Those of us who are critical of the handling of Covid in Australia have been presented with a different opinion on who is to blame. While most of us blame state premiers for imposing lockdowns and performing petty tyrannies, law professor James Allan blames the Prime Minister. Allan believes that there is a misunderstanding of the “state of today’s Australian federalism, and he makes the following points to back his views.

Section 51 of the Constitution supplies the powers “explicitly” given to the Federal Government. One such is ‘quarantine’. “It’s a good bet ScoMo could take over lockdown matters under the ‘quarantine’ power”, writes Professor Allan. Morrison failed to do that.

There is no ‘National Cabinet’ in the Constitution. We have “real cabinet government, with members of the real Cabinet being MPs in the federal government”. Allan says that Morrison made up this previously unheard of National Cabinet “out of thin air”. Why? The Professor amidst it’s speculative, but he thinks that Morrison wanted to “share responsibility for the hard decisions” that would need to be made. The PM could not be called a “brave man”.

Section 92 of the Constitution. It is still “a very open question whether the premiers … have the power …. of closing borders”. Morrison did not take the states to the High Court. He “flat out acquiesced in those state border closures”. Yes, the HC knocked Clive Palmer back, but “equivocated”, leaving open the possibility of a different result in the future. James Allan thinks that, as the federal government didn’t have the spine to challenge the states, why bother: particularly when the PM had already sided with the states.

The federal government could have controlled the states because Canberra controls all the money.

There are, according to our expert , other constitutional weapons Morrison could have used; but, as he can’t even summon up the ‘gumption’ to criticise Andrews, the PM is as responsible as anyone for the despotic lockdowns. If you think otherwise, you are confusing cowardice and lack of principle with constitutional incompetence.

The COVID pandemic demonstrated that when real trouble strikes, each state is on its own, for better or worse. The premiers did a good job overall, but this ignorant Scomo was only disturbing their important work, running between their legs and wagging his tail pretending he was doing something useful.

Why do we still allow this grotesque commonwealth thing to exist?

I'm not well versed on all the laws;
But in my mind its the states job to run the states and the governments job to run the country.
Given that the contagion came from outside the country ie a national problem, then it was federal governments job to protect the country from it.

Everything that happened is because of a failure of quarantine.
The whole country had to live under restrictions, all of us had to be quarantined with masks etc.
and lockdowns within the country (instead of lockouts of the country or offshore quarantine)
- because of that failure.

So yes I absolutely think it was Scomos fault.
That said Scomo may have shared the responsibilty with them when he should've taken more charge of the situation himself; but in my opinion many of them failed as well.

Only the ones who kept their states free from covid and proetected the community at large deserve any gratitude.
The rest, well they failed the country when it counted.

Why has Melbourne been in lockdown for almost a year
Whilst QLD and WA and TAS we've all continued on with mimimal disruptions.

Now under the living with covid plan, all the hard work the good states did is going to waste at the expense of the states that failed.
The whole nation has to pay for the failures of a few states;
- And that again makes the whole things Scomos failure and poor management.

Both Scomo and Trump both thought discretion and a coordination role was the best course for managing the situation. There have been cases in the US from memory where Trump had conflict with Democrat Governor's and it hasn't worked out well- perhaps Trump was thinking about the elections. It looks as though Morrison is going to elections before Andrews next year. The use of the military on Australian soil is only warranted in the case of a terrorist attack- re- Military Callout 2000 legislation- constitutionally military can only be deployed on Australian soil with the support of the states- but British law and the Queen's prerogative over the military applies in certain contexts. It's generally considered bad form to use the military for policing- as they are trained to kill not keep the peace- but in the case of Victoria it seems that the military would have done a better job.

I saw a sickening video of a police officer hip throwing a person on the concrete on his head. I feel sorry for the people of Victoria.

Of course this is just one of the issues to consider in the current situation.

Thanks ttbn for raising some interesting items of law

I agree with ttbn that there are fundamental issues with the Liberal Party and Prime Minister Scott Morrison in particular that are inconsistent with the interest of British Australian's- mostly however they are better than the Labor Party. What is really required is to create a party that is Pro-British Australian.

"Why do we still allow this grotesque commonwealth thing to exist?, asks Yuyutsu.

It's called a Federation. That's what Australia is: a Federation. We have a written Constitution, which I believe has been broken, if what James Allan says is correct. He is a law professor. Actual Constitutional lawyer, David Flint has been saying damning things about politicians' seeming disregard for the Constitution for a long time.