The botched vaccine rollout could spell doom for Scott Morrison

What was the Morrison government thinking when it decided to take charge and own the vaccine rollout all by itself?

Prime Minister Scott Morrison meets CSL staff working on the COVID vaccine while he tours the company's facility in Melbourne. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

The vaccine rollout is a test of competency for the federal government. With an election just over the horizon it’s not a test it wants to fail. The degree of difficulty for the Coalition winning a fourth term in office is real, made more difficult by the fact it doesn’t have a majority to play with. Numbers in the House of Representatives are on a knife edge.

Competent management — or at least the perception of it — is likely to be a key factor at the next election. The Coalition will look to scare voters away from Labor, blitzing the airwaves with negative attack ads. There is nothing new in such a strategy, both sides of politics do it. Labor undoubtedly will look to tap into anger at the government’s (mis)handling of gender issues, for example.

But the government’s attack ads will focus on the risks Labor poses as economic managers. They will target perceived incompetency from the last time Labor was in office and remind voters about policy scripts the Bill Shorten-led opposition offered up at the 2019 election.

Such negative campaign techniques are harder to sustain when the government itself is seen as lacking competence, which brings us back to the importance of improving the rollout of the vaccine. Failure on that front could spell political doom for Scott Morrison.

As with its early response to the pandemic, the federal government is being forced to loop the states in to ensure the vaccine delivery isn’t botched. It was always going to be thus. Federal governments aren’t experienced at service delivery. Doing so is largely the preserve of the states and for the most part they do it well.

It is an example of the 10,000-hour rule Malcolm Gladwell explores in his book Outliers: the more experience you gain, the better you get at doing something.

Since the beginning of the federation, state governments have been responsible for service delivery in varying forms. More than 100 years of such experience has honed their skills to deliver healthcare, education, transport and utilities management with world-class precision. While the public service isn’t always as efficient as it could or should be, on the world stage Australian states do comparatively well.

In contrast, the federal government rarely turns its hand to service delivery and, when it does, it often botches the job. Think of the home insulation scheme or robodebt services, for example. Failures have been bipartisan.

Which raises the question: what was the Morrison government thinking when it decided to take charge and own the vaccine rollout all by itself? Team Morrison’s grasp on its own limitations seemingly was lost behind a desire to win political points. Political glory was the goal, but that aim is being replaced fast by failure. The states coming to the rescue could be Morrison’s salvation.

It is easy to forget that a similar process played out at the beginning of the pandemic. States dragged a reluctant commonwealth kicking and screaming towards lockdowns. Remember our Prime Minister was off to the footy and his chief medical officer was traversing the country shaking hands. It was the premiers who called for more responsible actions. They saved Australia from replicating the devastation seen in other countries that didn’t react quickly enough to the virus.

Had responsibility for borders and lockdowns and restrictions of liberties been left entirely to the federal government it is likely the virus would have got out of control initially and Victoria’s second wave wouldn’t have been contained to just the one state. Federalism did its job last year and Team Morrison will be hoping it does its job this year, saving the vaccine rollout as the states come to the fore.

But there are still plenty of hurdles that need to be overcome.

The vaccine rollout began poorly, behind schedule and haphazardly. Despite self-confident prognosticating by the Health Minister and Prime Minister that their targets for vaccinations would be met, failure replaced misguided confidence.

I well remember interviewing Greg Hunt as he dismissed questions casting doubt on the bullish estimates the government was relying on for the speed of the rollout. While problems with vaccine deliveries from abroad played its part in slowing the rollout, it doesn’t explain away everything.

Simply put, the federal government over-promised and underdelivered, thereby breaking a golden rule in politics. Estimates this week put Australia’s rollout in 90th place on the global stage, wedged between those powerhouses of competent management, Albania and Bolivia.

And now we have to face up to the reality that the AstraZeneca vaccine — on which Australia is over-reliant — is being dogged by concerns about blood clotting. It is the only vaccine Australia has the technology to produce locally, even though with forward planning we had ample time to develop the capacity to produce alternative vaccines.

The government’s next challenge is ensuring everyone over 50 gets their second dose of AstraZeneca on time. A little discussed potential pitfall associated with the vaccine rollout is the fact if people don’t get their booster second shot on time, exactly 12 weeks after their first shot, the process needs to start all over again. That is the medical advice. The research shows that without a timely second dose, certainly within a week either side of the 12-week time­frame, the value of the first shot is lost and hence the protections the vaccine offers go down.

When you consider how behind schedule the rollout of the first dose has been, how confident are we that the federal government will get the timing right on second doses? We are told clinics are saving second doses to avoid this potential failure. Let’s hope so. Perhaps we are also more confident now that the states are beginning to intervene in the process, too, but the risks haven’t gone away.

Even just at the individual level this is an issue. We all miss appointments as our lives get busy. The second vaccine shot isn’t something that can be delayed. The greater good relies on individuals doing the right thing.

We also need to consider the vulnerable in the vaccine rollout. The more than 100,000 Australians who are homeless, for example, need to be looked after. Ensuring they get vaccinated is challenging enough, much less guaranteeing they get their second shots. People weighed down by social and financial challenges are also vulnerable. These societal factors present risks to patients getting their second doses in a timely manner.

Let’s hope the government has contingency plans in place to overcome such barriers. Doing so is an important test of its competency and social conscience.

Peter van Onselen is a professor of politics and public policy at the University of Western Australia and Griffith University.