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Thousands of aged-care residents likely went without a shower today. Reports from the COVID-raged sector continue to be devastating, with unprecedented staff absenteeism meaning residents are going without adequate meals and basic care, such as having wounds dressed or soiled incontinence pads changed.

Residents are being confined to their rooms for weeks, without family visits or even basic human contact, as COVID-19 rips through the sector for which the federal government is responsible, and to which it has repeatedly failed to listen. So what did the prime minister do today? He went and played hairdresser, washing a woman’s hair in a salon in a marginal electorate, in just one of the many nauseating photo ops we can expect to see him perform – on the public dollar – in the lead-up to the federal election.

It didn’t seem like the government’s disrespectful response to the aged-care crisis could get any worse than yesterday’s satirical-sounding “taskforce” announcement, but Morrison has gone and done it with his creepy publicity stunt. Speaking to reporters at a later stop on his Melbourne tour, Morrison continued his defence of his government, which has overseen almost 600 deaths in the sector this year alone. He acknowledged that the sector was in “crisis” (even if his use of the word appeared to be accidental), which is more than Aged Care Services Minister Richard Colbeck or Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce would accept. But Morrison repeated the deeply offensive claim that 61 per cent of those who had died were in “end-of-life care” (a claim that some experts say “doesn’t make sense”), and noted how much worse Canada is doing (a comparison that Aged Care Royal Commissioner Lynelle Briggs also finds offensive), and said the government was doing everything it possibly could to “mitigate” the impacts. So why was he out washing hair?

It was already easy to see why a member of his own party had labelled Morrison a “complete psycho”, and someone who cares more about politics than people, at the time of Black Summer bushfires. (There’s also now little wonder why the text messages were released this week, with the factional brawl in NSW spiralling out of control.) As many will recall, upon his shamefaced return from Hawaii, Morrison attempted to get photo ops with distressed victims, shaking people’s hands against their will. It’s not even the first example we’ve seen this week of Morrison putting his political image over helping people, with the sickening revelation that his team had arranged for aged-care resident Jane Malysiak to have her booster shot for a photo op alongside him in November, while her fellow residents were told they would have to wait until February for theirs.

Today’s obscene PR stunt, however, gives the characterisation of those texts a fresh new relevance. As well as showing a painful nonchalance towards the aged-care residents and workers suffering under his government’s watch, the photos are deeply unsettling, with many women noting how uncomfortable the idea makes them. (#Creepy began trending on Twitter not long afterwards.) Many are wondering how the PM and his PR team could have possibly thought this campaign stunt was a good idea at a time like this (or at any time, quite frankly). As the ABC’s Louise Milligan asked, “Genuine question: Does anyone think it’s a good idea?” Even The Daily Telegraph described it as “bizarre”.

Questionable optics aside, the worst thing about this stunt remains the fact that political animal Morrison is again focused entirely on his electoral prospects rather than the crisis for which his government is responsible. Every move this man makes is geared towards boosting his own standing: even the “bonus” his government has offered aged-care workers to try to keep them from leaving the sector appears more focused on winning back votes than on their actual needs, with the second payment only arriving just in time for the federal election. As many have joked today, we’ve finally seen Morrison “holding a hose” during a crisis – but it’s a hose that has absolutely nothing to do with helping people and everything to do with helping himself.

Read more:

https://www.themonthly.com.au/the-politics/rachel-withers/2022/04/2022/1643947182/shower-scene-psycho

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