At some stage many of us reach the point when we conclude that our leaders are not just useless and meddling, but downright dangerous. The Coalition’s monumental bungling of the quarantining of infected Covid-19 arrivals is a continuation of their previous years of ineptness. They have endangered our lives, our economy, our health and well-being and – astonishingly – our country’s federation.
The seven years of Coalition leadership is a litany of failures, incompetence, cronyism, hypocrisy, indecision and paralysis. Their handling of the pandemic, by Australian standards, has been their biggest ever disaster – blameable on a lack of pandemic planning and shirking their responsibilities for quarantining.And in quarantine the Commonwealth has primary responsibility.
At year’s end we might think Australia is in good covid shape. Compared to the USA and Europe we are. Compared to NZ we aren’t: at year’s end we are going through yet another stage of closed borders and fractured lives.
Six of our jurisdictions – SA, WA, TAS, NT, ACT and QLD – have performed better than or equal to NZ or almost any country in the world, with zero-case community transmissions for months. However, major quarantine outbreaks in Victoria and NSW have had massive countrywide implications.
All eight state and territory leaders have been out outstanding. The failure is at the federal level.
Scott Morrison is our country’s leader. Josh Frydenberg is his chosen Treasurer. Through shameless bravado and more concerned about business interests than lives they have shirked, squirmed and bullied their way out of any responsibility or accountability for Australia’s Covid-19 mess.
For ScoMo maybe we should read SquirMo.
The baying Murdoch media said about Daniel Andrews “the buck stops at the top”.
Well sorry guys, Scott Morrison is the one at the top.
Seven years of unproductive Coalition leadership point to Covid-19 chaos
Rudd, Swann and Gillard introduced substantial and long lasting legislation. Most importantly was their decisive economic action which saved Australia from the GFC.
In contrast, Coalition government has meant years of holding ness and nothingness. The PM and Treasurer have been major players.
Notable areas of policy failure include climate change, energy, drought and water and bushfire prevention.
Many millions of Australians hoped that in response to Covid we would seize the opportunity to address serious climate change and growing inequality.Instead we are to return to the way we were, a gas led recovery with funds directed to busineses,a prospective tax cut for high income earners and no increase in Jobseeker.And we have an infantile approach to our relations with China.
After a decade of accusing the ALP of squandering taxpayers’ money on things like Pink Batts and creating a mountain of debt with their GFC stimulus packages it has been an amazing about-face to become Keynesian converts and where a mountain of debt to be “repaid by our children and their children” is no longer of consequence. We have the most spendathon government in Australia’s history.
We should not have been surprised about their derelict handling of the pandemic.
Covid-19 reveals a PM with no leadership skills and a Treasurer with no economic nous
The federal government is in charge of all aspects of our international borders, including quarantining of international arrivals. And it is in charge of the national economy.
There are some notable examples of covid stuff-ups.
Failure to shut down flights from the USA in March: Despite anecdotal and hard evidence, did our PM choose not to make this decision in order not to upset its prickly president in a selfish trade-off for duty of care for the Australian people? No wonder Donald Trump awarded him a Legion of Merit!
The Ruby Princess fiasco: Despite the federal government’s clear responsibility for border control, NSW was lumbered with the blame, and NW Tasmania with three weeks of lockdown.
Follow another leader – New Zealand’s: It seemed our PM was paralysed in his decision making, with a pattern whereby what NZ’s PM did, we would do soon after.
Our state and territory leaders were in charge, despite Canberra: As the pandemic progressed, Scott Morrison’s disconnect with his responsibilities showed and overall control was quickly usurped by state and territory leaders who increasingly defied and ignored him.
Shirking of aged care responsibilities: The federal government is the primary funder and regulator of the system. An aged care facility should be the safest possible place in a pandemic for elderly Australians, yet under the PM’s watch hundreds have died.
The bubble that burst: If anything displays our PM’s incompetence it was the so-called “trans-Tasman bubble with NZ” whereby arrivals in NSW and the NT were turning up in other states, much to the shock of some premiers.
Hysterical targeting of Daniel Andrews and Victorians: In October as Victoria struggled to reach zero-community cases, our nation’s PM, Treasurer and Health Minister (the latter being the two most senior Victorian federal members) rained down the most poisonous and unwarranted invective I can recall in Australian politics.
Morrison promoted the ‘gold standard’ approach of NSW: Yet a reluctant petulant premier would not make the hard decisions about mask-wearing and strong and fast lockdowns.
Double standards: With the others praised, Victoria, WA and Queensland with their Labor Governments were under relentless attack from federal ministers and their favoured media cronies.
The states rightly took it upon themselves to fully manage the areas for which they had responsibility and did it well. Stuff that Canberra was pushing them into! All eight leaders, even Gladys, displayed amazing leadership, with no shirking, no squirming, no pomposity and little unwarranted invective, relying on scientific and health advice.
The one area they have struggled with, and the cause of all our Covid-19 woes, is the quarantining of international arrivals: a job they should not have to do.
Quarantining arrivals: no care and no responsibility from the PM
The federal government has full responsibilities for international borders, yet our wily PM somehow off-loaded quarantining to the eight states and territories.
The National Cabinet is one of the few positives from the pandemic. We can only speculate that on March 27 the PM had yet another disconnect with his duties as national leader and arrived with no plan on how to deal with mounting imported infections. It seems the eight leaders – with less than two days to prepare – had no option but to accept hotel quarantining, with them wearing the cost, full responsibility and the consequences.
Hotel quarantine was certain to have breakouts and Victoria copped it. The Murdoch press would be after blame, blood and resignations, trying to pin the Premier to the rather irrelevant question as to who made the decision to use security guards. The haranguing of the Victorian premier would become merciless, uncalled for and un-Australian.
Other jurisdictions also used security guards. The important question was why and how did the Victorian system fail?
During the Coate inquiry the rest of the country learnt about the numerous ways in which infection could escape into the community.
The final report (released 21 Dec) points to the lack of planning for a pandemic like Covid-19, despite awareness of the possibility of such a pandemic. Existing Commonwealth and State plans did not include the scenario of mandatory, mass quarantine. In fact Coate says: “… it would be unfair to judge Victoria’s lack of planning for a mandatory quarantining program given the Commonwealth, itself, had neither recommended nor developed such a plan.”
The report includes:
“The lack of a plan for mandatory mass quarantine meant that Victoria’s Hotel Quarantine Program was conceived and implemented ‘from scratch’, to be operational within 36 hours, from concept to operation. This placed extraordinary strain on the resources of the State, and, more specifically, on those departments and people required to give effect to the decision made in the National Cabinet and agreed to by the Premier on behalf of Victoria. This lack of planning was a most unsatisfactory situation from which to develop such a complex and high-risk program.”
On this website we have explained how hotel quarantining is like a rusty bucket – a leakage certain to happen, with devastating consequences.
Flight arrival data show that within two weeks from the 28 March there would be over 17,000 in hotel quarantine around the country. Decent national leadership would have had plans in place for quarantining away from Australian population centres, in remote or more secure locations.
We are currently averaging around 10 new infections a day from overseas arrivals going into mandatory city based hotel quarantine.
From the recent NSW breakout, to the nation’s surprise, we hear that certain arrivals have bypass privileges. The AFR has posed that “Politicians, past and present, diplomats, movie stars, billionaires with private jets, sports stars, international airline crews, have all somehow made the list of exemptions.”
The recent NSW breakout and the ruined Christmas for many, and the cancelled Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race and possibly the Sydney cricket test might have derived from one of these privileged sources.
The PM fails the leadership test
The primary role of any government is to protect the population from threats, danger and infection.
The PM is meant to be in charge of our country and thus has ultimate responsibility for all coronavirus issues in Australia, including the Victorian disaster, the Ruby Princess fiasco, the Tasmanian cluster, the South Australian outbreak and the NSW Christmas cluster, and over 900 deaths nationwide.
It is with our PM where the buck stops. If Andrews was meant to check in on how his hotel quarantine system was going, then why was the PM exempted from having to check in on each state and how they were faring? Australia is the victim of his failure to have a national approach and to oversight the premiers.
The quarantining system needs to be fixed immediately. There is no guarantee Covid-19 vaccines will work in the long term or without side effects and against mutating forms of the virus. At the beginning of the pandemic the PM should have initiated measures for remote quarantining. However, like the fires, he has detached himself from the catastrophe in front of him as if in another world – unable or unwilling to help or make a decision.
Experts warn of more pandemics with increasing frequency. Controlling outbreaks is much harder in the bigger cities. Remote facilities with multiple uses could be used or built – Hamilton Island has a large airport and rooms for 5,000 guests!
Failure to have proper pandemic and quarantine planning has had consequences that are immeasurable in terms of extra cost to the governments, failed businesses, wrecked livelihoods, higher unemployment, unnecessary deaths, delays in restarting education, and the rest. Hundreds of billions of dollars to the economy and a trillion dollars of debt.
If the Victorian situation warranted a formal enquiry, the Coalition’s response warrants a Royal Commission.
We need better leadership than that provided by Morrison and Frydenberg during the pandemic.
For our country’s sake it is time they were put into permanent quarantine, after all that’s what we do with others who are a danger to the community.
Robin Boyle lectured in statistics at Deakin University and preceding institutes for three decades until 2009. His academic background in mathematics, economics and finance, as well as statistics, led him to developing teaching software in those areas and to be widely sought after as a textbook author.
Comments
31 responses to “Is it time to put our PM and his Treasurer into quarantine?”
Coronavirus Australia: Former premiers call for royal commission into nation’s COVID-19 response
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/people-have-tried-to-minimise-the-errors-leaders-call-for-royal-commission-into-nation-s-covid-response-20201228-p56qel.html
The comments posted here raise a number of major issues. One is how it is conceivable that highly paid public servants don’t bother to keep minutes of meetings or write up an email summary of an important telephone conversation. Another is the confusion over who is actually in charge of the quarantining of international arrivals – why is there no clarity provided by the federal government? Another issue raised is whether the lockdown processes smack of growing authoritarianism – though my concern is more about how government departments and organisations are increasingly difficult to access. A related matter is how the ABC is being shutdown – becoming too scared to ask difficult questions. The alternative media becomes the source of news and opinion for many voters, many of whom become emboldened to spout views that are in defiance of common sense, science and fairness. The Labor Party seems to be squashed, frightened or lazy, and thus has been ineffectual as an opposition.
This article and comments appear to be inviting an even more heavy-handed response than we have witnessed to date in Australia. I remain more concerned about authoritarian government than I am about the latest virus. I think the interstate border closures are ridiculous and to see Victorian police getting heavy with a bloke putting out his bin without wearing a mask is disgraceful and embarrassing for all Australians.
me too. plenty to worry about. see last two most recent posts at thejadebeagle.com almost new. best wishes.
Thanks Petal. This was new to me.
You may also appreciate a podcast called Red Scare with Mark Crispin Miller of New York University discussing propaganda. I only just discovered itd.
To the incompetent rabble must be added the senior executive of the state and commonwealth departments responsible for emergency services, who have not established intergovernmental policy, plans and procedure for dealing with all emergencies as they arise. Such a system of emergency management is all the more critical given that accelerated global warming will see the occurrence of emergencies also accelerate. How we dealt with the recent bushfires and pandemic clearly demonstrated the absence of coordination between the states and the commonwealth and the negligence of senior executive at both the state and commonwealth levels of government.
Too many good articles on P&I to keep abreast at times and the comments are also insightful and have depth. This line stood out for in this piece, ” However, like the fires, he has detached himself from the catastrophe in front of him as if in another world”. Where might this world be for Morrison? If ultimately your belief is that the next world is the place to be , why worry about this one? Of course on the occasions he’s grounded, it’s to keep the Liberals in office at all costs. Many thanks to all the contributors and all best wishes.
A bit late to this party. I strive for a complete set of adjectives for the Coalition governments, and yours is a pretty good list: “a litany of failures, incompetence, cronyism, hypocrisy, indecision and paralysis”.
I might just add “illegitimate” (elected on a platform of deceit and lies), “divided” and “rabble”, as in:
Why can Labor not beat such a divided rabble of no-hopers?
I do not know who these “Labor” people really are. They betray the interests of employees every day, even as they make to toss them a few crumbs.
Thank you for the thought provoking post. I
. agree with most of your points about the Commonwealth – and note the Opposition, mostly being ‘me too’, should join them in the stocks;
. suspect personal derision and slogans like Scotty from Marketing lead to a substantial underestimation of the Prime Minister and this appears to be a spiral;
. am disappointed there is no mention of his new national emergency legislation – his key wish for the year – or its dangers, and the cowardly and pathetic ‘performance’ by the Opposition and commentariat in supporting it;
. am also disappointed by the consistent playing down of evident crypto fascism growing in States under the guise of ‘safety’ that degenerated into myopic single-issue fear mongering – largely led by Victoria – which appears to have administrations trapped in policies bound to fail;
. do not agree with the view that the Victorian Government has somehow performed satisfactorily. Because I do not believe emergency ends – in this case Covid – justifies any means (see 3rd point above). A read of the recent inquiry report and Loielo’s case should dispel any illusions about that
. think the NSW Premier deserves a tremendous bagging, and should resign – for all manner of questionable deeds and omissions – but not for the NSW response to Covid once its act was cleaned up via the Harwin fiasco.
Finally on the role of Government, I am very very uncomfortable with the implicit view that the Commonwealth is somehow a really big State, or a back-stop for States, and has the same duty to protect people and property as do States. A read of the new emergency legislation – and of Mr Barratt’s recent post – should set alarms ringing about that view. I would prefer a formulation of the Commonwealth being responsible for s51 matters, for defending its property and valid laws and for preserving the system of government i.e. minimal overlap with States. It is a belief that there are overlaps, and that overlaps are ok, that led to the hotel failure – first by the Commonwealth not checking on the performance of the State and second by the shambles evident in Victoria in which – according to an inquiry – no-one apparently made a decision that led to a disaster.
Thank you again and have a good Xmas.
Victoria should seriously consider leaving the federation. We would be socially and economically viable and the rest of Australia would be forced to see just how we service the eastern seaboard. And just think, we could have a leader for Victoria instead of a Prime Minister for Sydney.
Seems the stench from Canberra is about to get waftier:
https://www.theage.com.au/national/prominent-canberra-lawyer-to-face-money-laundering-charges-20201223-p56pw2.html
I remember the Credlin drink driving incident. How sweetly she was treated, unlike many others, and got off with $5 court costs.
Only because of her husband Brian Loughnane who happened to be “the federal director of the Liberal Party of Australia from February 2003 until January 2016 and campaign director for the centre-right Liberal-National Coalition in the 2004, 2007, 2010 and 2013 federal elections in Australia”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Loughnane
Wonderful at last to see somebody pointing out the Federal Govt’s responsibility for quarantine. It is puzzling as to exactly why this duty has been dodged. Is it just the incompetence and laziness you have so fully and beautifully described? Or is it something more devious such as ScoMo wanting to keep Peter Dutton completely out of the media and the limelight? Certainly ScoMo is at little risk of his limited Treasurer outshining him but our Minister for Home Affairs might be another matter. On the other hand, perhaps Dutton is keeping a low profile so that when the pandemic is over, little mud will stick. He was nowhere to be seen at the Ruby Princess inquiry.
The founding fathers probably made a mistake linking quarantine with customs. Getting rid of customs posts at state borders was one of their main aims: customs had to become a Commonwealth responsibility. But quarantine is more clearly linked to public health, which they had left with the states. The states have had to get on with the job of government on the basis of expert advice in the field of public health, which determines economic outcomes.
perhaps.
quarantine covers animals and plants etc as well.
the ruby princess inquiry found the commonwealth quarantine functions bifurcated between agriculture and health portfolios. the attention (traditionally) paid to the former can be seen in that inquiry – and may have contributed to a commonwealth officials lack of challenge to what seemed a strange call by State health experts – a matter the inquiry didn’t pursue.
my guess about the federal split of quarantine/public health is that the latter functions are more closely allied to law enforcement – policing – rather than military.
on the issue of State Governments following expert advice – there is little public evidence of this for two reasons.
first, advice has generally not been published, except in inquiries and court cases – and in most of those, appalling Government practices have been revealed. Premiers assert they are following advice but have been averse to providing evidence – which is concerning since ‘experts’ seem to disagree on many matters e.g. masks
second, in all States except NSW, anti-covid restrictions have generally not been made by Premiers or health Ministers – despite what they claim. the decisions have been made by officials – some of whom hold positions as police chiefs and in health departments. thus they are not making ‘the decisions’ on the basis of expert advice. as has been said a number of times, it would be improper for Government Ministers to influence such decision makers – to offer advice to the experts.
the second point raises further issue: the in-house ‘health experts’, including those making media appearances and actual decisions, are not departmental heads, and in some cases are substantially below that level.
this is unlike the case in NZ where the head of the health department made the early anti-covid restrictions – (again!) – despite the Prime Minister claiming ‘credit’ and commentators and the media falling for her line of ‘following the advice’.
best wishes
While I wouldn’t disagree with this article it is the hapless Australian voters who, googly-eyed by the relentless spin and untruths that are sprayed on them (ably supported by the Murdoch media), keep voting for this mob. It always takes two to tango.
Agree. The Commonwealth is the most incompetent and dangerous because it and its election process are the targets of most foreign interference. Most of that comes from the big players in the Anglo-culture, the US and the UK. They are spiraling downwards into chaos, and they a dragging us down too.
For sure, ASIO and our intelligence guys have dictated foreign and trade policies for a few years now, and the results speak for themselves. It seems the CIA and MI6, and their loyal deputy, ASIO have more say in what matters most than our Parliament.
well, they are dragging us down, but I dont see that we’re putting up much resistance.
Yes, there is no doubt this is the fundamental problem: the apparent refusal of the “quiet Australian” to engage in any kind of political activity outside of their own household. There is a huge resistance to critical thought amongst large sections of the population, and the LNP know this and always exploit it. Equally, the commercial media–especially the electronic media–will not perform an educative function–as opposed to an entertainment one–in relation to their prime civic activity: to create fear and insecurity amongst the general population. The LNP constantly play upon this insecurity and it is a major component of the “quiet Australian’s” emotional response to those few issues–border incursions, China, unions–about which they think in a manner that is emotional rather than critical. There is no doubt this could be turned around, but not whilst a government of the ruthlessness of the LNP and Rupert Murdoch rule the roost.
As Caesar said: “Give them bread and games”
It is time for the quiet and thinking Australian to start speaking up and challenging the dogma, mistruths and noise from the right side of politics. What is of concern is highlighted by the saying “tell a lie one hundred times and it becomes the truth”. Thus we heard hundreds of times that the buck stopped with Daniel Andrews, but never (rarely) that it actually stopped with the PM.
Thanks Robin, for a very clear and comprehensive summary of Morrison’s ‘ achievements ‘ over the past 7 years.
He’s also one of the laziest prime ministers in history who avoids parliament because it is one of the only places he faces scrutiny.
After he replaced Turnbull in 2018, he called an election for the following year. Parliament then went into caretaker mode and stopped sitting for many months.
After the election in 2019 he made sure parliament avoided sitting too much for the entire year, cutting back to almost half the time parliament normally sits.
This year he avoided parliament sitting again under the cover of Covid-19 while most other countries continued or found ways to do it even via computer. When conditions improved he did not replace any of the sitting time lost while continuing to take the breaks in the schedule that were allocated for the year.
The final icing on the cake was his ridiculous trip to Japan to meet the new leader. There was no reason for this other than to irritate China, and it gave him a break when he came back by going into 2 weeks quarantine and avoiding parliament again. He could only appear via computer to introduce the reopening of parliament.
He then came back for one week and parliament clocked off for the Christmas break. Not one effort was made to re-schedule and/or make up for lost ground.
Truly this prime minister is a bludger (by Australian standards) who avoids parliament in order to avoid scrutiny, and not work too hard. When he was immigration minister he shut down information about refugees, and then it became such things as “no comment on on water matters”, then, “no comment on operational matters”. Now it is no scrutiny on any matter.
He will do any amount of marketing, photoshoots, and advertising, to promote himself and the Liberals while the states take the brunt of dealing with Covid-19. Yet he happily takes all of the credit internationally.
It has been appalling how he has castigated Labor states while praising Liberal states by politicising the virus. Add this to how he pork-barrels and affords grants to Liberal electorates while Labor electorates miss out, and gives out money endlessly to Liberal donors, and you can clearly see this prime minister only supports Liberal voters and donors – the rest of Australia can get lost. Much of this is copied from Trump’s way of operating when it comes to Democrat states verses Republican states.
When leaders like Morrison say they will govern for ‘everyone’ once elected, it is an utter lie.
He is the laziest prime minister in history who always has plenty of time to make his day comfortable and promote himself, while using the states to do the hard yards.
Yes, we all know who the leaners are.
“Truly this prime minister is a bludger” and our version of Jabba the Hutt.
A very expensive bludger at that: “As of 1 July 2019, Australia’s prime minister is paid a total salary of $549,250. This is made up of the ‘base salary’ received by all Members of Parliament ($211,250) plus a 160 percent ‘additional salary’ for the role of prime minister. Salary: A$549,250” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister_of_Australia#Salary
I’m no mathematician, in basic terms that’s $10,562.50 per week, just wrap your head around that figure and then think about the $545:80 per fortnight which equates to $272.90 per week that this liar and his ideologues accuse many, through no fault of their own, of being bludgers!
More than past time to consign this PM and his treasurer into quarantine.
Lazy politically. And one also senses our PM is a lazy man in the normal meaning; annoyed and irritated at having to do something. His work ethic way outshone by the state and territory leaders. How annoying for him to have to return from Hawaii because of a few fires! How annoying to have to have a quarantine plan ready for the national cabinet! …
Lazy, yes. But with the Opposition being led by Albo in the House and Wong in the Senate, it’s not as if there is any pressing need for Morrison to show much effort.
Most accurate and acute comments Robin.