The softest coup: COVID-19 and the khakification of Australian leadership

In March last year, when COVID-19 was first stopping life dead in its tracks, Scott Morrison declared war with the virus. “We are in a war against this virus and all Australians are enlisted to do the right thing,” the prime minister said.

Throughout the pandemic, Morrison has returned to the language of conflict to frame Australia’s struggles with the coronavirus, language that’s been picked up by state and territory leaders. And it’s been matched by a militarisation of so much of our response to the virus.

By now, we’ve become used to Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel manning airports, quarantine hotels, and state borders. We barely blinked when men in khaki started appearing in press conferences about the vaccine rollout, just when things seemed to be heading off the rails. Now, key Australian Public Service (APS) departments are being headed by people with close military ties.

Faced with an international crisis and short on ideas, politicians and bureaucrats have defaulted to putting the army in charge, quietly ushering in the khakification of Australian leadership.

A coup by stealth

Within weeks of Morrison’s declaration of war, the ADF were quickly being deployed to Australia’s frontlines — the hotel quarantine program. For the most part, the army was pretty successful, in administering the program, helping with contact tracing, and enforcing home isolation.

In fact, when Melbourne’s second wave, which began with undetected breaches in hotel quarantine, spiralled out of control, the Victorian government was heavily criticised for its failure to call in the ADF to manage its program.

The state learned its lesson — troops were brought in to deal with the Melbourne outbreak. The government has also repeatedly called for soldiers to be deployed along state borders.

Such is the new normal in pandemic Australia. In times of crisis, call in the troops, and paint things army green.

Nowhere is that more evident than the vaccine rollout. In April, Morrison declared national cabinet had returned to a “war footing” to deal with the vaccine rollout. In practice, that just meant it was meeting twice a week. Since then, the rollout has hardly sped up. But it has had a change in personnel.

A week after the war footing comments, Commodore Eric Young, a navy officer, was announced as operations coordinator of the Vaccine Operations Centre. He joined several ADF personnel dealing with rollout logistics. But Young has been sidelined recently for another military figure, Lieutenant-General John “JJ” Frewen. Frewen was appointed by Morrison to run a vaccine taskforce that is being called “Operation COVID Shield”.

Beyond Frewen’s presence at pressers, where he delivers lines about vaccine numbers in a brusque, military staccato, Health and the military have been remarkably reluctant to explain the nature and remit of his role in the vaccine rollout. But Morrison did flag, when announcing Frewen’s appointment, his own “success” with Operation Sovereign Borders, where Australia’s response to a refugee crisis was highly militarised, and hidden under the blanket of national security.

This weekend, a new vaccine ad campaign, unveiled by Frewen ,was released, urging Australians to “arm yourselves” against the virus.

Elsewhere, civilian institutions like the public service are starting to look a lot more like the military. Last Friday, Morrison appointed three new departmental heads, each with links to the military and national security world. Major General Kathryn Campbell, who moved from Social Services to head up the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, is an officer in the army reserve. She’s replaced by Vice-Admiral Ray Griggs, a former chief of Navy and chief of Defence Force. Meanwhile, contact tracing in Melbourne is run by Jeroen Weimar, a transport bureaucrat who is now called a commander for some reason.

What the hell does it mean?

Why exactly is the army everywhere in the pandemic? The standard argument is that the military is good at logistics and following orders, and can bring order to the mess of a vaccine rollout.

But as former Finance deputy secretary Stephen Bartos tells Crikey, there are plenty of other bodies that can do that — logistics companies like Toll, for example. There’s also a widespread belief that the bureaucracy is rundown, and incapable of matching the ADF for efficiency.

But that in itself is somewhat self-fulfilling: for years, we’ve let some departments wither, while expanding funding for the military, national security agencies, and Home Affairs.

Bartos also suspects there’s an ideological reason why the Morrison government might lean so heavily on the military during the pandemic.

“Some of the values that are important in the military — respect for authority, respect for hierarchy — are exactly the same as those that appeal to traditional conservatives. It’s a similar way of thinking about the world.”

But now the militarisation of Australia’s pandemic goes well beyond the Morrison government, and has become widely accepted as a kneejerk response whenever things get out of hand. Some epidemiologists, short on ideas about how to stop an outbreak that is largely spreading through people’s homes, are now effectively calling for martial law in south-west Sydney.

Even when governments stand behind the facade of health advice, every policy choice they make during the pandemic is a signal of what they value and prioritise. Putting the military front and centre of the rollout is a clear sign of who they think should be in charge.

What do you think? Does this militarisation of the handling of the pandemic worry you, or ease your concerns? Write to letters@crikey.com.au and don’t forget to include your full name if you’d like to be considered for publication.