After months of COVID-induced irrelevance Anthony Albanese and federal Labor sense a chance to at last get some political traction and dim the resurgent aura of Scott Morrison.
In a historic day of parliamentary procedural changes that may herald a leap from 19th to 21st-century representation, it was still the Opposition Leader’s first chance to stand at the dispatch box in the House of Representatives, conveniently a social-distance sword length away from the Prime Minister, and prosecute his case on failures in aged care.
Albanese is right; this is his chance to erode Morrison’s personal standing, which has recovered since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic to record levels and lifted the Coalition to a winning position in the polls.
It’s a legitimate approach from Labor and the public reaction could damage Morrison.
But the danger for Labor is that it will obsessively concentrate on blaming the federal Coalition and avoid criticising state governments — as was the case with the Ruby Princess quarantine fiasco — and miss the point entirely.
Morrison and the federal government have real questions to answer on aged care generally, and in Victoria specifically, but so does the Victorian Labor government. Slavishly attacking Morrison on particulars and avoiding any criticism of Daniel Andrews — as was the case with targeting Peter Dutton and excusing Gladys Berejiklian over the Ruby Princess — means Labor could miss a substantial hit on Morrison.
Ironically, Morrison and the Victorian Labor Premier are watching each other’s back, not directly criticising the other and concentrating on dealing with the here and now rather than looking to apportion blame.
Albanese and Labor want to apportion blame here and now, and just to Morrison.
The deaths in NSW aged-care homes, in conjunction with the royal commission into aged care, raised the spectre of an extinction of the elderly in institutional care, which has become even more frightening in Victoria with more than 320 deaths in aged care. The COVID-19 pandemic is a shocking and accelerated confrontation with the reality of the shortcomings of institutional aged care, which have been there for decades.
Albanese, correctly pursuing his role of holding the government to account and pointing to commonwealth responsibilities, is building the argument that aged care has been a Coalition failure for years, that Morrison was unprepared and even warnings from the NSW deaths and royal commission did not prevent Victorian deaths in aged care. It is an argument based on the commonwealth responsibility for regulation and funding of aged care and maintenance of clinical standards.
Morrison’s response — and that of Health Minister Greg Hunt — is twofold: One, you can’t protect aged-care homes from a pandemic when there is community transmission — where there is community transmission the virus gets into aged-care homes and kills the most vulnerable.
Two, the responsibilities during a pandemic overlap between federal and state and you can’t simply draw a line between aged care and virus control, hospital admissions, workforce control and training.
Albanese’s claim that Morrison is conflating shopping centres and aged care avoids the argument there is the worst community transmission and highest death toll in Victoria because of a quarantine failure of epic proportions and failures from Victorian health.
Labor scoffs when Morrison rejects Albanese’s “binary” approach to responsibilities but a more subtle way may give Labor more chance of success in dimming the Morrison aura.
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