Extract from ABC News
Analysis
Politicians appreciate the value of a bit of theatre, a bit of a backdrop, to drive home the message they are delivering, or of just how in control of things they are.
So, in any other week, Scott Morrison may have been able to make a pragmatic assessment of just how bad were the images of the PM sitting at the Lodge, in front of a slightly dodgy picture of Parliament House, surrounded by flags, and conspicuously reading his answers to Dorothy Dix questions.
It wasn't just the images, of course, it was the reality: the Prime Minister absent from question time, and the Parliament, and the party room, as he quarantined after all those photo opportunities in Cornwall, London and Paris.
Sure, he might have been able to sign an in-principle free trade agreement with the UK, have his say about China at the G7, and talk submarines with French President Emmanuel Macron.
But Morrison's absence this week when the government's confident assertion that it had nailed the national COVID response seemed to be crumbling, just as was any semblance of unity in the Coalition's junior partner, was, well, unfortunate, to say the least.
In his physical place in the House of Representatives instead was first, on Monday, a mortally wounded deputy PM, Michael McCormack, showing great dignity and courage.
Then, second, a new deputy PM, Barnaby Joyce, yelling about how much trouble Albo was in, then presiding over his own backbench trying to amend legislation about the Murray Darling Basin Plan to which, he, Barnaby Joyce, was committed as a cabinet member, and which had been put forward by Nationals cabinet minister, Keith Pitt.
The meltdown that saw Barnaby's return
Someone observed a few years ago, in the very same chamber, that "politics in Canberra can get entangled in philosophical zealotry that has little to no connection with a general concern held on the street or in the country".
That someone would have been Barnaby Joyce, in his first speech as the Member for New England in November 2013. (He went on, as an aside, to argue Parliament House "has little connection to the struggles of small business", while noting it was "great also to see Frank Zumbo here today, who has guided me so well on so many issues regarding small business".)
Joyce may have been right about zealotry in 2013. But it feels the gap with the public's concerns these days is driven more by sheer incompetence, political positioning and "followship", rather than leadership.
Consider first the cause of the meltdown that saw the return of Barnaby Joyce.
Sure, part of the change was because Nationals MPs were worried Michael McCormack wasn't "cutting through". But its philosophical justification was that a substantial part of the Nationals party room flatly rejects the need for Australia to adopt a net zero emissions target by 2050.
This might even make sense if there was a clear policy to adopt a net zero target, and even a plan to get there, to which the Nationals could object.
Alternatively, it might make sense if the Nationals could say why the plan (that doesn't exist) is such an existential threat.
But there isn't such a target, or a plan, just the reality that this is where the rest of the world is headed, and Australia will soon face the prospect of carbon tariffs on its goods: goods that the very people the Nationals claim to represent will be trying to export.
Weasel words and invisible asterisks
The reason we don't have a target or a plan is that the Prime Minister, who is ostensibly our national leader, hasn't committed to the net zero target, or set out a plan, even though he knows he is going to have to, and really soon, not just because there is a meeting coming up in Glasgow in November, but because of the tariffs previously mentioned.
Instead, there are these weasel words, replete with invisible asterisks, about how it is the government's goal to "achieve net zero as soon as possible" and "preferably" by 2050.
Behind the scenes, we are assured the PM understands this has to happen and, behind the scenes, cabinet ministers have been holding meetings to work out how we actually achieve that goal.
But the idea that a prime minister might come out and tell his own backbench, let alone the general public, that "actually this is what we need to do: the question is not whether we do it, but how we do it, and now I am going to persuade you of why and how" does not seem to be a concept of leadership with which the current incumbent is familiar.
There is an even more baffling "followship" on dealing with the pandemic. Scott Morrison doesn't have to deal with any entrenched resistance from his party room on dealing with the issues of vaccines and quarantine.
He doesn't even face any resistance from the states on the issues that concern the public right now. Indeed, he is the one who seems to have so stubbornly resisted pressure from the states to establish purpose-built quarantine facilities and even get state help to broaden the vaccination network.
Then, all of a sudden at
week's end, there was a rush of announcements about how the Commonwealth
was indeed wanting to engage the states on purpose-built facilities, as
if it had been its idea all the time.
A big shift in position in Canberra
One of the better burns of the week came from Queensland's Deputy Premier Steven Miles, who welcomed the Commonwealth "finally giving consideration to supporting a Queensland quarantine facility":
"Of course it needs a lot more work ... This was a one-and-a-half-page letter received by us late last night, just after it was provided to the Courier Mail. The only detail in the letter is an address. And I just note that when Queensland provided a 15-page early proposal, we were told that was far too little detail."
So, all of a sudden, after months and months of resistance, the feds are talking purpose-built centres in Victoria, Queensland and WA.
Don't get distracted for now about the brawl about whether they are supplementary or replacements for hotel quarantine. Just note that this is a big change in position from Canberra.
It happens even as the weaponising of lockdowns, and closed borders, and gold standard responses, and all the other brawls that have been going on between governments start to turn to dust in the face of the Delta variant jumping the fence in NSW.
All the federal government seems to be able to offer is some new branding: Operation COVID Shield, some ludicrous language about Vaccination Allocation Horizons (no one dare mention targets) and unsatisfactory answers on why we don't have enough of the vaccines we need to step up our vaccine program to something remotely reflecting much of the rest of the developed world, which has not shared our being an island that made keeping the virus out that much easier.
Laura Tingle is 7.30's chief political correspondent.
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