A fractured nation faces its greatest foe
The early national unity has fallen apart. The corona consensus has turned into an outbreak of argument. On three levels. The most consequential is the breakdown of broad unity that existed between the states and the federal government until just over a week ago.
Leaders have maintained their civility. And a semblance of co-ordination between the state and federal leaders continues through the so-called national cabinet. This is better than uncivil leaders and no co-ordination.
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NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian onThursday decided to check all overseas arrivals at Sydney international airportfor fever. This practice of temperature testing has been routine in othercountries. Many Australians will be surprised that their government refused todo it to filter out coronavirus cases.
Berejiklian's action is a rejection of the argument that the federal government has been making for two months – that the tests were unreliable and therefore shouldn't be used.
"We can't rely on the federal government to do its job so we have to do their job for them," says a senior NSW Liberal. "Since when did border control become a state responsibility? Since when did NSW Health officials man our borders? It's a Border Force responsibility." Temperature tests on all overseas arrivals "were reliable in South Korea, they were reliable in Singapore, they were reliable in Hong Kong and they were reliable in Taiwan – why would we be any different?"
Morrison ministers argue privately that the sheer volume of overseas arrivals made fever checks impracticable when numbers were running at 30,000 or more a day nationwide. Now that they've fallen to 7000, the tests had become more workable, they said.
Airports are a federal jurisdiction. But state officials were aghast at footage of the arrivals hall at Sydney's international terminal on Thursday.
Densely packed groups of travellers queued without any attempt at distancing and struggled with each other to get luggage. It was too much for the NSW government.
"The one thing the federal Libs are supposed to be good at – border control – they've failed," said a fuming NSW Liberal MP. Separately, a Victorian Liberal agreed: "People have just been pouring across the border with no checks and only token screening," he said. "Until recently they hadn't even been given any information."
Governments, NSW and federal, had already blamed each other for the blunder of allowing the Ruby Princess cruise ship to disgorge its infected passengers in Sydney. About 5 per cent of all confirmed COVID-19 cases in NSW disembarked among them. Sydney blamed Border Force for the decision to let them ashore; Border Force said health checks were a state responsibility.
Another vote of no confidence in federal border controls was lodged in Perth. Western Australia's Premier, Mark McGowan, announced this week that Australian residents arriving by cruise ship would be put into compulsory quarantine for 14 days on resort island of Rottnest, just offshore. McGowan wasn't about to trust Border Force.
The culmination of all this came on Friday when Morrison agreed to a serious tightening of controls on all overseas arrivals nationwide. He announced that all would be put into compulsory quarantine immediately on arrival, from midnight on Saturday, in the city of their arrival, not necessarily their home towns.
Patience with Morrison has worn especially thin on Spring Street as well as Macquarie Street. It was Victoria's government that first broke ranks on school policy. Premier Daniel Andrews closed Victorian schools from Tuesday in defiance of Morrison's position. The Prime Minister on Friday relented further on schools, saying that each state would now make its own decision. His hand had been forced by the states.
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