Yesterday, health department secretary Brendan Murphy delivered the concession that might’ve made the Morrison government squirm, telling a Senate committee what many had already guessed: that Australia’s vaccine rollout had fallen behind schedule.
Despite the Morrison government’s repeated claim that all Australian adults will be vaccinated by October, Murphy suggested some people will have to wait until early next year for their second dose.
Getting the vaccines done by the October deadline is a critical part of the Morrison government’s two-pronged political-PR strategy, along with its tourism stimulus package, which promises half-priced airfares to certain areas and a much-needed boost for the battered tourism sector.
Get those two things right, and Morrison heads into an election (likely to come early next year), with a fully-vaccinated population, open state and international borders, and a nation of holidaymakers more relaxed and comfortable than we’ve been since 2019.
Fumble it, and the facade of a triumphant recovery starts to fall apart.
What’s the go with the vaccines?
In retrospect, we always should have seen the warning signs and taken the government’s vaccine targets with a grain of salt. From the very start, it’s showcased two of the Morrison government’s most confounding impulses — a preference for stage-managed spin over substance, and an indifference to transparency.
In August last year, Morrison triumphantly announced Australia had a vaccine “deal” with AstraZeneca. Except it was actually a letter of intent, not a deal (as the company pointed out), something countries like the United Kingdom, which are well ahead of us on the vaccination front, had secured months ago.
As Nine columnist Sean Kelly points out, Morrison’s dizzying number of big vaccination announcements, which frequently offer nothing more than existing information repackaged, is a central political impulse of his — to always take credit for the good things and scrub over the bad.
In January, with the country exhausted by constant border closures, pressure started to build on the Morrison government over its slow vaccine targets. When Labor questioned the gap between TGA approval and the rollout commencing, Morrison dismissed suggestions of a quicker process as “very dangerous.”
Opposition leader Anthony Albanese claimed that all the sudden caution, and the government’s line that Australia could wait because we weren’t getting decimated like the UK, was to cover for us never being at the front of the vaccine queue.
Now, after Murphy cited supply issues, after Italy blocked a shipment of 250,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, and with future blockades not unlikely, Albo looks like he had a point.
On the domestic front, cute press conferences and plenty of reassurances have only just papered over the huge information gaps out there. GPs aren’t really sure how they will handle the program.
This morning, Scott Morrison said he knew a month ago that the October timeline wouldn’t be possible.
Except while it was evident we were well behind by the end of February, Morrison and health minister Greg Hunt continued to claim we were actually on track. An easy claim to make when some states aren’t even publishing their daily vaccine data.
The full ScoMo
This week, right when the wheels were really starting to fall off the “on track” narrative, Morrison pulled a manoeuvre that should be called “the full ScoMo”
First he waved around an obnoxiously large boarding pass. Then he got in a plane cockpit and cosplayed as a pilot for a bit.
The point of all of this is Australians can now go on cheaper holidays thanks to the government. There was also a thinly-veiled threat to state premiers — keep those damn borders open or else your struggling tourism operators will miss out.
Getting both the vaccine rollout and the holiday program running smoothly would be a big coup for Morrison, whose approval ratings remain rock solid after a year when Australia has dodged a pandemic nightmare.
But, just like with the vaccine rollout, the plane package already looks like a bit of distracting optics. Tourism operators say that package will simply not be enough for them. Regional centres in NSW and Victoria wonder why so many of the listed destinations are in Queensland.
Morrison’s road to another term rests on an easy road to normal. He needs the premiers to stop shutting down the borders over a single case. He needs Australians to have a holiday and boost the regions neglected and even further isolated as JobKeeper winds up. And he needs the vaccine rollout to meet a timeline experts always said was too ambitious.
His impulse is to spin his way there. We’ll find out if spin alone can win him another election.
I think Mr. Morrison is reverting to his inner ‘Trump’, to handle each crisis that appears. Most notably, he is never responsible for anything bad that happens. I thought the Australian public elected a Government to govern? Unfortunately this government does not seem to have any leaders who are capable of leading. In my 80 odd years, this government now equals the Government of Mr. McMahon for performance. Be prepared it will only get worse. The State premiers are showing the way to better government.
Yep. “Scott Morrison said he knew a month ago…” (But didn’t mention it before). Reminds me of Trump. E.g. “I knew it was a pandemic before WHO”. (But didn’t mention it before).
I don’t think Scottie’s government has the same get-up-and-go quality as the Government of Mr. McMahon. It would be nice if Mr. Morrison got-up-and-went, however.
That Morrison’s popularity remains high in spite of his disgusting and obvious lying and spinning just beggars belief.
Let’s hope that women’s rage, and decent men’s support for it, grows and holds until the election (and that Scomo’s hubris leads him to call an early election)
Morrison may not like transparency in govt but he himself is utterly transparent because there is no substance. How can a PM find the time to watch the 2 hour Harry and Meghan show but not find the time to read a critical dossier that could have a bearing on the future of one of his key colleagues? How does he find the time actually to do any of that boring government-stuff work when he his life is just one long photo-op day in and day out? I recall Rudd being accused of trying to dominate the media with an announceable every day. Morrison has perfected it. And no-one in the big media is calling him on it.
If I were a Labor adviser, I’d suggest focusing on Morrison for the election campaign. He ran a presidential style campaign last time so the trick would be to turn his strength in his weakness. There is plenty to work with around a simple slogan “Can you really believe this man?”
“Can you really believe this man?”
No, a thousand times No!
If you spin your tyres too many times they burn out and have to be replaced, much like Scomo, he`s misjudged the stupidity of the average voter a bit too much this time and will pay the price, he actually thinks he won the 2019 election but the truth is Shortens stupidity and Bowen’s arrogance lost the unlosable election. .
“… he`s misjudged the stupidity of the average voter a bit too much…”
I hope your are right, braddybear but I suspect he may be spot-on. We will find out one day not far away.
Don’t forget to add in Palmer’s millions and the targeted rorts to marginal seats like Braddon and Bass.
Yep- Palmer & facebook.
Tourism incentives a la Morrison: where have I seen that juxtaposition before? I don’t care where you are, Scotty but far away would be nice and you can play pretend lawyer to your (insert heart here) content. Res ipsa loquitur – you’re an impostor.