Morrison has been unseated by the premiers

In South Australia, under a home quarantine trial for returning overseas travellers, subjects must download an app that combines facial recognition and geolocation. The government texts randomly and recipients have 15 minutes to take a selfie to prove they are home. Otherwise, they can expect a visit from the police.

The same governments dictate which members of your family you can see, when and where you can travel, how long you can exercise and what kind of exercise you can perform. In the ACT, at the time of writing, you can walk around a golf course, but you can’t hit a ball while doing so. Across the border in NSW, COVID-safe golf is fine.

Scores of similar such examples have shown the powers to be as inconsistent as they are indiscriminate. Those who dare break the rules, including trying to come home to their own house in their own state, have been fined and, in some cases, imprisoned. Anyone who speaks out, even just to advocate balance – such as Virgin Australia’s Jayne Hrdlicka, who in May was one of the first to say that Australians needed to learn to live with the virus even though some people may die – finds themselves accused of putting profit before life.

Even those not in lockdown live under the constant threat of premiers and chief health officers – the latter of whom debut on this year’s Power list – slamming shut their freedoms with just a few hours’ notice. Planning, be it a holiday or a business investment, is impossible.

Moreover, the effect of many of these edicts reaches well beyond the jurisdiction of the decision maker to individuals and businesses in other states. People have been banned from travelling interstate even for the most compelling reasons, and they do not have the basic right of a vote to either protest the actions of a leader who has so fundamentally and adversely affected their lives. In such instances, it is absolute power with zero accountability.

At the onset of the pandemic, Morrison fought the states, be it on school or border closures, and lost. Frequent attempts to force a nationally uniform series of hot-spot definitions, border rules and other responses proved fruitless. By the end of last year and into this year, he at times joined them, such as maintaining his own hardline response to international borders, after watching the political riches given to the populist premiers.

At the time of writing, however, the dynamic has begun to shift as Morrison seeks to control the agenda and the national response by herding the states and territories towards the plan agreed to by national cabinet to reopen the economy. He is limited to cajoling and encouragement, and issuing thinly veiled threats of no more economic support if the states do not fall into line. He is backed by an emerging and more powerful force – a burgeoning desire among people to have their lives back in return for being vaccinated.

Ultimately, Morrison’s greatest power in terms of wrestling the nation from the premiers is the power of persuasion – his and that of the people.

From abroad, those in other liberal democracies regard Australia with agog. “Australia is undoubtedly a democracy, with multiple political parties, regular elections, and the peaceful transfer of power,” writes Californian journalist Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic, under the headline “Australia Traded Away Too Much Liberty”.

“But if a country indefinitely forbids its own citizens from leaving its borders, strands tens of thousands of its citizens abroad, puts strict rules on intrastate travel, prohibits citizens from leaving home without an excuse from an official government list, mandates masks even when people are outdoors and socially distanced, deploys the military to enforce those rules, bans protest, and arrests and fines dissenters, is that country still a liberal democracy?

“In year two of the pandemic, with COVID-19 now thought to be endemic, rather than a temporary emergency the nation could avoid, how much time must pass before we must regard Australia as illiberal and unfree?” The article was widely circulated in Canberra in September.

Morrison, his authority eroded by his government’s vaccine and quarantine shortcomings that have exacerbated the crisis in Australia, has had to deal with cards he has been dealt – the trump card being the federation.

In late August, an exasperated presenter on the Seven network asked why doesn’t he just “declare a health emergency so that the federal government can be consistent and we have consistent rules for everyone right across the country?”

“There is not that power in Australia,” an equally exasperated Morrison replied. “It just doesn’t exist. So, I can’t sort of play fantasy government, I have to deal with real government in Australia. There are no powers that enable that to occur in this country, they just don’t exist.”

There is significant sympathy for that position among the power panel which, because of COVID-19, met entirely by video this year. Conflict arose between those who believe power needs to be exercised, and those who argued that restraint can be powerful.

Panellist and pollster Tony Mitchelmore said in his research there is no question when it comes to who people think is in charge. “In all our focus groups, if you say to people, ‘How’s the country going, how’s your life going?’, COVID-19 just dominates everything and they talk about the premiers,” he said. “In terms of influencing everyday people’s lives, yes, I think there’s a really good case for the premiers to usurp the Prime Minister this year.”

Fellow pollster and panellist John Scales disagreed. “The state premiers, as much as they’ve been influential, I don’t think they’re getting us anywhere. Their exercise of power has been quite negative,” he said.

“They send us home, and it kills business along the way. It puts a lot of people out of jobs, then Morrison and [Josh] Frydenberg get blamed for not giving enough social welfare for people who are out of jobs because of businesses that are shut. The whole thing is a negative construct.”

Businesswoman Kathleen Conlon said: “Power has to be exercised to really exist. You can see the power being exercised at the state level and, even when you know that the Commonwealth has a different strategy, like moving to stay-at-home quarantine, not closing borders, that is not actually coming through.”

However, both Morrison confidant David Gazard and KPMG partner and former trade unionist Paul Howes disagreed with that assessment, arguing essentially that Morrison has exercised power by knowing his limits, in a bid to work unanimously and as harmoniously as possible.

“The PM has the institutional power but has decided in the interests of the federation, and holding the states and territories together, to not use it,” said Gazard. “We are butting right up against the various powers that the states have.

“If Morrison wanted to bring on a referendum about constitutional power, he could, and that’s extreme, but he has that power. Whether or not he’d win a constitutional amendment and have a referendum around state powers is another matter altogether. But he has that power. There has been fractiousness. But I still don’t think that the PM has fallen beneath the powers of the states in totality.” Gazard pointed out that the states had only been allowed to run amok because of JobKeeper and the billions more in other forms of assistance provided by Canberra.

Said Howes: “The exercise of power is not necessarily measured by press hits or who’s best in show at the daily press conference. The premiers have won that fight and if this was Big Brother, they would certainly be going through to the final round.

“Power is exercised by the Commonwealth here by what they’re not doing. Ultimately, history will be quite kind to the Commonwealth and to the PM in how it’s been handled.”

In the end, after the panel voted, four premiers as a collective pipped the Prime Minister by 83 to 82 points. A statistical tie, one could argue.

There was no such division when it came to the inclusion of former Liberal party staffer Brittany Higgins. One common complaint about the Power list is its lack of women, which itself is an ongoing reflection of a dearth of women in high places. Higgins, however, is on the list for a tragic reason – her alleged rape by a fellow staffer in the office of then-defence minister Linda Reynolds in 2019.

Higgins’ bravery in coming forward earlier this year marked the moment that the re-balancing of power between men and women that has been under way since the downfall of Harvey Weinstein in 2017 and the rise of #MeToo hit the corridors of Parliament House. The depth of feeling jumped every political barrier, rich and poor, ethnic divides, educated and uneducated, and left the Prime Minister looking flatfooted and unreconstructed.

Higgins’ decision to speak out has forced behavioural changes after once more exposing the yawning gap between federal politics and the rest of society on social and cultural issues. “In the seven years since I joined the private sector, there’s never been an issue commented on more in business about what’s going on in Canberra than Brittany Higgins,” said Howes.

The return to the Nationals’ leadership of Barnaby Joyce, just a few months later, doubled the headache for Morrison. Joyce had been forced to step aside three years earlier after details of an extramarital affair were splashed in the tabloids and then allegations surfaced of sexual harassment, which he denied and which were never founded.

Joyce argued he had changed his ways and learnt from the past, but he has a large net negativity among voters because of the women’s issue and his views on climate change.

Nonetheless, he returns to the Power list he last graced in 2017. As a sign of Joyce’s influence and his ability to affect the government’s fortunes, the man who led the party between Joyce’s two stints, Michael McCormack, never made the list.

Morrison needs Joyce’s support to adopt net zero emissions by 2050. There are many in government who believe they will lose the election if they do not sign up. Joyce is driving a hard bargain.

“He’s in a position to call the shots, even though many regard some of his policy positions as crazy,” said Bishop. “I’ve seen it before.”

The AFR Magazine annual Power issue is out Friday, October 1. Follow AFR Mag on Twitter and Instagram.