cut to the prime minister. The press conference and heavy breathing has already started. Presumably this is the increased militarisation of disaster response announce. But first, the homilies.

“on some days, we fall short” says Morrison, his voice - inflection, pitch and volume - rising. And some days we don’t.

Next is a tricky universalisation-discovery doctrine two-step. It’s tough for everybody - even the press gallery!! - also nobody ever dealt with this before.

from homily to set piece. A list of numbers. ADF testing clinics figures, ADF PPE training. They will be deployed next week. ADF will be “supporting” planning, logistics, police, door-knocking, including unannounced on-the-spot checks, and “no doubt there will be more”.

from breathless listing of ADF tasks - I would assume all that info is available on the Defence website - this is just an ADF on the streets softening up and normalising exercise - to Paul Kelly, who follows in his predecessors pandemic-politicising footsteps.

Kelly says the feds had specific aged care plans in place since, um, March. Pretty sure that is not consistent with the evidence submitted by counsel assisting to the Aged Care RC yesterday.

Riley is STRAIGHT onto this.

Morrison says we say sorry and we get up the next day and keep working lmao he is literally using an otherwise pointless presser to try and dispel the increasing consensus that his bone idleness is more and more obvious to everybody.

time machine technique alert. Morrison starts shouting lies at Riley, including an aborted attempt to imply that the #AgedCareRC does not pre-date the pandemic - it does - while trying to garner glory for calling the RC - dragged kicking and screaming - in the first place.

Grattan puts a Q about RC refs.
Morrison: what has been proposed is effectively what the government has been doing and the action the government has been taking. What matters to me is simply the action.
Adds: Paul can you [provide a veneer of health advice credibility to that]?

jeezuz. The CMO again politicises the outbreak in Melbourne. Morrison then riffs off this and does the same. Repeatedly. These men are fucking shameless.

Katharine. Did the pandemic get the better of the Commonwealth? Do you owe aged care families an apology?
Morrison: I already have. I am deeply sorry.
Adds: you have ADF officers going to premises at 11pm and people are not there which is not good enough.
I. Can. Not.

Morrison is STILL pointing the finger at “Victoria”. His “learnings” and “challenges” and “issues” get more air. The lies start to escalate. “Covid19 broke out in Melbourne” he says. “We can’t ignore that fact”. This is called a surrogate end point.

this is so irresponsible. It is incredibly important that the Premiers and Chief Ministers defy this terrible man. He will never see past his agenda to blame a Labor Premier whose leadership and work ethic and grasp of detail shows him up every single day of the week.

Norman (?) tries to get a WA border challenge/Palmer question in. Morrison dismisses this with a wave. He wishes WA well. Whatever.

reminder that Morrison has once again called a pointless performative press conference at the exact same time Premier Andrews was delivering his absolutely crucial and comprehensive daily update.

other consequences while we focus on the pandemic?
Kelly: no flu season, other issues like mental health domestic violence *as well as economic disruption*.

Yeah you read that right. The chief MEDICAL officer put economic disruption on a par with mental health during a pandemic.

Morrison comes barging one on the rail of this. He reminds his audience that the CMO is not the “chief pandemic officer”.

He gives a shout out to the hopelessly compromised Brendan Murphy and defaults to a youth anecdote and loving families blather.

“Andrew, you’ve been very patient.”
#RubyDutton. Patient manifest to stop the spread.
“well Andrew I will put your assertions to one side because I don’t share those assertions”.
Morrison then fabricates a scenario as to how journalists would respond if the manifest was released.

he effectively says it is fine that BorderForce chose not to release the passenger manifest (and instead release the virus all over the country and the world) - because privacy - and then tells journos they would condemn him if privacy were breached. To contain the virus.

nobody asks exactly whose “privacy” was considered a higher priority by the Morrison government than stopping the spread of #Covid19 from a source that has so far caused over 600 infections and 21 deaths. #RubyDutton

as always when under the pump, Morrison turns to phuckout phil. I missed the limbs of the Q but the A is classic motormouth Morrison. The Commonwealth can not continue to do the fiscal heavy lifting, he says, of the fact that the Commonwealth controls Treasury.

Crowe on RubyPrincess. Well if you’re looking for a doctor at BorderForce, says Morrison, you won’t find one.
Crowe comes back at him on “human health”.
Morrison deflects to Home Affairs minister, BorderForce commissioner, and pending Walker report. No responsibility accepted.

it occurs to me that the twin purposes of this press conference are to pull coverage from Andrews, who was dealing with hotel quarantine EVIDENCE that refutes the rampant rumours; and chew through journo time that would otherwise be spent prepping to cover #RubyPrincess report.

“it’s not an opinion that I share” says Morrison on [Commonwealth] aged care [lack of] preparedness. Earlier he did not “share assertions” of evidence Probyn presented about the #RubyPrincess passenger manifest.

Q: would you consider showing national leadership on border closures to provide certainty to industry?
A: I set out principles to Premier McGowan. Personally I think the way NSW and Victoria went about it is the way. Testing, tracing and containment is the goal.

states and territories have been adamant about their “sovereignty” on border closures, Morrison says. There has been disagreement.
Recall this is his Friday presser, which in recent memory has been his time slot to “report” national cabinet decisions. Not today, apparently.

and having been addressed as a national leader who is not providing national leadership straight to his face, Morrison fucks off.

lmao and ABC News24 cuts straight to a repeat of the Littleproud press release story without even pretending to do a presser post mortem. Even tho it was called by the prime minister, with the CMO, to say basically nothing other than that he... turned up at work today.

please see fact check below on the false claim Morrison made about whether BorderForce employs doctors.

https://twitter.com/exc__gale/status/1294127446128697345?s=21