Morrison squandering Covid voter dividend

The Morrison government risks squandering the Covid-inspired electoral dividend given to premiers because of bungling on the vaccine rollout and management of aged care. Premiers in Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania have been richly rewarded at the polls for keeping their citizens safe. Premiers have been prepared to take harsh measures, knowing the federal government will be picking up the hefty financial tab. None of this matters to voters. They want to know their leaders are doing the best they can to safeguard their health and financial interests. It was always doubtful that come election time the commonwealth would be able to count on claiming a dividend from programs such as JobKeeper once they had been cancelled. The government instead has been focused on being rewarded for its good economic management more broadly. Everything appeared to be on track until the latest outbreak and shutdown in Victoria.

Success in suppressing the Covid-19 virus domestically has lulled the federal government into not making the tough decisions. It has failed to call out state leaders on unnecessary lockdowns. It agreed to leave premiers in charge of quarantine, yet it cops the blame when things go wrong. And it has taken a soft approach to vaccines, indulging the instant experts to undermine the core message that vaccines save lives with discussions about blood clots and efficacy that rightly belong at the fringes. It was always predictable that when things got tough, premiers and federal Labor would be quick to blame the commonwealth for any failings. That is exactly the situation today.

Victoria has failed to get its house in order with testing and contact tracing. This has allowed a lone infection to spread beyond the ability of contact tracers to stop it. Computer systems to aid with controlling the pandemic have not been properly installed; a consistent QR code system that is available in other states to log movements has been beyond the scope of Victorian officials to implement. Rather than discuss the failings of managing a minor outbreak, however, media questions are centred on the federal government’s failure to manage the vaccination program and its inability to get its own house in order on aged care. This is a fair call but certainly not the whole story.

It is incredible to think that measures adopted by the commonwealth during the previous outbreak in Victoria to stop aged-care workers attending more than one facility were dropped once the storm had passed. It is equally incredible that frontline workers and aged-care residents have not been vaccinated quickly. Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt admitted on Monday that out of 598 residential aged-care facilities in the state, only 361 were considered fully vaccinated as of last Wednesday. Mr Hunt said 29 facilities had not received a single dose. Victorian Acting Premier James Merlino was quick to sheet the blame for the state’s latest outbreak, which he said could get worse before it gets better, to the commonwealth. Mr Merlino said the recent aged-care outbreak was the responsibility of the federal government as the state looks after only public aged care. Federal Labor leader Anthony Albanese has honed the message that Scott Morrison is quick to withdraw financial support but slow to get the vaccine into people’s arms. The federal government is responsible for the national interest and right to limit financial support to a single state. Victoria’s problems are due primarily to the ineptitude of the state bureaucracy.

As business columnist Robert Gottliebsen wrote in The Australian on Monday: “The severity of Victoria’s latest lockdown is no accident. It is the continuation of the systems breakdown that led to the death of 801 people last year.”
But as national editor Dennis Shanahan has written, “the rate of the vaccine rollout, its efficacy and the health message about continued risks after vaccination have the potential to draw the federal government into political blame even if the Victorian contact tracing still seems hampered by technical faults”.

Mr Hunt has asked medical experts to review whether it should be mandatory for healthcare workers to be vaccinated. The questions must go much deeper than this. If the federal government is responsible for aged care it should be an exemplar in showing the states how things should be done. It needs a tough approach to quarantine and a thorough approach to getting supplies of vaccine available and distributed. Voters will reward people they can see are competent and doing the best they can to keep them safe. Right now it is too easy to mount the case that the federal government is falling short of the mark.