Covid-19: Pinning the blame on Scott Morrison risks backlash for Anthony Albanese

Anthony Albanese and Scott Morrison.

Scott Morrison has a national plan and Anthony Albanese has a plan too, but both can’t succeed and there is mortal political danger for each leader as deadlines and thresholds in the pandemic come and go.

Every time there is a deadline, a schedule or timetable to be met in any way connected with the Prime Minister’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic the Opposition Leader’s plan is to turn the threshold into the potential for failure.

The national accounts, to be released on Wednesday, are the latest threshold to be turned into a test for the Coalition based on standards of success set by Albanese with the premise that Morrison has failed on quarantine and vaccinations.

Relying on pessimistic projections from economists on the growth rate for the September quarter, Labor Treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers declared on Tuesday that “no matter what the numbers say we already know the economy is bleeding hundreds of millions dollars a week as a consequence of Scott Morrison’s failures on vaccines and quarantine”.

Albanese pursued the same line that if the economy “goes backwards” it’s because of Morrison’s failures on quarantine and vaccines.

The growth figure, like the jobless figures, may not be as bad as predicted, but anything is possible in the final quarter.

But, as Chalmers said, regardless of the outcome, “it already feels like a recession” and the economic growth is just the latest test Morrison, Greg Hunt and Josh Frydenberg have faced since the pandemic began 18 months ago.

In parliament on Tuesday, as well as the economic growth ­target, Labor asked about the ­vaccine rates of Indigenous ­people in NSW, vaccine availability in NSW and the vaccination levels of aged-care workers, as well as the “$13bn mistake” of JobKeeper payments.

The biggest thresholds are the ­national vaccination rates of 70 and 80 per cent, which will allow the easing of restrictions ­before Christmas.

Morrison’s response is to ­doggedly try to meet all the thresholds, accuse Labor of ­“undermining the national plan and economic recovery” and ­appeal to public understanding that the Covid-19 pandemic is ­beyond all normal management expectations.

Apart from the endemic ­danger for Labor of always ­appearing negative there is the real problem of becoming Chicken ­Littles who predict the end of the world as a deadline approaches only to be wrong. Labor’s attempts to dub the ­recession last year as “Morrison’s recession” didn’t ring true during a global ­pandemic, and the recovery in the economy, including the ­creation of one million jobs hurt the opposition’s economic credibility.

Likewise the prediction that the job market would “fall off a cliff” when JobKeeper was stopped was a washout, as was the forecast the economy would not rebound.

Labor has damaged Morrison’s personal standing but runs the risk of being too negative, particularly in supporting state lockdowns, and becoming empty vessels as deadlines pass and the Coalition passes those thresholds too.