Scott Morrison learns from his horror summer mistakes

Scott Morrison is intent on not making any mistakes — policy, organisational or political — in the handling of the coronavirus crisis and avoiding any grounds for the criticism he faced over the summer bushfire crisis.

The Prime Minister has declared his “priority is to keep Australians safe” as he builds the government’s advantage of going early and hard on restricting travel from China, insisting on quarantine.

Despite complaints and pressure from China and concern from Japan, as well as alarm from the tourism and education sectors, the government has been firm and measured.

Australia is now going ahead of the world again and effectively declaring a pandemic before the World Health Organisation, mobilising the health and hospital system, looking at drastically upgraded border checks for fever and having Treasury formally planning steps to ease the impact on the economy.

Morrison and Health Minister Greg Hunt are working simultaneously on medical needs, extending border checks and travel bans, and “targeted, modest and scalable” economic help.

While he has declared that “the risk of a pandemic is very much upon us”, Morrison’s rhetoric is still about an “abundance of caution” and that “while we are not immune we are well prepared”. He also emphasises that the government is “anticipating”, “acted quickly to get ahead” and that Australia is “well ahead of the world”.

The Health Minister is also reassuring about medicine stockpiles and hospital preparation.

There are no suggestions we aren’t prepared, no claims of clouded chains of command, and continued courteous recognition of the states and territories.

Morrison made mistakes in the bushfire crisis and was accused of shortcomings in preparation, and politicisation of the bushfire crisis by using his prime ministerial Facebook account to issue statements.

It was Anthony Albanese who said Morrison was politicising the bushfires and on Thursday it was again the Opposition Leader who said Morrison was politicising the coronavirus crisis and acting without decency by not briefing Labor on the pandemic call.

Albanese’s parliamentary accusation was a grave charge and the first sign of any politicking since the virus crisis began. It also provided the opportunity for Morrison to respond in political terms while appearing to be concerned about Australians’ safety.

It’s clear Albanese’s claim of Labor not having a briefing was wrong, he was offered more than one time for a briefing and later, Labor’s health spokesman, Chris Bowen, and Albanese’s senior staff attended a briefing.

Morrison responded with “disappointment” at the politicisation of the virus and avoided making the mistakes he made in December.