Politics

If anything crystallises the brutal impact of the coronavirus crisis in Australia, it is the thousands queued outside Centrelink offices around the country this week. The lines began forming the day after the prime minister announced that vast sectors of the economy were to be shut down, with income support for those affected. Here was the intersection of life or death measures, crashing the livelihoods of millions and again exposing a government response that was poorly thought through and executed.

There in the prime ministerial courtyard of Parliament House, Scott Morrison finally admitted his world had crumbled. ‘Life is changing in Australia, as it is changing all around the world,’ he began his news conference midweek. ‘Life is going to continue to change as we deal with the global coronavirus.’

For decades, Australians have been sold an imagined poverty. We have been told we need to ‘rein in’ government spending – that if we want to spend more on health or education, we will need to spend less on the age pension or childcare. But the reality is that if we had a bigger public sector today, we would be better prepared to weather the health and economic crises triggered by the coronavirus.

The coronavirus-induced panic that has caused the great run on toilet paper is not confined to the herd instinct of millions of shoppers. Fear of being the first government to preside over the end of 30 years of uninterrupted growth is gripping Scott Morrison and his entire Coalition outfit.

It is getting harder by the week to believe a word uttered by the prime minister of Australia. And no one has done more to undermine Scott Morrison’s credibility than the man himself. This harsh judgement is shared not only by his political opponents in the Labor Party but also by all but one of the six crossbenchers in the house of representatives.

The truth, in Scott Morrison’s world, is like light. With the right forces, it can be fractured or bent out of shape. Sometimes it changes of its own accord, as the sun charts a course across the sky. As Immigration minister, he invented the notion of ‘on-water matters’ – which would not be commented on – and changed forever how politicians share information.

There’s an old saying in politics, ‘Never waste a good crisis.’ And it’s crystal clear Scott Morrison isn’t wasting any moment where he can be seen responding to the threat coronavirus – or COVID-19, as it’s now known – is posing to Australia and the world. It stands in stark contrast with his derelict early response to the bushfire emergency.

When a prime minister has to appeal for unity in his ranks, not one but two weeks running, you know there isn’t any. And the awful reality for Scott Morrison is that he’s got one hand tied behind his back as he tries to restore the promised stability in the Coalition. The fate of his government lies with the fractious Nationals, and there is no prospect of the divisions racking the junior Coalition partner healing any time soon.

The old tautology ‘deja vu all over again’ has become a jarring reality for the Coalition. And shattering the promised peace and stability are all the same factors that destroyed the prime ministership of Malcolm Turnbull: climate change, energy policy and competing egos. The big difference this time is that hostilities broke out among the Nationals rather than the Liberals. But the collateral damage is much the same.

On Monday, Australia’s director of human biosecurity issued the dryly named Biosecurity (Human Health Response Zone) (North West Point Immigration Detention Centre) Determination 2020. The legal instrument designated the detention centre on Christmas Island a ‘human health response zone’ – no one is allowed to enter the facility unless they have been sent there due to concerns about the spread of coronavirus.