Canberrans have discovered what Victorians and South Australians already knew: the failures of Gladys Berejiklian’s New South Wales government in the current outbreak have very real consequences for people and businesses outside that state.
For days, the failure of Berejiklian’s government to isolate Sydney from the rest of NSW — even allowing Sydney people to go roaming around the state to inspect property, the most Sydney virus vector it’s possible to imagine — has sent COVID creeping out into the regions.
Now the creep is accelerating, with regional communities — having hitherto been deprived of vaccines so Sydney could be prioritised — facing lockdown. It’s a debacle almost on the same scale as Berejiklian’s decision to delay going into lockdown and the initial lockdown-lite mode that gave the Delta variant a precious head start. Whether it can ever be brought under control again is uncertain.
That’s left Berejiklian politically desperate and with nothing to offer NSW voters except constant urgings to get vaccinated as case numbers mounted to the mid-300s and the death toll into the dozens, which is why she publicly toyed with the idea this week of relaxing some restrictions if Sydney reaches 50% vaccination next month.
That elicited a collective WTF from other first ministers and set the scene for another showdown in national cabinet, which had already upbraided her when she pleaded for more vaccines. The national cabinet position is the Doherty Institute-based plan for successive stages of easing of restrictions from 70% and then 80% in each state.
The ACT’s Andrew Barr, now facing the pointy end of Berejiklian’s failures, was prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt. Western Australia’s Mark McGowan, unsurprisingly, sounded like he’s ready to start digging a continent-wide moat along his borders. But one very real outcome from the NSW crisis, even without an easing of restrictions, could be that the virus is allowed to roam freely in a mostly vaccinated population and NSW is isolated from the rest of the country until well into 2022.
WA isolating itself in its fortress of distance is one thing, but NSW, the largest state economy and abutting four other states and territories (OK, five for the Jervis Bay purists), is quite different. A federation with NSW cut off isn’t much of a federation — but that’s what Berejiklian might deliver for us.
So far the federation angle on the pandemic has, rightly, been about how power has been centrifugally distributed to the states and territories from Canberra. We now have a very different federation from the one we had at the start of the year. Part of that was inevitable, but much of the responsibility lies with a man we haven’t even mentioned yet: the prime minister. Scott Morrison’s unwillingness or incapacity to lead has accelerated the reallocation of power to state capitals.
But now the structure of the federation is under challenge. Temporary border lockdowns and zealous leaders making political capital from keeping those terrible southerners/easterners/Victorians out could give way to something longer term and more permanent — at least until the pandemic is over. The silly “team Australia” rhetoric from the Morrison and the likes of Michael Stutchbury at The Australian Financial Review was always crass, misleading and a cover for the assertion of power by vested interests. But it now looks painfully at odds with reality, too. We’re team Queensland, team ACT, team Victoria, team NSW — in the latter case, a miserable huddled mass facing a long, and wholly preventable, health emergency.
It’s significant that no one’s looking to Canberra for leadership on this, or hoping Morrison can at least hold the federation together better with a display of policy and political skill. We’ve collectively given up on him. All eyes turn to the state capital every morning for an update on the numbers, a tweak of the lockdown settings — and then await the response from other state capitals. A Commonwealth? Hardly.
“… much of the responsibility lies with a man we haven’t even mentioned yet: the prime minister. Scott Morrison’s unwillingness or incapacity to lead has accelerated the reallocation of power to state capitals.”
Scott Morrison’s unwillingness or incapacity to do much of anything is his defining characteristic. He won the last election more or less by promising nothing and he’s tried hard to deliver regardless of anything or anyone. I keep thinking of that verse by Wiiliam Hughes Mearns:
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there!
He wasn’t there again today,
Oh how I wish he’d go away!
you have it all wrong – the States gave the limited powers to the Commonwealth – thankfully retained some domestic power. and while Canberra slowly in a cancerous way has accumulated power unconstitutionally [with the help of Canberra’s Court – the High Court] by holding the purse strings the States have now protected their citizens except for NSW.
Rather than creaking federation – it shows the strength Federation. Most of the States have protected their population and it has glaringly highlighted NSW Gladys incompetence. Just because there is 1 incompetent premier it shows the others to be good functional managers. Dan Andrews learnt very quickly to mend his ways and quickly became good manager – poor Gladys, though, pleasant has been shown to be to dumb to learn.
Canberra owns the purse strings because the unit of monetary exchange is the Australian dollar. Canberra controls the supply of dollars, and therefore the purse strings of the nation. States have to balance their budget, or borrow money. The Commonwealth borrows money from itself.
Canberra acquired control of income tax over the course of two world wars, depriving the states of their capacity to fund their activities.
It should be noted that the federal government is responsible for quarantine, but the states bear the consequences of failure to properly perform – or abandon entirely in Morrison’s case. I’m not sure that’s a strength of the federation, but it has transferred political capital to state leaders.
I look forward to the next federal election. I don’t know if Labor is up to the task, but Morrison’s track record is worthy of a blood bath similar to WA’s last election. Of course that would be over Murdoch’s dead body…
I think there is enough talent on the ALP front bench to outperform their govt counterparts by some margin. It’s not all down to Morrison vs Albanese. Who in the govt would you place above Wong, Plibersek, Butler, Burke, Leigh et al.
You’re preaching to an echo chamber here. The great unwashed out there, once they’ve all had a chance to be vaccinated will begin to wonder what the states are playing at
Within the next few months…..time is running out for Andrews et al to wreak their evil work on the Australian people….
Just remind yourself that NSW has a lot of catching up to do to reach the Victorian death count.
To paraphrase the ending of TS Eliot’s “Hollow Men” –
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
…..
This is how the world ends,
Not with a bang but a sniffle.
We have a liar of a Prime Minister who won’t lead on Climate Change, vaccination strategy, quarantine facilities outside of heavily populated cities – or anything else of great importance.
Morrison’s job is to be entirely reactionary on behalf of his big corporate donors, make sure nothing changes. Hence his incapacity to do anything useful.
And one of those big corporate donors is his very own mate and his tax-exempt cult show
Thankfully I live on an island that the rest of the country ignores, especially during the Commonwealth games.
Yeah – it’s good down here. I was able to get out of NSW the day after Gladys announced 37 cases – I saw the writing on the wall and drove to Melbourne where I got a Negative test. Three days later a death (old age – he was 102) in the family meant flying to Hobart and here I remain, in unrestricted bliss. Got my second AZ last weekend. Spent a couple of days at Low Head, Binalong Bay and St Helens last week. Went down to Bruny Island for two nights this week. Only problem I have now is I have no idea when I will ever get home again to NSW south coast.
Good for you, you are a covid fugitive.
Wish I was there too.
Usual idiotic dangerous far-right mad remark
Great article, you nailed it.
Who pulls Gladys’s chain, Rupert or Gerry ?
In a pandemic, is compromise a valid strategy ?
Should Victoria treat NSW the same way an employer will have to treat a non-vaccinated employee – isolation ?
Berejeklian cowers before the mighty NSW radio shock-jocks. She dare not defy them.
Ultimately it’s the advertising industry that pulls the chain…….it’s all about the revenue stream Rupert&Co are so dependent on.
However, Mr Google is doing very nicely thank you very much.
Maybe she does but they’re (2GB mainly) very open with their criticism of her these days. Maybe following their own sense of public opinion and lining up with the advertisers?
It’s rather ironic. Berejeklian did what she was told by delaying the lock down, and when it all went to hell her masters turned on her for being so stupid. They enjoy, as Rudyard Kipling put it, “Power without responsibility – the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages”
He was referring, in 1910, specifically to Canadian millionaire Max Aitken – later Lord Beaverbrook – for being only it for the money.
Later he extended it to mean the British press in general as it was just starting to be critical of the government he supported, being an unabashed Imperialist.
Stanley Baldwin snaffled it in 1931 to use against such lords of the press critical of his handling of the Great Depression – they were demanding martial law to deal with the unemployed, especially Jarrow Marchers.
An apt description of Moloch and his spawn today.
Yes, and there was more than enough justification for the criticism, though it still seems rather unfair to harlots who are generally decent enough (I am told). They deserve better than to be lumped in with press barons and their ranting stooges.
I agree but both Kipling & Badwin were insufferable prigs.
Oddly, the word originally meant, in French, a young man or vagabond which suggests that its change in meaning in English might have had something to do with the predilections of louche & lecherous spare sons on the Continent as remittance men.
As le vice Anglais later came to be the norm in Eton and its imitators.