Blame, rollout blunders a national failure

Workers at the Arcare Maidstone Aged Care facility in Melbourne. Picture: David Crosling

Australia’s “leader of the pack” record in fighting Covid continues to falter as systemic mistakes by the Victorian government in policy and administration and by the Morrison government in the vaccination rollout and aged care undermine efforts to protect the public and the vulnerable.

Australia’s vaccine performance is weak. At present just 53 per cent of people aged over 70 have received one dose. That is, about 47 per cent of the most vulnerable cohort has had no vaccination and remains susceptible to illness and risk of death.

The Morrison government has failed to reach its earlier vaccination targets. The countrywide strategy is a national cabinet authorised joint project but the federal government, as Scott Morrison acknowledges, carries the political responsibility for the strategy.

The logistical challenge of the rollout has proved more daunting than the government ever expected. And the politics of Covid are changing. The Victorian breakout shows the new narrative: whenever a state is driven into lockdown it will blame Canberra for the failure to deliver herd immunity via a better vaccine rollout.

Just witness the assault on the Prime Minister by the Victorian government and federal Labor under Anthony Albanese. The blame game is sordid but probably inevitable. The risk is it may weaken the nation’s collective and bipartisan interest in fighting the virus. But Morrison, Health Minister Greg Hunt and Aged Care Services Minister Richard Colbeck are vulnerable on the aged care front since this was a declared priority and Covid has infiltrated the Victorian residential system.

Colbeck said on Tuesday that with a few exceptions all aged-care facilities – as distinct from residents – had received their first dose and about 70 per cent had received their second dose. He said the vaccine take-up rate was 85 per cent across the country. Everyone is offered – but not everyone takes the jab.

Hunt said four states and territories, including Victoria, had delivered their first doses to 100 per cent of the facilities.

The federal and Victorian governments have a common interest in halting any further spread into the aged-care system. Yet the vaccination of aged-care staff is a shambles. In an embarrassing interview with the ABC’s Fran Kelly on Tuesday morning, Colbeck conceded he did not know how many aged-care workers had been vaccinated.

“We don’t have the consolidated data,” he said. The government had asked the providers to tell them. Colbeck said there were five avenues for aged-care workers to be vaccinated. “I’m not going to give you a number that I’m not certain (of),” Colbeck said. The government’s lack of knowledge and accountability is a devastating failure of process and administration. It comes amid a flurry of confusion from the government about aged-care numbers.

While there are no innocent parties in these blunders, nothing remotely approaches the Victorian government in its hypocritical blame shifting. It was Victoria’s decision to lock down an entire state in the current breakout, a decision NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, based on past experience, would never have taken. Acting Victorian Premier James Merlino tried to wash his hands of responsibility, blamed Morrison and had his Treasurer, Tim Pallas, get on the phone to the federal government to seek support during the seven-day lockdown for employees who were financially damaged.

Morrison and Josh Frydenberg weren’t mug enough to fall for this blackmail. But if the Victorian lockdown becomes a far more extended crisis – a real possibility – then the policy and politics will change again.

In an even worse train wreck of an interview with the ABC’s Kelly on Monday, Pallas said the crisis was “nothing of our making”, accused the Morrison government of opposing lockdowns and seeking to “allow the virus to work its way through the community” – a truly contemptible claim – and called for “a one-week JobKeeper payment” or a “dollar for dollar” federal contribution to match Victoria’s $250 million support package.

Frydenberg stayed calm but said no. JobKeeper finished in March. It cannot be reinvented for a week to suit Victoria. Any idea that states can take lockdown decisions knowing Frydenberg will bankroll those decisions – thereby giving the states all power and little responsibility – would be a serious policy blunder.

For the record, during the course of the pandemic Victoria has received far higher federal funds in per capita terms than any other state. Take the December quarter – JobKeeper funds to NSW were $4.1 billion for about 500,000 workers while for Victoria they were $5 billion for about 630,000 workers. For the whole of JobKeeper the per capita payment to NSW was $3677 and to Victoria it was $4205.

Frydenberg told this column: “The Victorian government, as other state governments have done, took the decision post JobKeeper to go into a short-term lockdown. Other states didn’t require additional support beyond what the federal government currently has in place. We have provided more direct economic support to Victoria on a per capita basis than to any other state. More than $45 billion has already been delivered by Canberra to Victorian families and businesses, around three times the amount delivered by the Victorian government. The situation is Victoria remains fluid and should the lockdown be extended we would consider its implications.”

Victoria is right to say it cannot be blamed for a hotel quarantine failure in South Australia. But its central narrative cannot be missed – it wants to revert to last year’s crisis model with the states deciding the “when and where” about lockdowns and getting the Morrison government to foot a significant share of the bill. Morrison and Frydenberg, as long as the politics allow, will resist this in 2021. They want the Victorian government to accept responsibility for its decisions.

The Morrison government’s weakness, however, has been the slowness of the vaccine rollout and its counter-productive messages. The rollout is now speeded up – the rate has doubled in the past month from about 300,000 to more than 630,000 a week.

But the government turns itself into knots refusing to admit the slightest mistake; witness its contortions about the so-called vaccine race. Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack told Sky News last weekend the rollout was “not a race” – sticking by Morrison’s words from last March. Meanwhile, Colbeck said of the aged-care rollout: “We’re comfortable about where we’re at.” Well, the public isn’t.

In parliament yesterday Morrison said Health Department secretary Brendan Murphy had first used the “not a race” line. As if this phrase matters. This is nonsense. Murphy made the obvious point on Tuesday, saying we need to do it “as quickly as we can”.

Yet the government has failed to inject a sense of urgency. It needs to reset. And it needs to change the messages: vaccination is not just about the individual, it is about protecting everybody. It is a social responsibility.