Why Scott Morrison thinks Daniel Andrews' 'road out' is taking too long

Yesterday, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced the state’s ‘road out’ - five steps that will take Victoria from total lockdown to a ‘COVID normal’. 

Included in the announcement was news that Melbourne’s stage-four restrictions would be extended for another two weeks, making it one of the longest hard lockdowns in the world.

Now, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has warned Andrews that his ‘road out’ might be too harsh. 

This is exactly what he said. 

Morrison talked down the plan, suggesting it was just a starting point

“I see it as a starting point in terms of how this issue will be managed in the weeks and months ahead in Victoria.” 

Morrison warned the plan could be too harsh, suggesting it was out of step with how NSW was dealing with the pandemic.

“What I can’t help but be struck by is that, under the thresholds that have been set in that plan, Sydney would be under curfew now. Sydney doesn’t need to be under curfew now… they have a tracing capability that can deal with outbreaks.”

So will the plan change? 

The suggestion behind Morrison’s comments is that NSW has a better contact tracing program than Victoria - meaning it can open up its economy while remaining assured it has the capacity to quickly deal with any outbreaks. 

Victoria has massively improved its contact tracing regime since the start of its second lockdown, but Andrews doesn’t want to take any chances. His thinking is that because COVID-19 spread so rapidly through the state, it is better to err on the safe side when reopening - if the state reopened too quickly, Andrews fears all the hard work would be for nothing. 

Morrison changes the way he deals with states and territories

In the past week, Morrison has started criticising Australia’s states and territories more often.

For the first time, his National Cabinet didn’t come to an agreement on whether to open state and territory borders before Christmas - and so Morrison forged on without Western Australia’s permission. 

Now, he’s issued a warning about Andrews’ ‘road out’. It remains to be seen whether he stops there or starts piling on the pressure as it gets closer and closer to Christmas - a crucial time for Australia’s economy.