FOR more than a year, the national cabinet process begun by the Morrison government to co-ordinate the COVID responses of Canberra and the states and territories has worked surprisingly well.
Even the protracted hard lockdowns enforced by Victorian Labor Premier Daniel Andrews were not enough to break the state-federal bonhomie, smoothed, no doubt, by more than $200 billion in coronavirus stimulus spending, keeping people in work even as the more impacted sectors of the economy ground to a halt.
But now, with the stimulus tap all but turned off, and with about half of the national population under lockdown in parts of NSW, Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory, tempers are fraying, both politically and on the street.
There are problems on any number of fronts. Vaccine shortages. The arrival of the clearly more contagious Delta variant of the virus. Increasingly exposed weaknesses in the hotel quarantine system. And a growing perception that NSW Premier Gladys Berejeklian's determination to avoid a lockdown in Sydney may well have - somewhat predictably - given the virus a greater chance to take hold more broadly.
Despite all of these separate but interrelated concerns, the political focus has sharpened on Prime Minister Scott Morrison after he announced on Monday a no-fault indemnity scheme for GPs to administer the clot-troubled AstraZeneca vaccine - previously limited to those over 60 - to anyone who wanted it.
Although it was announced after that day's national cabinet meeting, Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan and others have since denied they were consulted on the announcement, and Mr Morrison is now being accused of "freelancing" and of policy on the run.
COVID ROUNDUP
- Coronavirus snapshot
- Sydney nurse tests positive as NSW records 22 new cases
- What lockdowns mean for Newcastle and the Hunter
- COVID vaccine advice: Doctors urge Under 60s to wait for Pfizer
- Restrictions tighten for people coming into NSW
- GPs hammered by phone calls over PM's AstraZeneca announcement
- NSW's 'inconsistent' lockdowns raise concerns for Lake residents-
In a sign of how far things have deteriorated, NSW Agriculture Minister Adam Marshall - who tested positive for the virus last week - is calling the vaccination rollout "a shambles".
If Mr Morrison did not consult with the states, it's a remarkable lapse of judgement.
Regardless, it has exposed an unwanted fragility in our political decision-making processes at the very time we should be trying to work together as a nation to try to keep this Delta outbreak to a minimum. This co-operation has to start at the top.
Unfortunately, as Blacksmiths man Colin Taylor found when he wrote to the premier's and the PM's offices about his inability to secure a Pfizer shot in Newcastle, the response from each was to pass the buck to the other.
At a time when our governments are rightly asking so much of the public, such equally lazy responses are unacceptable.
It's true that Australia - with just 5 per cent of the population fully immunised after 7 million shots - is nowhere near the top of the vaccination tree.
But nor have we had the massive case numbers of many other countries.
An accelerated vaccination program is our best shot at keeping things that way.
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