Via Bernard Keane at Crikey:
Initially one of the success stories of the global pandemic, the island monarchy of Australia is now struggling to contain a COVID-19 outbreak that has shuttered a major town and torn through the nursing homes along the east coast of the country.
After months of suppression, the latest outbreak originated in the southern capital of Melbourne after the virus escaped quarantine — something now the subject of bitter recriminations between regional governor Daniel Andrews and his political foes. Thousands have sickened and hundreds died as Melbourne — once rated the world’s most liveable city — returned to lockdown, silencing its quaint trams and emptying the streets around the Yarra, the river that wends Danube-like through Australia’s most European city.
The national government of Scott Morrison — who came to power in a 2018 putsch — is also in the firing line over infection outbreaks in nursing homes, which his governments funds and controls. A special inquiry recently heard that Morrison had no plan for protecting the nation’s nursing home residents from infection despite months of preparation time and a March outbreak in nursing homes in Sydney, the nation’s capital 900kms north of Melbourne.
Sydney premier Gladys Berejiklian, an ally of Morrison, faces her own crisis after her officials, with the agreement of Morrison’s border militia, allowed a cruise ship to dock and disgorge hundreds of infected passengers into the country. The death toll now stands at over 20 from that incident, which has soured Berejiklian’s attempts to encourage tax haven-based cruise lines to come to her city.
Other provinces across the 4000 kilometre-wide island have now sealed their borders against possible infections from Sydney and Melbourne. Morrison has also shut down the nation’s airports to prevent Australians from escaping the country, although high-profile business associates of the ruling Coalition can travel without restrictions.
The pandemic has brought Australia’s long run of economic luck to an end. Buoyed by massive exports of iron ore to China, Australia managed a world record 28 years without recession but now faces a sharp contraction and long jobless queues outside government offices. A spat with Beijing has also endangered the country’s vital tourism and education sectors.
Morrison — who has the backing of media magnate Rupert Murdoch and mining millionaires like Clive Palmer, famous for promising to rebuild the Titanic — has problems elsewhere.
Cronies of Morrison are mired in scandals involving the purchasing of water rights (a valuable commodity in the bone-dry nation), the forging of documents and the rorting of government funds to help Morrison win last year’s poll. He is also under fire for allowing key financiers of the party, mining and fossil fuel interests, to draft new policies to end the country’s depression.
But it is the nursing home crisis that might pose the biggest threat to the strongman’s grip on power, with the leader forced to apologise for deaths, though stopping short of accepting responsibility. Regime officials have scrambled to defend the lack of regulation, advice and equipment supplies to a sector that has until now has enjoyed rapid growth for an increasing number of private companies, fueled by public funding.
This morning:
I’m just working through Morrison’s logic. His government
– funds aged care
– regulates aged care
– runs aged care workforce policy
– was supposed to oversee aged care pandemic plans
– supports aged care workers working at multiple sites
But it’s Victoria’s fault? https://t.co/I6aglN1xCQ— Bernard Keane (@BernardKeane) August 18, 2020
Killing your base is never great idea.
