By laying out the arguments about the coronavirus pandemic the prime minister is telling voters that there are no perfect choices
There needs to be an overt caveat placed on all political commentary at the moment. Given how rapidly events are changing, and given we are all enduring circumstances well outside any recent frame of reference, we can only snapshot particular moments in time.
Let me be clear. It is dumb, and counterproductive for people like me, the first draft of history people, to bloviate, or grandstand, or speculate, or have righteous feelings, or make wild predictions at a time when people are overwhelmed and deeply anxious. It’s best to report forensically, and share what can be known.
So from where I stand, at the appropriate social distancing ratio from Scott Morrison – this much can be known about the prime minister’s performance on the morning of 18 March.
The prime minister got the tone right. The prime minister accurately and soberly projected the fight Australia and the world is currently in.Let me be clear. It is dumb, and counterproductive for people like me, the first draft of history people, to bloviate, or grandstand, or speculate, or have righteous feelings, or make wild predictions at a time when people are overwhelmed and deeply anxious. It’s best to report forensically, and share what can be known.
So from where I stand, at the appropriate social distancing ratio from Scott Morrison – this much can be known about the prime minister’s performance on the morning of 18 March.
Morrison did a noticeably better job than he has done in recent times of mapping the future. While unfurling a substantial shopping list of immediate actions, he also projected over the horizon. Projecting over the horizon is important, because it provides the architecture for what might need to happen tomorrow, or next week, or next month.
Morrison had to deliver a tough message. He told Australians life had changed, and life will go on being different for at least six months.
Implicit in this was a homily about personal responsibility (which we can summarise as don’t be selfish dickheads, stop the damn hoarding). Also implicit was the need to adjust our collective expectations.
In our 24/7 society where the consumer is king, we are used to convenience. We are used to rapid fixes. We are used to having a lot of what we want, when we want it.
But there is no rapid, consumer-first fix for a pandemic when there is no effective anti-viral treatment and no vaccine.
That was Wednesday’s message. Dig in people, we will be here, with this risk and this terrible uncertainty, for a while.
Late last week, Morrison clearly struggled to process a universe where he couldn’t follow his habit of going to the opening NRL game of the season, but by Wednesday, he was in a quantifiably different place – and he cast himself in the role of bringing the country with him to the altered place – the place where no one is going to the football for quite some time, and where not going to the football is the least of anyone’s problems.
Morrison predicted this altered place was of at least six months duration, when he likely meant a year, or perhaps two. But six months is the bridge to get to the year, or two.
As well as the measurable prime ministerial journey from Friday to Wednesday, another thing was notable about Wednesday’s performance.
Morrison is the most ruthlessly political prime minister I’ve seen, certainly since John Howard. He is highly attuned to reverberations in the community, so the prime minister is acutely aware that the hottest political issue at the moment – apart from please don’t be a dickhead in the supermarket – is school closures, or more pertinently, the lack of them.
Right at the moment, Morrison knows he is pushing against a tide of worried parents, irritated teachers, and a flotilla of well-intentioned and doubtless, skilled, medical professionals airing competing views about whether schools should be open or shut. He knows that persisting with keeping schools open, at least for now, is pushing against the grain – and he’s doing it anyway.
Doubtless this will be viewed in some quarters as typical Morrison obduracy. I’m sure many people will feel this is entirely analogous to the prime minister’s deep reluctance to acknowledge the seriousness of the summer bushfire catastrophe, because doing that would open a politically inconvenient debate about climate change.
But at close range, this really doesn’t look, or feel, like obduracy. Morrison is being transparent about why he’s not closing schools, at least not at this point. “The health advice is that schools should remain open. That is the health advice,” the prime minister said Wednesday.
"By laying out the arguments, the pros and the cons, the prime minister is telling voters the truth"
Implicit in this pointed attribution is Morrison telling onlookers: I am not being politically expedient, I know you are all worried, but I’m keeping schools open for now, because when it comes to managing this pandemic, I have turned to the experts, and I intend to be guided by evidence.
This statement would be entirely unremarkable for some holders of public office. But it is significant for Morrison, because he is a politician guided heavily by instinct.This is a mantra against type.
I don’t know if this new evidence-first rule will last, and I have no idea whether it will be more universally applied, but from my vantage point, this is what is guiding current decisions.
Another point to note. Experts and evidence first is a genuinely difficult yardstick to apply to yourself and your government in the specific circumstances of a pandemic, when there will be a range of valid views among clinicians and public health specialists.
For people like me who like facts, this strategy may feel like a shield and sword, and a decisive blow against the pervasive feelpinion and misinformation that crackles around us, like static, corroding comprehension and sense.
But politically, it can be fraught, particularly in a low trust, pick-a-box, environment. The rebuttal to evidence-first is obvious: which evidence, which expert, is guiding these decisions? Is it someone I trust, or is it someone a prime minister (I fundamentally don’t trust) nominates?
Perhaps, in the circumstances, I’ll trust another expert, and declare Morrison a complete idiot. Seriously folks. This is where inveterate, belligerent, culture warring ultimately leads us: to a permanent present where nobody is believed, and the opposite is also true.
A couple more observations about Wednesday. Morrison took the time to explain the rationale for his decision making, and he didn’t project the resentful disposition he can project at times. He explained, at length, without looking like this was an unnatural imposition on an important person.
By explaining the rationale for the decision making (which again is behaviour against type, because Morrison is, by instinct, a “shut up and eat your peas” sort) – the prime minister is also showing his methods to the public, which really needs to happen to build confidence in the messaging.
By laying out the arguments, the pros and the cons, the prime minister is telling voters the truth. He’s telling people there are no perfect choices, not in this situation, there are just on-balance calculations.
Another action against type can be noted. Morrison is not a herd animal. He’s a solo act. And yet when it comes to this issue, he’s lining up a whole national apparatus to buttress his decision-making and messaging.
He’s pulled the premiers and their medical advisers in close. He’s trying to create a collegiate structure that can present coherently to the public.
It’s genuinely interesting. But before we declare this behaviour some fundamental epiphany or awakening, it is obvious this last element is a strategy of necessity. By pulling in the arms of government, and creating a collegiate apparatus that speaks with a single voice wherever possible, he’s limiting the scope for blame shifting across the jurisdictions.
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