Coronavirus Australia: PM has right politics, policy comes later

Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Picture: David Gray/Getty Images

The majority of the Morrison government is finally coming to the conclusion that closed borders are a giant electoral positive.

Just at the point where the health advice, and certainly the business rhetoric, is starting to slowly move in the other direction.

The reason for the government shift is pretty cynical in many ways.

An election is looming and it has discovered that the majority opinion is with a softly, softly strategy, with no dramatic, premature reopening.

This is emphasised by the emphatic Newspoll result.

There is a lot of hypocrisy in where Morrison finds himself.

For months last year the Prime Minister allowed his colleagues to agitate against the tough Victorian lockdowns as hundreds of people died.

The rhetoric was that Victoria, for one, then later Queensland and WA, were wrecking the national economy by implementing long and then short-term lockdowns.

Now we are facing a tougher Canberra position on international borders.

At the same time that some states are understanding that closed global borders are not a long term option for their deeply compromised economies.

Confused?

Well it all has to do with electoral cycles and the slow take-up and rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines.

It seems incredible that as India burns the remnants of victims in their thousands that many Australians are slow to take up the vaccine, which could well become the gift of life.

Particularly for those over 50 and especially so for those over 70.

There is still a considerable possibility of another winter lockdown somewhere in Australia, but almost certainly in a major city. Or cities.

The reason for this is that people have become increasingly apathetic about the virus with the view that the vaccine will kill it off, even if we seem to be a long way off a critical mass of those who have taken the jab.

There is also something of a chronic fatigue syndrome associated with 18 months of catastrophising about the virus, when the reality is that few have died in the context of the broader global debate.

If Australia really wants to open up its borders, it should also be looking at ways to dramatically improve quarantine.

If Morrison and the states were dead set on restricting the fallout of softer international borders, they would be knee deep in construction sites across Australia to build Howard Spring style quarantine camps.

It seems incredible the Queensland option may well fail and that too little has been done to expedite the Victorian proposal.

The reason too little has been done is because it didn’t suit the politics of the day.

Now, more than ever, it makes sense to shut down city-based hotel quarantine and prepare for the future, one that is predicated on opening global borders.

Scott Morrison understands the politics, but he has a fair way to go on the policy.