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OSMAN:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Osman Faruqi, this is 7am.
The federal government promised that by the end of March four million Australians would be vaccinated against Covid-19.

But, as of this week, we’ve barely hit a quarter of that target.

Now the Prime Minister is facing growing political pressure over the slow pace of the vaccine rollout.
Today, columnist for The Saturday Paper, Paul Bongiorno, on how the federal government is handling this phase of the pandemic, and whether Scott Morrison is doing enough to vaccinate the country.

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PAUL:

Oh, Ruby, you look very different...oh, I'm having a Red Riding Hood moment. It's you, isn't it Os! Behind that beard…

OSMAN:

[laughs]

PAUL:

What are you doing here?

OSMAN:

I am the big bad wolf today, Paul.

PAUL:

Well, I'm not afraid. Is that a problem?

OSMAN:

Let’s see how we go. Yeah nah I'm looking forward to you and I chatting for the first time.

PAUL:

Well, we've chatted before off-mic, so let's do it on-mic.

OSMAN:

Let's see if I can live up to the wonderful Ruby Jones. Paul, you happy to get into it?

PAUL:

Absolutely.

OSMAN:

Let's start with the vaccine rollout. I mean, it looks like it's going pretty badly, not just in terms of the actual rollout itself, but also in terms of how the government is being perceived. But just how badly is it going and how much of an issue has it become for the coalition government?

PAUL:

Well, Os, I think we all now know that the vaccine programme is grossly behind schedule. Three million short of the target is no near miss. And ham fisted attempts by Scott Morrison's government to variously blame the states or the Europeans only succeeded in, well, spotlighting their own shortcomings.

In fact, the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic is rapidly becoming a political crisis for the federal government. It's the kind of classic reversal of fortunes you see sometimes in politics. The pandemic, you might remember, was once seen as the circuit breaker that Scott Morrison really needed after the black summer bushfires. But now it's an indictment of the Prime Minister's failure to deliver on his promises.

OSMAN:

So Morrison is supposedly this master of spin and political messaging. Does he have a strategy to change this perception?

PAUL:

Well, I'm pretty sure he hopes he does.

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison:

“I think it is a good idea for us to have even more data transparency on these issues, and that’s what I’ll be discussing with the premiers and chief ministers on Friday…”

PAUL:

Morrison saw it was time to, well, staunch the bleeding over the vaccine rollout failures. His starting point, though, was to deny the reality of it.

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison:

“And it is true that as this stage of our rollout, it’s actually better than where Germany was, it’s better than where New Zealand was, it was better than where South Korea was and Japan was…”

PAUL:

Who he thinks he's impressing by claiming Australian exceptionality in the rollout is a mystery.

Archival Tape -- Bill Bowtell:

“However you want to spin it, we are not doing very well. Today, this morning, 97% of Australians are not vaccinated.”

PAUL:

According to adjunct professor in health strategy at the University of New South Wales, Bill Bowtell, we ranked 90th in the world somewhere between Bolivia and Albania.

Archival Tape -- Bill Bowtell:

“We have problems with supply because of the way in which procurement was organised 5 and 6 months ago, and we clearly have problems with distribution…”

PAUL:

Well, Bowtell warned that the virus was mutating faster than we in Australia are vaccinating.

For all the fanfare of rollout and various announcements, you'd have to say it was botched.

Archival Tape -- Reporter:

“There’s growing anger over Australia’s Covid vaccine rollout with inoculation hubs turning people away even though they’re sitting empty…”

Archival Tape -- Reporter:

“GPs in Queensland have criticised the state’s Covid-19 vaccine rollout, claiming they’re bearing the brunt of slow supplies…”

PAUL:

Not enough vaccines were available, general practitioners who were to be in the frontline of the rollout were told little or nothing, their clinics were swamped with callers, and the online website was no help at all.

Archival Tape -- Reporter:

“Scott Morrison on the offensive over the supply of the AstraZeneca vaccine from Europe.”

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison:

“3.1 Million of the contracted vaccines did not turn up in Australia.”

PAUL:

Well, when Morrison and his ministers blamed Europe for failing to supply the contracted 3.1 million vaccines, Brussels contradicted them.

Archival Tape -- Eric Mamer:

“There was at that point in time only one request which had been refused which was a well known request to Australia but for much much smaller quantities…”

PAUL:

It admitted to withholding 250,000 shots, but denied the three million figure.

Archival Tape -- Eric Mamer:

“So no we certainly cannot confirm any new decision to block vaccine exports to Australia or any other country for that matter.”

PAUL:

Well, the states were quick to disown responsibility for the shambles with both the Queensland and New South Wales premiers reminding midweek news conferences that they were responsible for 30 percent of the rollout, while the Commonwealth was responsible for the rest.

OSMAN:

And how about you, Paul, have you had your first shot of the vaccine yet?

PAUL:

Well, it's a very good question. Both myself and my good lady wife are in phase 1B and well, there are some immunity issues, so you'd think we'd be pretty well top of the list. But when we contacted our own clinic, which is quite a big one, they said they weren't one of the ones doing the vaccinations. And when we contacted the nearest one to us, their first question was, are you regular patients? Which was a bit of a worry. But they also said that they didn't know what was going on. They didn't have the vaccines and maybe contact them in a couple of weeks time.

OSMAN:

Yeah, that’s something that quite a few people have been reporting, and as you’ve said we’re under a time pressure here because of how fast the vaccine is mutating so quickly. So has Morrison started to admit that the government has made some mistakes here?

PAUL:

What Morrison rightly says the problem is supply - Australia doesn't have what's needed to meet the promised targets. So three months after vaccination started in other countries and one month into our slow and fraught programme, it's obvious that our government's planning last year was woefully inadequate, and a number of experts are pointing this out. Former head of the federal health department is one of them, Stephen Duckett. He wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald that the politicians should invest less in hype and photo opportunities and instead focus on actually managing the rollout.

OSMAN:

Wow, that's a pretty direct assessment.

PAUL:

And, Os, it's very hard to argue with.

OSMAN:

We’ll be right back.

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OSMAN:

Paul, we're talking about the incredibly slow pace of the vaccine rollout here in Australia and the associated political issues that are going with that. You said that opinion is starting to shift against Morrison. Do we have any more evidence of that?

PAUL:

Yes, and it came to a head this week when The Australian published its quarterly consolidated Newspoll results. The headline in the paper screamed Coalition in election peril after hit in resource states. It certainly didn't make happy reading for the Prime Minister.

This Newspoll finding is in the context of the pandemic, which has seen incumbents in Western Australia and Queensland retain power in landslides. In fact, support in WA has significantly moved away from the Coalition federally, according to the Newspoll. But nationally, on a two party preferred basis, the Coalition now lags behind Labour 49-51, whereas the last quarterly analysis had the coalition up 51-49. And we should notice there Osman that basically in both those findings, it's statistically line-ball anyway.

OSMAN:

Right. But that does seem like it's better news for Labor and Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese, or is it more complicated than that?

PAUL:

Well, look, the other important measure is ‘preferred Prime Minister’ - Morrison ends the quarter well ahead of Labour's Anthony Albanese in the approval stakes, although he's been steadily losing ground. Now, this echoes Labor's research that finds the prime minister's support is a kilometre wide and a millimetre deep. And it goes a long way to explain why Labor is in the tight election winning position, two-party preferred. Albanese takes great heart from the fact that the party's primary vote is consistently higher than it was at the 2019 line ball election.

While some of Albanese's naysayers say Labor should be streets ahead, given Morrison's travails, the opposition leader's caucus supporters say this is a blinkered discount of the pandemic factor. Now, none of this is to write off Morrison. Anything unexpected, surprising even can and as we know does happen in politics.

OSMAN:

And we all know that I love surprises. So what have we got in terms of them this week, Paul?

PAUL:

Well, a few Os, but none that really helped Morrison. One that came up unexpectedly was Morrison's treatment of Christine Holgate, who he had removed as Australia Post chief executive late last year. This week, Holgate’s submission to a Senate enquiry was made public. In it, she said she never agreed to resign over her gift of Cartier watches to senior executives as a bonus for securing a lucrative contract for the government owned business. She accuses the Liberal government appointed chair, Lucio Di Bartolomeo, of lying to the parliament and unlawfully standing her down at the direction of the prime minister.

And she says Morrison humiliated her in the parliament, causing her the most harrowing 10 days of her career.

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison:

“So appalled and shocked was I by that behaviour—any shareholder would in a company raise their outrage if they had seen that conduct by a chief executive, a management or a board; they would insist rightly on the same thing…”

PAUL:

Well, the Prime Minister attempted to brush aside the criticism, saying it was up to the Senate enquiry to sort out the different versions between her and Australia Post. And he noted that Holgate had resigned. It was a pretty interesting tactic, Osman; nothing to see and nothing to do with me.

But Labor's Michelle Rowland accuses the Prime Minister of double standards when he defended Christian Porter and argued for the sort of due process that was denied to Mrs Holgate. Rowland says there's one rule for Liberal mates and another for everyone else.

And Morrison's problem is TV news bulletins this week reran the vision of him bellowing in Parliament that Holgate should stand aside pending an enquiry or go.

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison:

“...The chief executive has been instructed to stand aside and, if she doesn't wish to do that, she can go.”

PAUL:

It's hardly a good look in the current heightened sensitivity to the bullying of women, particularly in the workforce and particularly with regards to the treatment of women in politics.

OSMAN:

So it wasn't a great week for Morrison or the Liberal Party or really, for that matter, anyone in Australia who's waiting to be vaccinated.

PAUL:

Osman, that's it in a nutshell. I think it's well, you can put it this way, discombobulates the nation. We're all wondering how safe we are, and what the delays mean, and when we’ll all get vaccinated and when can life get somewhat back to normal.

OSMAN:

Paul, thanks so much for letting me fill in for Ruby today...

PAUL:

Thank you. Have a good weekend.

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OSMAN:

Also in the news today…

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison:

“Good morning. I'm joined by the Attorney-General and the minister for Industrial Relations. Senator Cash…”

OSMAN:

The federal government has announced its response to the sex discrimination commissioner’s landmark Respect at Work report.

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison:

“Sexual harassment is unacceptable. It's not only immoral and despicable and even criminal, but particularly in the context of the respected work report. It denies Australians, especially women, not just their personal security, but their economic security.”

OSMAN:

The report was released in March last year, but wasn’t formally responded to by the government until yesterday.

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison:

“Now, this is why my former colleague and then minister for Women, Kelly O'Dwyer, established the Respect at Work enquiry and asked the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Kate Jenkins, to undertake that report. That was back in June of 2018…”

OSMAN:

At a press conference Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Attorney-General Michaelia Cash said they would be accepting all the report’s 55 recommendations.

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison:

“All 55 recommendations are either agreed wholly in part or in principle, or noted where they are directed to governments or organisations other than the Australian government.”

OSMAN:

And NSW Police have taken a formal statement from the former boyfriend of the woman who accused federal minister Christian Porter of rape.

However police say the investigation remains closed. Porter denies the allegations.

7am is a daily show from The Monthly and The Saturday Paper. It’s produced by Ruby Schwartz, Elle Marsh, Atticus Bastow, Michelle Macklem, and Cinnamon Nippard.

Brian Campeau mixes the show. Our editor is me, Osman Faruqi. Erik Jensen is our editor-in-chief.

Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of Envelope Audio.

New episodes of 7am are released every weekday morning. Follow us in your favourite podcast app, to make sure you don’t miss out.

I’m Osman Faruqi, see ya next week.

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