Leaders brandish their plans of Covid-19 battle

Anthony Albanese and Scott Morrison. Picture: NCA Newswire

Scott Morrison is offering a positive future and Anthony Albanese is pursuing a negative past as their fundamental political strategies crystallise in the face of the dual surge in Delta variant infections and Covid-19 vaccinations.

The Prime Minister, who has come alive politically in the past week, is offering hope, confidence and a future full of the easing of lockdowns and economic restrictions while the Opposition Leader is seeking to maximise his previous advantage over the slow vaccine rollout and quarantine breaches.

The approaches are poles apart but success for either depends on the outcome of the national plan to reach vaccine levels that allow restrictions to be lifted before Christmas.

The way the political contest is being framed, there can’t be success for both.

Both leaders are locked into their strategies with little sign or opportunity for change as parliament heads towards the spring and pre-Christmas session and the crucial deadline for national vaccination rates and easing of restrictions.

Morrison’s mantra has become one of hope, confidence, reassurance and optimism that rests on first reaching the Doherty Institutes targets of 70 and 80 per cent and the phased easing of social and economic restrictions in a society tired of lockdowns to the point of accepting zero Covid cases is no longer achievable.

On Thursday, Morrison had refined and rehearsed the lines he launched on Sunday: “Another record (vaccinations) day. Records that give us the hope that the national plan can take us to where we want to be. That means bringing the country together. It means being able to join with other Australians as we go through the balance of this year.

“It means businesses having the confidence to be able to know they can come through, and that their financiers and their investors can have that same confidence that people will be able to get those hours back and go back to work.

“That people can … gather in restaurants, and they can do it not just for a couple of days or a couple of weeks but know that that can be their life again,” he said outlining the “free world” of living with Covid-19.

This has the advantage of being positive and offering a better future based on a record of saving lives (30,000) and saving livelihoods (one million) but rests entirely on reaching those vaccinations levels.

After being caught flat-footed on supporting vaccination targets to ease restrictions, Albanese returned to his mantra of “Scott Morrison had two jobs this year – rolling out the vaccine and fixing quarantine. He has fundamentally failed at both.

“If Scott Morrison had done his job, there would have been fewer than the 27 disastrous outbreaks from hotel quarantine. If Scott Morrison had done his job, there wouldn’t be 38,000 stranded Australians left overseas,” Albanese said.

The battle plans are clear. Whether they survive into the election next year will depend on those vaccination rates, currently running in Morrison’s favour.