The following April 2021 news media excerpts indicate that the current Australian Prime Minister is not good at the practicalities of governing a nation.
In fact they suggest that if Scott Morrison started his working life with any form of management skills, they were and still are, best suited to the lowest rung of middle management in a modestly-sized business.
The Saturday Paper, 10-16 April 2021:
The National Disability Insurance Scheme has set up a secretive “sustainability action taskforce”, which is instructed to “avoid” a forecast budget overrun by cutting access to the scheme and the level of funding to participants, leaked documents reveal.
An internal memo, marked “sensitive” and obtained by The Saturday Paper, shows that senior agency figures know there will be a “forecast… cost overrun in the 2021-22 financial year… on top of the scheduled increase in annual budget allocation”.
The document, dated April 2021, notes that the Sustainability Action Taskforce (SAT) has been working on “actions we need to take to avoid this forecast overrun”.
In order to do this, the SAT plans to limit both the number of new applicants joining the NDIS and growth of spending on current participants.
The memo provides the clearest evidence yet that a suite of proposed legislative reforms to the NDIS, key among them the introduction of mandatory “independent” assessments, are smokescreens for severe cuts to the scheme’s budget.
“The actions of the SAT will make immediate changes to slow growth in participant numbers, slow growth in spend per participant and strengthen operational discipline,” the memo reads. “We need to act now to ensure we can deliver a better NDIS.”
“From the very beginning of the Morrison government trying to force these changes upon disabled people we said very clearly, ‘We can see exactly what you are doing because you feel disabled people are a burden on government finances’.”
For further information, the document directs some staff to a “Scheme reform intranet hub”. Details from this reform hub were sent to staff as recently as last week with updated “talking points” regarding the rationale for the changes.
Senator Jordon Steele-John, the Greens’ disability spokesperson, told The Saturday Paper that this leaked document is “the smoking gun”.
“It reveals the government’s real intention with these reforms is to kick disabled people off our NDIS,” he said on Tuesday. “In addition, from the very beginning of the Morrison government trying to force these changes upon disabled people we said very clearly, ‘We can see exactly what you are doing because you feel disabled people are a burden on government finances’.
“And every single time the Morrison government looked us in the eye and said, ‘You are being ridiculous.’ ”
A spokesperson for the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) told The Saturday Paper that “any long-term financial risks will always be a consideration for government”…..
The Saturday Paper, 16 April 2021:
Back in 2015, when he was Social Services minister, Scott Morrison distinguished between disability support and welfare. He argued there needed to be cuts to welfare to help pay for the NDIS rollout. His distinction was that those on welfare are somehow blameworthy, or at the very least prone to cheat the system. Those with a disability, meanwhile, were seen as hapless victims of fate worthy of support so they can live with as much dignity as possible.
But now people with disabilities are to be seen through the same prism as those on welfare. By the Morrison government’s thinking, they are a burden on the budget and a taskforce has been established with the aim of cutting the growth in funding packages and participant numbers. This comes with the revelation that the public servants who designed the illegal computerised “robo-debt” scheme are busy at work for debt recovery from the disabled.
One of the original architects of the NDIS, Labor’s Bill Shorten, says the plans are a disgrace and a betrayal. There is also anger on the government’s backbench. So much so that the portfolio’s former minister, Stuart Robert, feared his plans to introduce privatised tick-and-flick assessments would not get approval from the party room.
Veteran Liberal MP Russell Broadbent says people with disabilities and their families “deserve special care and consideration”. He says, “They need all the support that is promised by the NDIS.” The new NDIS minister, Linda Reynolds, isn’t inspiring confidence, telling The Age she supports quality outcomes that are “fair and affordable” – a loaded motherhood statement if ever there was one. What’s affordable is what the government is willing to spend, according to its value judgements.
Overlooking people with disabilities in the vaccine rollout is symptomatic not only of the government’s poor priorities but of the mess the whole project has become.
Morrison began the week by resorting to Facebook to retreat and regroup. He ended it by putting the national cabinet – the Zoom meeting with premiers and chief ministers – on a weekly war footing. What exactly that means, and how it will meet the almost inexcusable shortfall of vaccines, isn’t clear. We may need to rely on more leaks from the public service and revelations from the disgruntled to find out.
ABC News, 16 April 2021:
Having last year promised to put Australia at the front of the global coronavirus vaccination queue, the Federal Government now finds itself under pressure over the pace of its vaccine rollout.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison this month defended the Government's record, claiming Australia had outperformed Germany, New Zealand, South Korea and Japan at the same stage of their vaccination rollouts.
"It is true that at this stage of our rollout, it is actually better than where Germany was, better than where New Zealand was, better than where South Korea and Japan was, and so I think there will be some important context in the weeks ahead as we see the significant ramp up of the distribution network," he said.
How does Australia's vaccine rollout compare? RMIT ABC Fact Check investigates.
The verdict
Mr Morrison's claim is misleading.
When he made his claim during an April 6 media conference, Australia's vaccination program had been underway for 43 days.
At that point, a total of 854,983 jabs had been given — equivalent to about 3.4 for every 100 people.
That was slightly behind where Germany was 43 days into its vaccination program, but ahead of New Zealand, Japan and South Korea.
Mr Morrison was therefore not accurate when he suggested Australia "at this stage of our rollout" was outperforming all four of the countries he chose to list.
Moreover, by the standards being set by member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Australia's vaccination program was slow to get started, and has ramped up more slowly.
The OECD's 37 member nations had delivered an average of 6.2 jabs per 100 people at the 43-day mark of their respective vaccination programs, compared to Australia's 3.4 doses.
And in terms of their overall efforts, an average of 22.4 doses per 100 people had been given across all 37 OECD nations by April 6.
Whether Australia's relatively cautious approach when it comes to vaccine approval — and hence its slower start for the rollout — represents a prudent strategy is a different question.
Moreover, not all vaccines are equivalent, making international comparisons difficult…….
Mr Morrison made his claim 43 days after Australia began its rollout, and compared its progress with that of Japan, Germany, South Korea and New Zealand.
Fact Check, therefore, assessed the rollout of vaccines across various countries 43 days from when their first jab was given.
The cumulative number of vaccines is expressed as a rate per 100 people, to account for variations in population.
Mr Morrison adopted the same approach when using a Facebook post to argue Australia's rollout was advancing in a manner consistent with other countries.
In terms of assessing a country's progress, the focus would ideally be on the number of people partly and fully vaccinated relative to the population, rather than on cumulative vaccine doses…...
Mr Morrison appears to have chosen for his vaccine comparison countries that are among the most sluggish in the OECD.
After 43 days, Australia's rate of 3.4 jabs per 100 people placed it eighth lowest in the OECD, ahead of Mexico, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Canada, France and Chile.
It was also below the OECD average of 6.2 jabs per 100 people.
After 43 days, Israel had administered about 57 jabs per 100 people, while Switzerland and the UK had both administered more than 10 jabs per 100 people. In the US, 9.6 shots per 100 people had been given…..
The Guardian, 17 April 2021:
It’s not entirely clear how encouraging words cleared the gritted teeth of the New South Wales health minister, Brad Hazzard, this week, but he managed it.
The precursor to Hazzard gritting his teeth was Scott Morrison dropping a statement to media outlets on Tuesday night declaring the national cabinet would resume meeting twice a week to deal with the mess of the vaccination rollout.
Morrison was rewarded with amplifying headlines on Wednesday morning about the country returning to a “war” footing – whatever that meant. It was unclear whether Australia (led by new defence minister Peter Dutton) intended to invade Europe and storm the factories of Big Pharma to commandeer some jabs, but in any case, Hazzard responded to his conscription to national service by observing that collaboration across the jurisdictions was welcome.
Previously, Hazzard thought, when it came to the vaccination program, decisions had “largely been a one-way street, with states and territories being told that this is how it is going to work”. The minister kept rolling. “That hasn’t worked so well so far, so maybe it’s time to have a rethink”. For good measure, Hazzard also noted “vaccine rollouts are state and territory core business”.
If you aren’t fluent in the passive-aggressive dialects of commonwealth-state relations, this short homily from Hazzard could be a little opaque.
So let me spell this out.
According to well-placed people who have been involved in the management of Covid-19 since the beginning, the states and territories (and some other experts) have been telling Morrison and the federal health minister, Greg Hunt, for months that their preferred mode of rollout of coronavirus vaccines carried significant downside risks.
Objections from the states and territories have been expressed at the level of health and treasury ministers.
Premiers and chief ministers have also raised the risks at national cabinet. As one person put it to me candidly this week: “We’ve been watching this slow-moving train wreck right from the beginning.”
There are two main issues: the design of the vaccination program, and decisions about procurement.
When it comes to the design of the rollout, at issue is Morrison and Hunt’s decision to have GPs and pharmacies deal with the jabs as “critical partners” rather than handing over the program to the states to manage.
If you ask around the government why this decision was made, the explanation you get is simple. GPs and pharmacies are politically influential and seen as largely friendly to the Coalition (community pharmacy in particular). People say Morrison and Hunt saw political benefit in a successful national vaccination program being run by friendly health groups, and this was preferable to having to run the gauntlet of the states and their endless naysaying and nitpicking.
This Canberra-led delivery model would enable Morrison and Hunt to own the success of the rollout and sail forth in triumph to the federal election.
People say nobody seemed that focussed on the political risks of owning a debacle, even though the potential for that seemed reasonably high, given the number of moving parts and vagaries outside the control of the Morrison talking points complex…… [my yellow highlighting]
YahooSport!, 17 April 2021:
Another visit to a footy match on Friday night has again landed the nation's leader in the crosshairs of footy fans, with loud boos ringing out at West Coast's Optus Stadium at the appearance of the PM in the crowd.
Mr Morrison was shown sitting next to former finance minister Mathias Cormann on a big screen at the ground, prompting footy fans to loudly boo the PM.
The Prime Minister's approval rating has taken a hit in recent weeks after a number of scandals involving the Liberal Party including his government's response to sexual assault allegations and claims of inappropriate behaviour inside Parliament, as well as the Covid-19 vaccination rollout....
From being booed at the footy in WA to being flipped the bird in SA:
'Just Adelaide Things' has this video of an old fella walking up to Scott Morrison and flipping the bird in his face in South Australia https://t.co/G2IobEiYnA pic.twitter.com/TW5JSZ1cBG
— Josh Butler (@JoshButler) April 18, 2021
Australian Government, Dept. of Finance, retrieved 17 April 2021:
The Emergency Response Fund (ERF) was established on the commencement of the Emergency Response Fund Act 2019 (ERF Act), on 12 December 2019. On establishment, the ERF was credited with the uncommitted balance of the Education Investment Fund, which has now been closed.
The ERF allows the Government to draw up to $200 million in any given year, beyond what is already available to fund emergency response and natural disaster recovery and preparedness, where it determines the existing recovery and resilience-building programs are insufficient to provide an appropriate response to natural disasters.
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