It feels like a broken record, but the lesson continues to apply: the Morrison government is only capable of political management of complex issues, and as the last few weeks have shown, its talent for political management is proving no match for what it’s up against.
Now that lesson applies to what, by the government’s own assessment, is the only political and policy game in town: the vaccine rollout.
Remember that not merely is it a political no-brainer that the government has to get the vaccine rollout right, and will trumpet its success if it does, but Scott Morrison has made clear it is the government’s biggest priority this year. “Suppress the virus and deliver the vaccine” was the number one priority on the government’s agenda, according to Morrison’s National Press Club speech on February 1. Morrison even made a point of saying he wouldn’t be pursuing any economic reform because he was too busy dealing the pandemic and rolling out the vaccine.
Until this week, the vaccine rollout was merely badly behind schedule. The head of the health department admitted the vaccination rollout now won’t be completed this year, only the first dose. According to the government’s own, recent forecasts, by this week around 1.8 million people should have been vaccinated.
Yesterday Health Minister Greg Hunt was admitting that only 670,000 had been done. But state governments, which have a crucial role in driving the rollout in the first two months, had kept their criticisms of the process muted, and confined to matters like the government’s failure to provide detailed information.
Yesterday Morrison’s government, terrified it would end up wearing the blame for screwing up the thing it said was its most important priority, got half-smart and tried to shift the blame to the states, leaking figures to its News Corp friends purporting to show the states failing to use the vaccines they had been provided. Nationals dill David Littleproud helpfully weighed in to accuse the states of doing “three-fifths of bugger all”.
That is, in response to an major unfolding problem with its vaccination rollout, the government’s first instinct was — as always — political management and blame-shifting.
It didn’t go down particularly well, with the Morrison government’s NSW Coalition counterpart leading the charge. Both NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard and Premier Gladys Berejiklian raged at the federal government, pointing out they’d delivered twice as many vaccine doses as the Commonwealth and demanding an apology to all states. The Queensland government, normally at odds with Sydney on pandemic matters, was happy to endorse their fury.
Having dimly realised the blame-shifting had backfired, Hunt emerged to offer an olive branch to the states and lavish praise on their efforts. “The states and territories are doing a first-class job,” he declared, adding that the Queenslanders were doing a wonderful job on contact tracing as well. “I’m very thankful for the work of all the states and territories,” he added.
All this while the government’s rationale for taking its time with the rollout — that Australia had few or no cases and could afford to do it carefully — was being undermined by the locking down of Brisbane, another demonstration of the economic fragility that will plague Australia for the rest of the year given the slowness of the rollout.
The government has nowhere to hide on this. True, Australia’s health system is far more complex, and far more geographically challenging, than that of, say, the UK. It requires coordination with primary care and aged care as well as the state and territory medical systems. But it has had months to plan the rollout, and the risks to supply from vaccine nationalism have been known all along (and didn’t stop Morrison from promising Australians would be at the top of the queue for vaccines).
Yet here we are, way behind schedule, with the government focused on trying to shift the blame to the states. Political management and drops to News Corp won’t save the government if the rollout doesn’t speed up and deliver what Scott Morrison promised just a few weeks ago.
Three points I would make.
Agree with point 1. Although, given the slim majority they have – the impact of tourism business failing (surely the owners of which will never vote liberal again) and people not being able to get home (also surely never to vote liberal again) will probably be enough on its own to prevent them winning the next election. The fact that Brendan Murphy said ‘there’s no rush’ for the roll-out when any businesses dependent on international travel will live or die on when the vaccination roll out is complete shows you just how out of touch both the pollies and public servants are.
Bit hard on the real Public Service who are only doing as their boss tells them. Same as in the Private Sector.
Anna, the context that Brendan Murphy was speaking to was that Australia has not had a full blown first wave due to Australia closing its borders.
Victoria certainly did have an outbreak, but, not in the order of Milan’s for instance.
What we have all been working towards is avoiding doctors having to make life or death decisions by torch light in an overflowing car park.
Brendan Murphy was also speaking as a humanitarian, which is unusual for a public servant.
In comparison to just about everywhere that has had massive death rates, we actually do have the benefit of time to vaccinate with completely assessed and authorized vaccines.
If the baseline upon which you contemplate the re-opening of the international borders to fully vaccinated people will be at the end of 2022 or 2023.
Is anyone making a book on how long all this poor communication and lack of transparency will last. I cannot see any of his colleagues trying to oust him, because they will have to wear the can at the next election. So what is going to happen??
My guess is they will try and weather the storm with Morrison so long as things don’t get appreciably worse in the short term. Even the rise in unemployment, and the business closures post-Jobkeeper, i think they can tough out, because in much of the public’s mind, these things will improve in the medium term.
But Morrison is super-vulnerable at the moment to further scandals…teetering on the brink is how i’d describe it…and one more big outrage would have the libs deciding that the brand couldn’t survive any more Scomo-related damage,and if they want to get any benefit out of an economic recovery without the taint, they will need a new skipper, and that would be the fresh and baby faced Frydenberg i reckon.
Going on from my last comment, if i were a Labor strategist, i would start targetting Josh now and tie him tight with the whole “incompetent, nasty and unfit to govern” theme…when you think about all the other big name ministers, it is easy to tag each one with a major vice, they are almost cartoonish in their villainy… not so Frydenberg, he’s kept his nose clean enough to avoid being easy to label with an arch-foible.
Are you including his misplacing of $60Billion in his clean nose? He has been like the otherssent out with rubbish statements, I haven’t forgiven him for his appaling remarks against Victoria when we were in that hard lockdown thanks to the Ruby Princess being allowed to offload all its passangers including the sick ones.
yes, agree, and they are the dots that need to be joined in the minds of the public, and kept there in the spotlight. It says a lot about the other ministers’ notoriety, that Josh’s $60 billion oopsie and the Victoria attacks seemed to have faded into insignificance in contrast to the antics of Porter, Kelly, Laming et al.
Josh will wear the financial I,pact of the last 12 months. Have you noticed Scomo makes the presser when it’s time for giveaways but Josh has to front up when the news is bad. I think the unemployment rate (fictional 5.8%) and business closures will kill Josh’s chances of getting the gig. I don’t think that any senior lib will want to touch the gig before the next election anyway..the brand is becoming quite toxic
He can’t make mistakes! His scripted cue cards and mind-ers and train-ers don’t allow it.
Not much choice is there?
Whatever those wise men from the liberal party believe, Scotty from marketing has to to go. We are just not listening to him any more.
“Simple put, when you replace experienced Public Servants with Political Advisors, what can you expect.”
Exactly!!
Indeed that is, in my opinion, the problem with Gaetjens. He was a party man not a public servant and lacks the experience and the corporate memory that the old breed of senior public servants had.
Plus Morrison announced in August 2019 that the role of public servants was to do as they were told, not to give frank and fearless advice. He prefers young advisers who can be got rid of without any due process to be followed.
Yes to Charles, Yossarian (nice handle) and mjm, experienced public servants actually know how to get things done, surprisingly for all those who lean on their shovels and criticise them. An experienced public servant knows the systems, knows the people and institutions and knows who to contact to get those things done. Advisers know four fifths of five eighths of FA.
Love that last sentence, so spot on.
Actually they have replaced the public service with the big four accounting firms – and outsourced core policy formulation to the pimply kids over at the IPA.
The word is that in some departments, public servants have been reminded and about the employee assistance programme, with a consensus that the election will be held as late as possible, and just wait it out.
And of course the good news is that many of the previous Ministers pet projects will wither on the vine and they can get on with their real jobs.
Actual case in point – A nursing home dementia resident had the first Covid-19 jab 3 weeks ago. None of the staff have received their first vaccination and have not been able to find out when it will happen.
As usual with this Federal Government all front and hot air, laps of honour in front of cameras but no plan that anyone on the front line or in between, is aware of. Of course, there is always the fallback ‘She’ll be right mate’ delivered with the habitual smirk.
It is past time Morrison gave up on his favourite activity, doing pressers badly, and started setting actual policy outcomes, setting up consistent delivery plans and performance standards in concert with State Governments and delivery groups, monitoring performance to quickly identify poor results, required improvements and how to deliver those improvements.
Morrison is still operating in the – I’ll blather a lot, repeat myself endlessly, tell listeners how well i’m going and send off a hospital pass to the organisations and people actual delivering the service on the front line.
Morrison needs to become a manager not a one dimensional personality billboard. Even that persona is badly flawed – but he seems completely oblivious to the fact – no self awareness.
He was sacked as CEO from Tourism NZ and Tourism Oz. Why would anyone think he could be CEO of a somewhat more complex body like Australia?
Australia doesn’t need a CEO it needs a Government led by a competent Prime Minister.
We did have an approximation of one in the form of Malcolm Furball, but he he had a formidable intellect and a moral compass. Malcom was therefore completely incomprehensible to the sleaze bags and spin doctors who inhabit the Liberal Country Party’s cabal of members and senators. Many of the male versions who get confused about being a member and flashing their members around in the hope of certain gratifications.
That’s how we ended up with Morrison the Moron, Potato Head and that egregious, neurotic shrew Michaleia Cash-My-Cheque.
To think she’s in charge of the law. You couldn’t make this stuff up.
It’s more like American politics every day.
You’re right Robert, we couldn’t make this stuff up. Sadly, we don’t have to write fiction on this – it’s happening in real time all around us.
AS for the comment about Liberal Country Party who get confused about being a member and flashing their members about in the hope of certain gratifications, well it turns out we haven’t had to make this stuff up either. And then we come to actual members themselves………..
The pipsqueak Federal Health Minister doesn’t exactly inspire confidence beyond the spin puppetry.
It`s rumoured hunt has a penchant for swearing at his staff.
A rumour?!
That’s more than sufficient, get out the tumbrils!
He always reminds me of a (whinging) deer in the headlights. No confidence even in the spin puppetry.
Morrison lacks ANY of the qualities needed to lead. We need real leaders to get us through this. Morrison will never be that person. It is an impossibility.
Like the Federal ICAC, NDIS , religous freedom bill, bushfire recovery, the covid tracking app, etc etc etc scomo is all mouth and no trousers.
To put it another way scomo is all hi-viz and no J*zz.
He’s just a roadmap without the trip.
Like the barber’s cat – all piss and wind
Perhaps he should use the roadmap of Thelma & Louise?
One could erect bleachers and see tickets, as when some crazy cult in the 30s did at Balmoral and enough deluded believed the 2nd Coming would be through Sydney heads.
… or even “erect bleachers and SELL tickets“
Morrison loves to trot out, at every opportunity, “We have a plan”, or “We are sticking to the plan.”
When is a journalist going to ask to see one of these mythical plans? They should be able to produce the envelope or napkin on which it is written quite simply.
They certainly have no means of delivering on their plans.
Their “Plans” normally consist of a glossy brochure cover, with nothing inside.
I’m not trying to downplay the complexity of rolling out a vaccine across a big country, but having many many countries do the roll-outs before us, you think would have given us a huge head start. Not just because of the extra time we’ve had to prepare, but the advantage of being able to watch what they do, and take notes.
Back in WW I, General Monash staged elaborate dress rehearsals of battles before attempting the real thing. D-Day in WW II was meticulously planned and rehearsed for ages too. I’m going to guess that these endeavours were all more complex than a peacetime vaccine roll-out, aided by modern technology.
Yet when our V-day arrived, it seems only then that the government started to fully process the huge task ahead. Like the person who’s been ignoring a bushfire until they physically see the giant wall of flame roaring towards their house, and starts going “clean the gutters! do we have any buckets? Who could have foreseen this? Mind you, other people have bushfires too. And now’s not the time to be politicising this”.
The marketing and managing of a thing has become mixed up with the thing itself, until making an announcement feels like “job done”. Morrison has created a style of government in his own image, that find it genuinely hard to do things for real.
Yeah, but Monash was a leader, Morrison, not so much.
Who should have been granted the rank of Field Marshall except for the enmity of Rupert Murdoch’s father and war historian Bean