There appears to be growing evidence that the cause of the shambolic vaccination rollout is not just the result of incompetence – although there is a proverbial mountain of evidence to support this claim. Political opportunism, or more precisely, the desire to shore up votes in the lead up to the upcoming federal election seems to be a more culpable candidate.

Political opportunism bites back.

The PM had wanted to show that no only did the Federal Coalition Government save us from Covid-19 in 2020, but that it had also saved us again in 2021 by rolling out the vaccination programme and being able to take credit for it.

Political opportunism is not necessarily a bad thing and many of us could be accused of deploying it when the time suited us. It is, as we know, very common across the political spectrum and across formal and community politics and organising. It is often referred to as an attempt: to maintain political support, or to increase political influence - possibly in a way which disregards relevant ethical or political principles. We can say many things about the Federal Government but no-one could accuse its players of being weighed down by concerns of ‘ethical or political principles’.

What is shocking is not the use of political opportunism, but the incompetent way it has been used.

A series of articles in the Conversation certainly points to this conclusion although it is not explicitly stated. The articles tend to favour the view that incompetence is the main cause, which after all makes sense, but surely it goes deeper than that? So how do you sabotage a response to a national emergency and global pandemic?

First, you bypass the level of government responsible for vaccinations.

The States and Territories are the level of government responsible for vaccinations. A case in point is the annual campaign to vaccinate the aged and vulnerable against the flu. Yet, the Federal Government chose to bypass the States and Territories and do it themselves. The Feds also initially opposed mass vaccination hubs to be run by the States and Territories, but eventually relented. Why the opposition and where would we be without them?

Second, you bypass the tried and effective supply chains.

You bypass the usual and effective supply chain mechanisms for delivering vaccines to health facilities across the country. Instead you enter in multi-million dollar contracts with a bunch of new players. As reported in the Conversation, the decision to engage a bunch of new companies in the distribution of vaccines: “shocked many in the pharmaceutical supply industry”. The government already had in place competent mechanisms to supply pharmaceutical products right across Australia.

Third, you outsource vaccinations for people in aged and disability care facilities.

To get the jabs into the arms of people in aged and disability care facilities, and the workers in these facilities, you again bypass the States and Territories and sign a whole lot of new multi-million dollar contracts with companies that have little capacity to deliver within the agree timeframes. Oh, and you forget to include the jabs for the workers in the contracts and hope that the punters don’t notice. And when we do notice, the Feds blame the workers for not getting the jabs.

In a humanitarian response, there is nothing wrong with putting in place new structures to get a job done. This is what the UK Government did. It established a new authority to manage the vaccination rollout as it believed the NHS could not do it quickly enough. This proved a successful move as the high rate of vaccinations demonstrates. Back home, setting up new systems was and still is a mess although the situation is improving with more than 1 million doses being administered each week. Yet, the time lost to incompetence has had terrible consequences as reflected in the long lockdown in NSW and sporadic lockdowns in other jurisdictions.

The Federal Government is playing a losing game of politics with the rollout of the vaccination programme. The polls are telling the story but will punters still remember it by the time of the next federal election, which is due before May next year. I do ‘hope so’, I hear you say …