One can imagine the confident brains in the Prime Minister’s entourage sitting yesterday afternoon contemplating the fallout from his press conference on the disaster just an hour earlier.
The one where he remained adamant and belligerent that there was nothing wrong with his decision to proactively call the CEO of Qantas on no less than 22 occasions to “request” personal flight upgrades from companies, even while he was minister in charge of the aviation.
They desperately needed the news cycle to move forward, and fast.
Next week’s US presidential election is too far away. What news can you give the public right now to help Albo overcome this latest crisis?
Enter Albo’s faction ally and Minister of Health, Mark Butler. He had been preparing a report on the Covid pandemic and waiting for a good time to publish it to maximize political advantage.
Yesterday had to be that moment. Albo needed the distraction and this report was significant enough to help.
The COVID 19 report was more scathing than expected on state governments, which is one reason Labor was sitting back and contemplating how to make the most of it. They expected him to be highly critical of the Morrison administration, but that was not the case.
Still, there was plenty of contempt to go around. Either way, it didn’t matter. Albo needed savings, so he was happy to release him immediately, even if it would dump a bucket of you-know-what on some of his state Labor colleagues.
Anthony Albanese had his friend Mark Butler publish the Covid 19 report in a bid to distract everyone from the Qantas giveaway debacle, says Peter van Onselen.
An independent panel of three — a health professional, an economist and a former bureaucrat — concluded that the federal and state governments were too harsh in their responses to the pandemic.
They discovered that there were deep inconsistencies in policies and that too much money was wasted. And the consequences of going too far during the pandemic mean that the next time such a crisis occurs it will be harder to convince voters to follow the rules.
Anthony Albanese expected to be part of the press conference that unleashed damning assessments of his predecessor Scott Morrison. He especially would have liked the opportunity to boast about concerns in the report that the federal government spent too much money.
The report even included a swipe at the Reserve Bank for cutting rates too quickly, which contributed to the jump in house prices that followed, before inflation spiraled out of control.
But sadly for Albo, he had to lie low when the report was published, leaving Treasurer Jim Chalmers to join the Prime Minister’s friend Butler in making the announcement.
Chalmers, the alternative that some within the Labor Party are quietly mulling in case they need to let Albo off the hook, took the opportunity to take aim at his predecessor, former treasurer Josh Frydenberg, for “some poor policy decisions during the pandemic”.
Whatever mistakes were made, the simple fact is that Labor always wanted to try harder and spend more during the pandemic – the very actions the report criticised, even in the more moderate form put forward by the then coalition government in exercise.
But in politics facts rarely get in the way of spin, and that is doubly the case most of the time Chalmers has something to say.
The Treasurer took to the stage, his boss was forced into hiding and Frydenberg is no longer in parliament.
So it didn’t matter that Chalmers, as shadow treasurer, wanted the then Coalition to spend even more than it did on JobKeeper, to offer more far-reaching assistance to taxpayers, and Labor also pushed for even more restrictions. stricter than Morrison allowed.
As Frydenberg said yesterday, the Labor Party “even wanted to buy an airline”.
I’m sure there’s a joke somewhere that might remind us of Airbus Albo and its flight improvements, but now is not the time.
The key recommendation of the COVID 19 report is to establish a $250 million Center for Disease Control (CDC) to better manage the next pandemic.
The Minister of Health immediately committed to implementing the recommendation. Whether Butler is able to do so in a way that guarantees success is a genuine question that we will have to wait to adequately answer in the coming months and possibly years.
Dr Nick Coatsworth was one of the only senior health officials to question the rationale for some of the restrictions imposed during the pandemic, writes Peter van Onselen.
The person who clearly should be asked to lead a new CDC is, evidently, the pandemic’s former deputy chief medical officer, Dr. Nick Coatsworth.
Not only is he an infectious disease specialist by training, but Coatsworth was one of the only top health officials prepared to question the rationale for some of the restrictions imposed during the pandemic.
Especially those that yesterday’s report was most critical of.
In other words, the conclusions of this report have vindicated the concerns that Coatsworth had and expressed in real time, which is why yesterday he welcomed both the conclusions and recommendations of the report.
Coatsworth should therefore be the natural choice to head a new CDC: He has the right medical training and health management experience, plus he is the key recommendation in a report that vindicated his grand calls during the pandemic.
But is the Albanian government capable of getting such an appointment right? Free from petty partisan thoughts? I highly doubt it.