Public Health Management of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Australia: The Role of the Morrison Government

The Australian Commonwealth government has four health-related responsibilities during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: to provide national leadership; to manage external borders; to protect residents of residential aged care facilities; and to approve, procure and roll-out tests and vaccines. State governments are responsible for determining what public health measures are appropriate and implementing them-including managing the border quarantine arrangements and the testing, tracing, and isolation regime-and managing the hospital response. This paper analyses the national government's response to the pandemic and discusses why it has attracted a thesaurus of negative adjectives.