You can leave it to a pandemic to divide the politics, but you can leave it to the politics to divide a nation.

Believe it or not, but Scott Morrison and his government have had some successes since his ‘miracle’ election.

Morrison’s rogue collection of shysters, misogynists and rorters have succeeded in discovering new and creative ways to reach deeper into the pockets of taxpayers.

They’ve achieved this via rorts like government grants for imaginary car parks and thought bubbles. They’ve secured investments in land, purchasing a $3 Million piece of land in Western Sydney for the tidy sum of $30 Million, a negotiation and deal the relevant Minister Paul Fletcher referred to as ‘perfectly reasonable’. Fletcher is clearly the kind of idiot that hands over a $100 note to buy a can of coke at a milk bar, is given change for a tenner and walks away thinking he got a bargain because the Coke was only $1.

In their time in power the Liberals have also plundered Medicare, the NDIS, introduced the Indue card, gutted the ABC, and brushed aside the rape, harassment, and discrimination of women in parliament. All of which are accomplishments in their minds I have no doubt.

But it is for his failings that Scott Morrison will be remembered.

Clearly his failure to appoint someone that even vaguely resembles a competent Health Minister is one.

The covid vaccination rollout has been such a monumental clusterfuck that in the race to vaccinate, we have been left lagging behind most of the world.

Even Palestinians with no power or clean water have managed a higher vaccination rate while dodging missiles and burying their murdered children.

Fortunately however it should be easy for the public to remember which political party screwed this up so badly because the village idiot we have as a Health Minister chose to brand photos of the few vaccines we received with a Liberal Party logo and post them on social media. Great thinking Einstein.

Morrison’s “I don’t hold a hose” attitude has shone through with his covide response being to pass the burden onto the ststes while his government argue about the cost. This has led some to question whether most peoplerecognise Morrison from the sight of his back as he flees.

Perhaps this should be taken into account for his portrait in Parliament House?

However, perhaps the Morrison governments biggest failing will be the way they have left the country so divided.

Not since John Howard set the tone that resulted in the Cronulla race riots, in Morrison’s electorate, and saw thousands march across Sydney Harbour Bridge in a desperate effort for reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians,  have we seen a country so divided.

This time around however it is not based on race and skin colour, although there is a mountain of work still being brushed aside there. This time it is based on which state you live in.

The interstate rivalry has become utterly toxic and it has become so via the words and actions of the Morrison government, the right wing press, and with the encouragement of the Berejiklian government in NSW.

Time for some disclaimers.

• Firstly, I live in Victoria. However until about six or seven years ago I was a proud Sydneysider and I still have many family and friends living there.
• Secondly, I am one of the great unvaccinated. I’m not an anti-vaxxer by choice, that is something forced upon me by a lack of availability. I live in regional Victoria and due to my spritely age of below 60 I am meant to receive the Pfizer jab that we all saw Morrison get months and months ago while telling everyone else that the home-brand Astra Zeneca was the good gear. Alas I’m now waiting for Kevin Rudd’s order to arrive.

As someone residing in Victoria I’ve watched in disgust and horror as the Morrison government piled on Dan Andrews for the covid outbreak in Victoria. We watched on as Dan rocked up to his press conferences every day and was confronted with often brain-dead questions, asked multiple times with slightly changed wording, as the death toll of elderly folk skyrocketed in the Federally managed retirement homes that the Federal Aged Care Minister and Health Minister turned their backs on.

Dan’s decision to lockdown the state to save lives was met with scorn from Federal MP’s, sniggering from NSW politicians and cries of ‘Dictator Dan’ from State Liberal MP’s and News Ltd hacks they texted questions to at Dan’s pressers.

Victorians emerged from lockdown battered, bruised and a tad fragile. Months of finger-pointing and blame for the country’s economic woes has an impact. Nobody volunteers to be a pandemic scapegoat.

When Victoria faced the Delta variant for the first time, leading to lockdown four, acting Premier James Merlino, Brett Sutton and the Victorian team were subjected to ridicule for stating this variant was transmissible just by being near someone and breathing the same air. This ridicule came from the very same people that had encouraged us all to download and install the failed CovidSafe app which ironically appeared to be designed with exactly that type of transmission in mind.

As someone residing in Victoria I’ve also heard the sniggers and seen the smirks now the Delta variant Victoria defeated is running rampant across NSW. There is a real sense of “they had this coming” from many Victorians, and I have to admit I’ve smirked at the sad spectacle of the now not-so-smug NSW Premier facing questions that are the exact opposite to those Dan usually receives, given NSW is suddenly pro-lockdown.

While it’s hard not to recognise the karma factor playing out we really shouldn’t be smirking, cracking jokes or taking pot-shots about news that means people are suffering and dying in NSW. But by the same token we should not be criticised for doing so by the same people who thought this pandemic was open season on Victorians and their health team who to this day remain the only team in the world to eradicate the Delta variant.

The whole ‘State of Origin style’ of covid response from the Morrison government shows they not only thought vaccination wasn’t a race, but they wanted the public to treat the outbreaks like interstate football games.

We shouldn’t be surprised at the gameplaying though…

We have a Federal government that tell us they “follow the medical advice of the experts” while Morrison goes on radio and blames those experts at ATAGI for his failed vaccine rollout.

We have a federal government quoting ‘first jab’ statistics because their “fully vaccinated” numbers were quite frankly shit. They told us over and over that one shot was enough to keep people safe and that’s why they were justified using the “first jab” stats.

At the same time they were telling people to get the second jab of Astra Zeneca at 8 weeks instead of 12. This seems to indicate that maybe the second jab is kind of crucial for protection after all. Or perhaps they know politically the fully vaccinated stats are their only chance of recovering from covid electorally.

Has Morrison putting an army General is charge of the rollout a sign that the government’s already lost the war?

Funny thing is, the Morrison governments attempts to portray Dan Andrews as the covid bad guy and Victoria as the failed state may have worked with the masses if they hadn’t underestimated one thing.

Their own incompetence.

If we have learnt anything from the vaccine rollout that has all the pace of a three-legged tortoise, it is this;

The Morrison governments level of incompetence is the one thing in all this that is truly ‘Gold Standard’.

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