It is a strange state of affairs when the Herald-Daily-Courier-Advertiser-Telegraph-Sun and The Australian have turned on a Liberal Party Prime Minister but given that we have half the population of this country effectively locked down and we haven’t heard from the Prime Minister in days, it is understandable.
Considering that half the country is in lockdown, with public health advice in mass confusion, what on earth is he doing? From the 27th of June when "Lockdown II: Electric Boogaloo" began until this afternoon, the Prime Minister (Scott Morrison) gave Zero media interviews; held Zero press conferences; made Zero public statements; and made Zero posts on social media.
It is reasonable to ask what kind of leadership that going missing in action during critical moments demonstrates but as was proven during the 2019–20 Australian bushfire season when the Prime Minister (Scott Morrison) went to Hawaii, Scott Morrison going into hiding is his signature disaster strategy.
History though, tells us the lesson that when any debacle comes crashing down around a tory Prime Minister in Australia, reverting to being completely bereft of any leadership whatsoever, is true to type. A century ago after state controls on movement were not able to stop the spread of the Spanish flu, the then Prime Minister Billy Hughes, also said very little to clarify things in the middle of a pandemic. He said almost nothing about the influenza pandemic as Prime Minister and as far as I can tell, never mentioned it by name in any official capacity.
The Prime Minister who was described by his opponents as a spider, a rat and a crab, and who was a political journeyman who would go on to be a member of six different political parties and be expelled from three of them, also like Scott Morrison tried to handball the responsibility to the State Governments and Premiers where ever he could.
https://electionspeeches.moadoph.gov.au/speeches/1919-billy-hughes
"With the exception of quarantine, all matters affecting public health are within the control of the States. It is doubtful whether Australia will ever be able to satisfactorily cope with some of her grave problems while exclusive power remains with the local authorities. Many preventable diseases still ravage our people, and the full co-operation of all our Governments is alone likely to lead to success. Millions of pounds are annually lost to the nation through sickness and death, and great suffering and sorrow brought by such diseases to the homes of the people. Tuberculosis, venereal complaints, typhoid and other epidemics will yield to treatment if all the forces of Government are combined in their attack. The Government is prepared either in conjunction with the States, or independently if such conjunction is impossible, to undertake this urgent task.
Nothing is so supremely important as the health of the people, and Australia is, because of the present division of authority, lagging behind [unreadable] countries in the [unreadable] of the subject [unreadable] lines."
- Prime Minister Billy Hughes, 30th Oct 1919
https://electionspeeches.moadoph.gov.au/speeches/1922-billy-hughes
"The Commonwealth does not suggest duplication of existing machinery nor to take the matter out of the hands of the States, but believes that by co-ordination and co-operation the desired results can be obtained. With a view to giving effect to this proposal, and acting in co-operation with the States, the Government will appoint a Royal Commission to consider and report upon the best means for co-ordinating the various activities and improving the nation’s health."
- Prime Minister Billy Hughes, 20th Oct 1922
I find it amazing that in the middle of a pandemic and only after the largest pandemic in recorded history which raged, from February 1918 had April 1920 had broken, did infection control became a national issue. It was only after state controls on movement proved insufficient to stop the spread of the "Spanish flu" (H1N1), that the Nationalist Hughes officially created the Department of Health on 7 March 1921.
What I also find amazing was that Dr John H Cumpston was appointed as Director-General of the brand new Department of Health, after being hastily appointed as the Federal Director of Quarantine during the pandemic and then remained head of the Department of Health until 1945. Dr Cumpston was the chap who suggested the creation of a Health Department and the introduction of universal health care.
What I don't find amazing is that the idea of universal health care which actually was implemented in the UK with the NHS in 1948, would take a further 36 years to be implemented in Australia. Before the introduction of Medicare in 1985, the vast majority of Australians had to pay for private insurance to cover their expenses in hospital.
It was a Curtin Labor Government which passed the Pharmaceutical Benefits Act (1944) which underpins the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme we still have today, and allows the Australian Government to negotiate for prices upon and subsidise medications. You'd think that the memory of the 1918-20 influenza epidemic and the Second World War would have been enough to convince tory parties in Australia that public health and preventative medicine were worth pursuing, but no.
Although Menzies' Government did expand subsidies for residential aged care services and did create a government owned private health care with Medibank (in the National Health Act 1953), the tory Liberal Party which he founded, killed off any hope of universal healthcare in favour of private insurance funds and private health care providers (mainly charitable and religious based organisations).
The Institute of Public Affairs which calls itself a conservative, non-profit free market public policy think tank but which is nothing more than a private enterprise cheer squad, was set up by G.J. Coles (Coles), H.G. Darling (BHP), C.D. Kemp (Australian Paper Manufacturers), Sir Keith Murdoch (Herald & Weekly Times), and G.H. Grimwade (Drug Houses of Australia) and has always hated the idea of universal healthcare.
https://ipa.org.au/ipa-review-articles/be-like-gough-75-radical-ideas-to-transform-australia
And the public’s bias towards the status quo has a habit of making even the most radical policy (like Medicare, or restrictions on freedom of speech) seem normal over time. Despite the many obvious problems of socialised health care, no government now would challenge the foundations of Medicare as the Coalition did before it was implemented.
...
20 Means-test Medicare
21 End all corporate welfare and subsidies by closing the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education
29 Eliminate the National Preventative Health Agency
72 Privatise the CSIRO
- IPA, 5th August 2012
The Morrison Government which is under instruction from the IPA (as most Liberal Governments have been since 1949) is just the latest in a long line of tory policy. In the grand scheme of things, Scott Morrison being absent at times of national crisis and emergency is not unexpected. The Morrison Government being absent at times of national crisis and emergency and doing things at an utterly glacial pace, is also not unexpected. This kind of policy and attitude has now lasted for more than a century. That looks like even deeper Laws and Principles are in operation and that leads me to consider both Poe's Law and The Peter Principle.
Poe's Law:
Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is utterly impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won't mistake for the genuine article.
- Nathan Poe, 10th Aug 2005
The Peter Principle: observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to their maximum level of incompetence.
With just 5.9% of Australians fully vaccinated and our rollout being the 95th most efficient in the world, I would like to say that the Prime Minister (Scott Morrison) presenting only some vague plan to exit from "Fortress Australia" only after eighteen months after the start of the pandemic, would normally suggest that we are the prisoners of an incompetent government but sadly that's not the case. "Fortress Australia" has now been breached 26 times and still we haven't got anything concrete.
twitter.com/GregHuntMP/status/1357177406189051904
On the advice of the Scientific Industry Technical Advisory Group on Vaccine lead by Professor Brendan Murphy, the Australian Government has secured an additional 10 million doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.
- Greg Hunt, Minister for Health and Aged Care, 4th Feb 2021
This is full on Peter Poe's Law from the Federal Government, where it is no longer possible to tell incompetence from intentional malfeasance. It should be restated that in 2019/20 and 2020/21, the Morrison government did not build any quarantine centres or buy enough vaccine. That's the bottom line here. The Morrison Government should have been expected to be missing in action from the start of this because his party has always hated the idea of universal healthcare, and tory Prime Ministers in Australia revert to being completely bereft of any leadership whatsoever.
No comments:
Post a Comment