Prime Minister Versus the Premiers: COVID and the Premiers' popularity

ABSTRACT

The National Cabinet, designed as a much more agile, flexible and dynamic alternative to the former Council of Australian Governments' (COAG) approach, initially brought a sense of policy cohesion and unanimity of purpose to the national conversation around COVID-19, reassuring the public that all was in hand. The prospect of spending two weeks in isolation was challenging for some people who exhibited mental health symptoms. [...]Australia did have its own program in Queensland, but it was abandoned due to complications in the early trials which related to false positives. Australia's constitution, little known and even less understood, retains state governments' operational control over public health, law and order, education, and most emergency services.