Time to lead, Mr Morrison

That Australia has been at the top of the global ladder on combating the fatal effects of Covid is not enough to answer the inchoate fear and cry in the dark for comfort and reassurance that this will end.

Australia’s Covid death toll is not sufficient to answer what is an almost inchoate fear and childlike cry in the dark for comfort and reassurance from Scott Morrison that this will end. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

The time has come for Scott Morrison to step out of the federal ­collective and step up as Prime Minister. There is a national interest, a policy imperative and a political advantage for Morrison to break with his “management” style of the past 18 months and provide the “leadership” people are crying out for, even if they don’t understand the constraints of the system and don’t even know what they want or mean.

The growing fractiousness of the national mood is a result of fear – fear for people’s health and lives, fear for the loss of freedoms and fear for the loss of jobs and family security.

That Australia has been at the top of the global ladder on combating the fatal effects of Covid-19 and rebuilding an economy sent into recession is not sufficient to answer what is an almost inchoate fear and childlike cry in the dark for comfort and reassurance that the night will end.

This is where Morrison has to fill the intangible gap, to move away from the complex and technical daily and weekly graphic presentations that turn everyone into an amateur statistician or epidemiologist and cut through with a singular, bold declaration of hope.

It is not that Morrison and the state and territory leaders are not doing their best, although with obvious errors and mistakes, nor that under the existing constitutional federation powers any one of them can do much more, but it is time for a new level of intervention.

The worsening outbreak of the Covid-19 Delta variant in NSW, which has spread to Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and even Tasmania – locking down almost 16 million Australians and killing more than 20 people in Sydney – has truly become a ­national emergency.

The 50th meeting of the national cabinet composed of Morrison and all the state and territory leaders was held on Friday as we face as great a threat of infection, death and economic closures as we have since last year when more than 800 people died in Victoria.

Premier of Victoria Daniel Andrews announced the state’s sixth lockdown this week. Picture : NCA NewsWire / Nicki Connolly

The pandemic circumstances facing the state and federal leadership are radically different to last year – there has been an economic recovery, and there are now vaccinations under way with protection for aged-care centres – but it is the Delta, not the Alpha, variant taking hold across NSW and threatening Victoria.

Lockdowns and rings of steel around cities and suburbs are no longer the only defence in the hands of premiers and territory leaders, as the commonwealth distributes vaccines that can mitigate the impact of the more deadly and infectious Delta variant.

It is in this change of circumstances that Morrison has to be seen to step above his role as the chairman of a cabinet committee and a constitutional equal with the premiers.

The required response may be only rhetorical and it certainly doesn’t need to be critical of the other leaders, who in so many ways govern his fate and the fate of the national pandemic response.

Certainly this week, Morrison has gone out of his way to praise the premiers and territory leaders for their co-operation – especially the in-principle agreement to the national exit plan through vaccinations – naming Labor leaders without exception and praising the hard and fast lockdowns of Victoria’s Daniel Andrews and South Australia’s Steve Marshall.

It is true Morrison went as close as he ever has to criticising his ­Liberal NSW colleague Gladys ­Berejiklian, bluntly making the point – in relation to the NSW government’s insistence on vaccination being the key to combating the virus – that “the virus doesn’t move by itself; the primary tool to end the lockdown in Sydney is the success of the lockdown in Sydney”.

Morrison also flatly contradicted Berejiklian’s decision to strip vaccines from regional areas to provide Sydney HSC students with shots, and insisted extra federal vaccines to NSW had to be given to the regional hotspots such as the Hunter Valley.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s decision to strip vaccines from regional areas was blatantly contradicted by the PM. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dylan Coker

The deterioration in NSW and its unpopular strategy was yet another example of Morrison suffering from a premier’s decision, as Anthony Albanese attacked him over the vaccine rollout and Labor MP after Labor MP confronted him in parliament with examples of people outside Sydney who had their vaccinations cancelled.

The Opposition Leader made a tactical mistake at the resumption of parliament this week in suggesting a $300 cash payment as an incentive – retrospectively – for vaccination, which would have cost $6bn.

Albanese was right on the need for incentives to push reluctant people, to provide a carrot not just a stick, into vaccination, but he was wrong on the implementation.

This is an opportunity for Morrison to turn Labor’s tactical error into a strategic blunder by addressing the issue positively and clarifying his message from Thursday that vaccination is an incentive in itself.

Morrison knows the country is now focused on vaccinations and it is the Coalition’s job to focus not just on vaccination but also on sustaining the miraculous economic recovery engineered by billions in business and jobs support.

But, just as he missed the public mood and the potential for political disaster when he went on holiday to Hawaii during the horrific bushfires of the Black Summer, Morrison is in danger of not hearing the primal calls for leadership or waiting until the vaccination targets are clearly within reach before embodying the national challenge.

A leader has to be seen to be taking a risk when leading people through dangerous times and step beyond the technicalities of government and argue the case, even if it is difficult and opposed.

Only weeks into his term as prime minister, John Howard grasped the previously untouchable task of gun control and ­succeeded despite vehement opposition. When Howard committed 2000 troops to East Timor, he addressed the nation and warned that “they face the risk of casualties”. And in his national address committing troops to Iraq, which was a hotly contested decision, Howard took the risk and made the argument.

Morrison’s position as Prime Minister in a federation reliant on premiers with the power to control the ground war against Covid-19 is different to Howard’s commitment of troops, but in the past 18 months, more Australians have died from coronavirus than died in military actions in Vietnam, East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq.

This is a national emergency and for all that he has achieved – undeniable on a global scale – the people want more from Morrison, and they want it now.