There is a powerful prima facie case that Prime Minister Scott Morrison pressured the Doherty Institute to publicly support his Covid strategy which if true is very disturbing. The Doherty Institute produced the Doherty Report which has in effect been the road map that Prime Minister Scott Morrison and all the state premiers agreed to use as the basis for managing the Covid crisis. But Scott Morrison and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian have been selectively quoting from the Doherty Report to support Morrisons Covid plan and NSW’s failed Covid management.
Scott Morrison and Gladys Berejiklian have been under huge pressure for mishandling Covid and out of nowhere on Monday night (23/8/21) the Doherty Institute issued a press release which read like it had been written by Scott Morrison’s media team. So, I sent some questions to the media manager at the Doherty Institute as per the below email.
The Doherty Institute have at this point refused to respond to my questions and have refused to deny any involvement from Scott Morrison or the government in publishing the media statement. The statement started off “There is light at the end of the tunnel” which to me was one giveaway that someone in Morrison’s office helped draft it as Morrison has also recently used that term in relation to Covid management.
As it turned out Doherty Institute director Professor Sharon Lewin, who wrote the Doherty Report, did some interviews on Monday afternoon (23/8/21) supporting the position of Prime Minister Scott Morrison and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian. And she did at least one interview Tuesday night on the ABC’s 7:30 Report. But the Doherty Institute have refused to answer my questions.