It may have shaped as the most important policy implementation in a century. Now it is butchered inside 24 hours of launch.
It was always far too much, too fast. First, PM Morrison declared we’d all be force-jabbed with a non-existent and untested vaccine:
Talking up hopes of a successful vaccine on Wednesday morning, Mr Morrison told Melbourne radio station 3AW he would “expect it to be as mandatory as you can possibly make it”, noting the devastation COVID-19 has wreaked on the world.
“There are always exemptions for any vaccine on medical grounds, but that should be the only basis,” he said.
Then he backflipped amid public panic:
But just hours later, Mr Morrison told listeners on Sydney radio station 2GB that the Government would not make vaccination mandatory for anybody.
“It’s not going to be compulsory to have the vaccine,” he said.
While the Government does not mandate vaccination for other diseases, parents can lose access to Government payments like the Family Tax Benefit A and the Child Care Subsidy if their children do not meet immunisation requirements.
Mr Morrison said the Government would take measures to “encourage” people to be vaccinated.
Then it became clear that the entire exercise was little more than another lobbyist writing policy:
Goodness.
The Director of Government Affairs at Scott Morrison’s suddenly favourite new drug company AstraZeneca is former federal govt lobbyist Kieran Schneemann.
He’s also a former Chief of Staff in the Liberal party.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that at all.
— RonniSalt (@RonniSalt) August 19, 2020
I’m sure Scott Morrison forgot to mention it today.
It seems AstraZeneca have an interesting history in government contracting related offences
Since 2000, they’ve paid out over USD $543 million in fines.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
(thx @FutureGhost14 for tip) pic.twitter.com/GP4Jw91nD4
— RonniSalt (@RonniSalt) August 19, 2020
It seems Scott Morrison forgot to mention AstraZeneca’s vast corporate rap sheet when his government recently exempted them from covid-19 vaccine liability
From illegal marketing to product safety, tax avoidance & price gouging – it seems AstraZeneca has been there & done that
. pic.twitter.com/30HXJnO9Ou— RonniSalt (@RonniSalt) August 19, 2020
And by late afternoon yesterday we landed on this:
“I’m angry. You have no right to say I have to have this vaccination, because I won’t be having it.” – @PaulineHansonOz #auspol #COVID19
More: https://t.co/rpFgiQOGRg pic.twitter.com/wxlYn3sbJL— news.com.au (@newscomauHQ) August 19, 2020
Aaaaand it’s over. The Australian vaccine rollout is in ruins after a day of utter prime ministerial stupidity. Everybody’s back is now up against the vaccine. The usual demagogues are swarming to take advantage.
This was classic Scotty from Marketing policy unprocess:
- act on Coalition crony lobbyist’s advice;
- send a test flag up the pole in the national media;
- retreat immediately to some half-arsed and politically safe version.
What it should be is:
- work through a policy position with deep research, evidence and expertise;
- begin a public debate about the chosen policy path;
- win the debate with reason and fortify the public against the blowback of interests;
- roll out the policy with the public onside and the strongest bulwark to protect the policy.
It’s not that bloody hard and it was critical to get this right to keep the mushrooming anti-vaxxer movement at bay.
As I have said before, I have heard from very senior Coalition sources that Morrison is dumb. His track record supports this contention. At the best of times, he has proven useless (think the plan for higher house prices). At difficult times, he has proven dangerous (think the trip to Hawaii as the nation burned).
Now we face the tough times and he is proving disastrous.
