When Scott Morrison addressed the National Press Club on Monday, four of
his senior Ministers were conspicuous no-shows. Employment & Skills
Minister Michaelia Cash, Defence Minister Linda Reynolds, Defence Industry
Minister Melissa Price and Ben Morton – the PM’s close confidant and
minister in charge of public service reform and slashing red tape − were
all victims of the snap lockdown announced by the West Australian
Government.
“The curse of COVID,” quipped one senior Minister. The irony of the four
missing frontbenchers was not lost on the Prime Minister who focused much
of his prepared speech on the vaccine rollout; a program that he – and his
colleagues – hope will inoculate the nation and set the stage for a sweeping
electoral victory.
“If we get the vaccine right; it’s hard to see us getting beaten,” says one
senior Government adviser. Such optimism, while premature, is
understandable. While Mr Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg appear
relaxed and on top of their game, Opposition leader Anthony Albanese is
struggling to cut through and there is ongoing speculation about whether
his leadership can survive. “The drums are beating,” says one senior Labor
figure of the talk around the Caucus around Mr Albanese’s future. Such is
the topsy turvy world of politics.
A year ago, it was the PM who was struggling after his disastrous early
handling of the bushfires.
Now, Mr Morrison has momentum and the opportunity to strengthen his
popularity – provided the vaccine rollout proceeds smoothly, on time and
without any major incidents. No wonder that his Number 1 priority for the
year is “Suppress the virus and deliver the vaccine”.
While the coronavirus has devastated economies and killed more than two
million people globally, Australia has fared much better than just about
all other OECD nations. For instance, at 34 deaths-per-million, we are a
long way in front of Britain – 1,540 – and the United States, at 1,318.
As the PM told his nationally television audience, “Australia stands out
across the world in our response to the pandemic”.
Of course, there are big challenges ahead. The phasing out of the JobKeeper
supplement after March will be a key test for the national economy and
there are plenty of nervous Government MPs who fret about its impact on
marginal seats.
The PM and the Treasurer have signalled they will make an announcement on
this matter before too long and there are plenty of advisers working on
ways to continue targeted assistance for sections of the economy. Senior
Government advisers hint that tourism and hospitality are likely to receive
some additional support, although no formal decision has yet been taken.
Earlier this week, a candid Finance Minister Simon Birmingham conceded that
some businesses won’t survive the withdrawal of JobKeeper while insisting
the Government will take an evidence-based approach to determining which
sectors continue to receive support.
“There are going to be lasting changes as a result from Covid,” Senator
Birmingham said, in a media interview. “Some businesses won’t find that
their business models from before are as viable in the future as they might
have to be so they’ll have to make structural changes.”
And there are other stumbling blocks to overcome in what will be a busy
start to the year. The Prime Minister and Treasurer are trying to work
through the standoff with tech giants Google and Facebook over the
Government’s proposed mandatory code that aims to transfer revenues to
mainstream media companies. Google’s threat to depart Australia has gone
down like a lead balloon with senior Ministers – and both the PM and Mr
Frydenberg have talked up the alternative option, of Microsoft’s Bing
search engine, to replace Google.
Climate change and energy policy are another set of challenges that are
taking up a lot of bandwidth in Canberra. The election of Joe Biden is
putting pressure on Australia to take a more proactive stance on reducing
carbon emissions – and the PM, ever a political pragmatist, appears to have
got the message. Australia is putting a lot of faith in hydrogen to deliver
a breakthrough in ‘clean’ energy policy with the PM telling the NPC that
hydrogen will deliver the “significant technological change” that will help
us get to zero net emissions by 2050, or earlier.
Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor has even talked up the
potential for Australia to attract $70 billion in investment in hydrogen
over the next decade. It seems hydrogen is the buzz word in energy at the
moment with the PM, during his National Press Club address, arguing that it
would be a key contributor to his Government’s efforts. And it seems the
Government’s main agencies for financing our clean energy future have got
the message. The Clean Energy Finance Corporation has a $300 million fund
for hydrogen projects − including those powered by fossil fuels, and the
Australian Renewable Energy Agency has $70 million available for green
hydrogen projects.
But what if hydrogen proves unreliable or too expensive? Well, then we have
a problem, with the PM again ruling out the imposition of any form of
environmental or carbon tax to bring about a cleaner atmosphere.
Clearly there are opportunities for private capital to contribute to
Australia’s cleaner energy future and Minister Taylor’s priority will be
working through innovative ways to fund and develop ‘green’ solutions – and
stave off requests from some rebel Nationals’ MPs for another coal-fired
power station.
Private capital is also considered an important part of Australia’s push to
develop a sovereign advanced manufacturing sector that can reduce our
reliance on global supply chains for key goods.
Industry Minister Karen Andrews is overseeing the transformative industry
policy which will require plenty of private sector expertise to deliver on
the Government’s rhetoric of building sovereign capability. The $1.5
billion Modern Manufacturing Strategy will focus on six priority areas: -
- Resources technology and critical minerals processing
- Food and beverage
- Medical products
- Recycling and clean energy
- Defence
- Space
The Government argues these six areas play to Australia’s competitive
advantage and can position us as a global leader. But it’s also clear the
Morrison Government does not want to be caught flatfooted as it was when
the COVID-19 pandemic struck, and we found ourselves scrambling to source
key supplies from overseas.
This is behind the push to ensure a vaccine for the coronavirus can be
developed locally and why nearly half of all vaccines to be supplied to the
Australian people – 50 million out of a total of 115 million doses – will
be manufactured by CSL at its outer Melbourne plant.
Get ready for a mass advertising campaign promoting the Government mantra
about vaccines: safe, effective, free. This will be repeated ad nauseum
over the course of 2021 as the Government puts it faith in science to knock
this pandemic on the head.
Then it will be off to the polls, sometime after that, perhaps very shortly
after.