Delicate balancing act for Scott Morrison as personal attacks risk muddying the issue

Scott Morrison is engaged in a delicate political balancing act with Daniel Andrews that could easily get out of control.

The attacks on the Labor Premier by the Victorian federal frontbenchers, chiefly Treasurer Josh Frydenberg — as justified as they are — have become personal.

This when a legitimate and ne­ce­ssary interrogation of Andrews’ failures and the economic and social damage his lockdowns have caused is at risk of being muddied.

Morrison would be acutely aware of the risks for his government in ­escalating the tensions to a full-scale war with Andrews.

At the same time, Frydenberg and his colleagues are justified in railing against the devastation that the lockdowns are inflicting.

Frydenberg’s charge that the Premier had a callous indifference to the welfare of Victorians was not part of a politically sanctioned campaign, as much as Andrews would like to claim it is. The PM has no more “rolled out” his ministers for a political hit on Andrews than he has tried to rein them in.

The Treasurer and his Victorian cabinet colleagues, Greg Hunt and Alan Tudge among them, are feeling immense pressure from within their own party ranks and constituencies. Morrison would feel he cannot deny them the need to vent and express the anger and frustration many Victorians feel. At the same time, Morrison must maintain a relationship with Andrews, prevent national cabinet from imploding and keep Victorian voters onside.

Andrews has been under little pressure from state Liberals, and Frydenberg and Hunt would believe they are duty bound to take up the cudgels. But the harder Canberra goes, the greater the ownership of the problem it risks inheriting if it all goes pear-shaped again, which is possible considering the Victorian government’s past failures and mismanagement.

Morrison cannot afford to give the Victorian Premier the opportunity to try to cast the federal government as a de facto custodian of another outbreak in Victoria, should one occur, and risk becoming himself the political ­victim of incited parochialism.

There is a view that Canberra should let Andrews drown in his own stew. Since establishing the national cabinet, Morrison has been acutely mindful of keeping politics out of the room and parking conflict issues to the side.

In the early debates on the ­reopening of schools, he made it clear what he thought, referred to the medical advice and moved on, leaving the argument to others.

As he did with the borders, he has never pushed points of dispute beyond breaking point. There was a sense that the premiers once had the same motivation, but the ground has shifted in Victoria.

The mental health crisis, the destruction of businesses and the social anxiety have swung community reaction.

There is an inevitable consequence that Andrews must realise by having people locked up for so long. It is his actions that are putting strain on national unity and it is naive for him to think that reaction to it can be contained. Andrews may be under immense pressure, but it is he who is picking a fight rather than Morrison.