Vaccination Fiasco, Feminising The Liberal Party, Labor On Your Side

New Politics: Australian Politics

The vaccination program is now officially in fiasco territory, with error after error and now another announcement of 20 million Pfizer doses "secured" after problems with the AstraZeneca vaccines. Which, of course, is not the same as actually having the doses in doctors’ surgeries all around Australia. We feel that it’s almost like the program has been designed to fail, because surely no government could handle such an important event so badly. If only Scott Morrison could stop overpromising and underdelivering, everything would be so much better for him.
Is the feminisation of the Liberal Party actually taking place, or is it another case of window-dressing? It might be just another charade: it's not just a case of adding "women" into the titles of ministries, or the Prime Minister being photographed with more of the women who make up 51% of the population. Or deciding to wait four months for an urgent women’s safety summit. And after waiting 13 months to release a national sexual harassment report, Morrison’s behaviour shows that it's all about politics.
The Labor National Conference was a virtual event this year, which means no backroom deals or incidental meetings to stitch up deals. Everything occurred online and in chatrooms rather than the backrooms, but a relatively sedate event suggests Labor believes it’s still likely that a federal election will be held this year. Otherwise, the conference would have seen old-school open brawls, hostilities between the factions, all of which would have been lapped up by the media. Best to wait for a non-election year.
And most chatter in the media has been "who will Scott Morrison’s opponent be at the next election". But this might need to be switched around a little bit to suggest "who will Anthony Albanese’s opponent be at the next election". That’s how poorly Morrison is performing.