Newspoll: Scott Morrison cops barrage from all quarters

Scott Morrison can little other than keep his cool, maintain unity and deliver on the new vaccine schedule. Picture: Gary Ramage

As Winston Churchill once ­famously said, there are times in government and political life where you just have to “keep buggering on”.

This is one of those times for Scott Morrison.

Voters have entered the angry phase of the pandemic and the Prime Minister is the one now copping it from all quarters: the federal opposition, the premiers, the media and as a consequence, the electorate.

Not only have his own personal approval ratings plunged into net negative territory for the first time since March last year, confidence in his management of the pandemic has fallen sharply

While people are locked down, they will be naturally disposed to vent anger at their leaders.

And as the central tier of government, the commonwealth rightly or wrongly is being held ­responsible for everything.

Today’s Newspoll results may prompt some of Morrison’s colleagues to question whether he needs to take a different tactical approach.

 

Yet there is little Morrison can do about it other than keep his cool, maintain the existing unity within his cabinet and partyroom and deliver on the new vaccine schedule.

There are almost no options available to him other than to stay the course.

The time for rhetorical speeches has passed and taking a stronger line on the premiers over lockdowns, and being ignored as is likely, would risk diminishing his position further.

It would be futile at best and potentially counter-productive. And also unnecessary while there is a broader acceptance within the government that for the next few months it will simply be tough going.

Assuming the current electoral mood is still dictated primarily by the pandemic as the results suggest, then the politics will inevitably change.

Today’s argument will not be the one Morrison is having at the time of the election, which at its earliest will be March, and possibly as late as May.

With the vaccine thresholds of 70-80 per cent having presumably been reached by the end of the year, Morrison will have the ­opportunity to regain the political and moral authority over the states and territories, which will have been forced to surrender the current alibis for locking down their citizens as per the agreement they have now all signed up to.