Coronavirus: Outbreak threatens to damage Scott Morrison

Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage

Scott Morrison has directly contradicted NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s decision to strip vaccines from the Hunter Valley to be used in Sydney, coming as close as he ever has to criticising his Liberal colleague.

With NSW having a record coronavirus outbreak, five new deaths and bitter fighting between Sydney and the regions over vaccination availability, the Prime Minister rejected the Premier’s emphasis on jabs over lockdowns.

Faced with a vital need to co-ordinate the premiers on the path to recovery, Morrison has avoided directly criticising the state and territory leaders – but the dire outbreak in NSW is threatening to damage him and the national effort.

Being peppered with questions from Labor MPs representing locked-down electorates in NSW and blaming him for vaccination cancellations, Morrison told parliament the NSW Premier’s decision was “against federal advice” after he questioned Berejiklian’s emphasis on vaccination over lockdown to fight the virus.

Further, he declared he would not favour NSW over Victoria or Queensland in a state-of-origin fight for vaccines because it would undermine the national vaccine rollout.

Morrison said he would not provide running commentary and criticism of the premiers’ actions but what he did say made it clear he does not accept the NSW government’s claims about vaccine being the key to getting out of lockdown.

Bluntly stating the case for hard lockdowns to stop the spread of the Delta variant, Morrison said: “The primary tool to end the lockdown in Sydney is the success of the lockdown in Sydney.”

When asked whether Berejiklian should have taken Victoria’s advice to place a “ring of steel” around Sydney, Morrison refused to answer and said he believed the premiers would take the best decisions in the interests of their people.

But he pointedly said the additional 180,000 Pfizer vaccines being “brought forward” for NSW had to be used for the regions outside Sydney that had vaccines stripped from them for Sydney HSC students.

Morrison also praised hard and fast restrictions and went so far to say it was now clear the NSW restrictions could have been handled better.

After repeated calls from the NSW Liberal government for more vaccines, including from other states, Morrison said that extra vaccines for NSW were a “bring-forward” to deal with the current outbreak and were not supplied at the expense of Victoria or Queensland.

As the national vaccine tally passed 13 million, Morrison said the national rollout could not be weakened. “You don’t get it done by slowing down other areas – this is a challenge for all of us,” Morrison said as he came as close as he has to criticising the NSW Premier.