Cororovirus: Where does the buck stop with the PM on aged care?

Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Picture: Getty

Former United States President Harry S. Truman might have had a sign on his desk stating “the buck stops here”, but it’s hard to imagine Scott Morrison ever doing the same.

Today when asked does the buck stop with him on aged care (which is a federal responsibility), the PM responded by saying “the federal government regulates aged care”, but “when there is a public health pandemic then public health, which, whether it gets into aged care, shopping centres, schools or anywhere else, then they are things that are managed from Victoria”.

It reminded me of his infamous retort when challenged about taking an overseas holiday during the bushfires. “I don’t hold a hose mate”, the leader of the country said, as his allies pointed out that bushfire management was a state responsibility.

We’ve been told throughout this pandemic that blame shifting needs to stop, yet its hard to have more than a five minutes conversation with a federal Liberal MP without them shifting the topic to Dan Andrews’ failures in Victoria.

Now evidence is emerging at the disabilities royal commission of similar failures around planning for the pandemic to those we heard last week at the aged care royal commission. Again, taking responsibility seemed impossible. The PM refuting the Royal Commission commentary that there wasn’t a nationally co-ordinated plan.

While it is true that Morrison called the aged care royal commission in the first place, he did so before this pandemic started. Before he knew it would be investigating how he’s managed aged care during it. Therefore, perhaps before he fully realised it would be contemporaneously passing judgement on his performance, as opposed to focusing on the performances of past Prime Ministers and the governments they led.

I for one highly doubt there would be a royal commission into aged care currently under way if the PM realised a pandemic was on the horizon and one of the royal commissioners would claim that he didn’t have a national plan to handle it. Indeed that the special counsel assisting the royal commission would argue that initial hubris within government over its broader handling of the pandemic would contribute to failings in aged care thereafter.

Because broadly speaking Australia has done well during this crisis, and because the national response broadly speaking has been good, more Australians are impressed than unimpressed with the PM’s performance. That reality is borne out in the opinion polls.

But it is certainly a weakness in the PM’s character that taking responsibility is something he finds hard to do. Or, more accurately, taking responsibility when something goes wrong.

During the sports rorts saga he refused to concede mistakes were made. When someone needed to be held accountable, the sports minister stepped down. When the Robodebt failures came to light, at first they were down played. Later on when avoiding legal responsibility became nigh impossible, the PM wouldn’t engage in debate about taking responsibility, instead declaring he was getting on with fixing the problem before taking the next question at media conferences.

Truman left office with one of the lowest personal approval ratings of any US President, a sign perhaps that taking responsibility while the right thing to do may not also be politically well received. That might be why someone like Morrison, who has spent so much time on the front lines of political campaigning and campaign management, seemingly refuses to ever do so.

Peter van Onselen is a professor of politics and public policy at the University of Western Australia and Griffith University.