
Under the new policy metric vaccination thresholds, not suppression, become the trigger for more freedom and economic opening. But this transition to “living with Covid” suggests a trade-off between freedoms leading to more deaths. It raises the question: how many deaths in such trade-offs will the public tolerate?
That’s a tough question. The irony, however, is that the shift from suppression to vaccination will help Morrison. Yes, this seems contrary to every current perception, but the explanation is obvious. Given Australia’s excellent history on vaccination, high coverage should be achieved and will become a political dividend for the government – in contrast to suppression-driven lockdowns where the premiers called the shots, ran the show and Morrison copped much of the blame.
The worst misreading of the crisis during the past 18 months has come from the populist right and libertarians with their futile demands that Morrison defy the premiers, resist the lockdowns and be more frugal in his financial support. As John Howard has pointed out, the reality of power and politics means public health orders concerning Covid “had to be done by the states”.
It is obvious that Morrison would have lost any political contest with the premiers and that the federal government lacked the logistics to override public health orders by the states. The pathway to vaccination is far better aligned with federal government capability.
There is, however, an earlier test for Morrison and for NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian arising from the state’s crisis over Delta and its lockdown. NSW is now in the frontline – the first jurisdiction in Australia to decide on vaccination levels that can justify an easing of restrictions.
Berejiklian said yesterday that NSW had delivered 3.9 million jabs so far and she wanted to reach six million jabs by August 29. That equates with about 50 per cent one-jab coverage of adults. Berejiklian said “we want to ease restrictions” at the end of this month.
She put this in context. It is not the sort of easing with 80 per cent coverage. But with NSW probably unlikely to eliminate all community transmission the Premier searches for an outcome that combines vaccination, ongoing restrictions but a degree of easing – a dangerous juggling act.
Morrison has much riding on Berejiklian’s judgment. In proving that vaccination can make a difference, the NSW Premier is heading towards an experiment that shows how to live with Delta as vaccination coverage increases – a project separate from but relevant to Morrison’s national pathway.
In the meantime Morrison’s plans are advanced for a form of digital vaccine certificate, sure to be introduced in many nations and basic to the politics of vaccination. Morrison has long backed this popular principle – people who are vaccinated must be recognised and rewarded for their public health commitment.
You can hear the podcast of Paul Kelly’s columns in the Podcasts section of The Australian’s app. App users can swipe to Podcasts and hit +Follow on Paul Kelly: Columns. Download the app via: Apple App Store | Google Play Store.
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