It is eerie inside the seat of power.
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Hushed, masked and distant as the COVID-19 lockdown measures take force.
The traditional sitting week hubbub isn't present. The in-confidence whispers and strident clicking of heels on the hardwood floors seem somewhere else.
Walking along a carpeted corridor has become a way to be alone. The more than 2700 persistent parliamentary clocks seem to tick louder.
There are remote links to scores of locked-down, masked MPs. And we have slides. Lot's of slides. (We will get back to that later.)
Against the shiny backdrop of the Tokyo Olympics and the ever worsening Covid cases in Sydney and Brisbane we have the subdued return to the theatre of Federal Parliament.
Labor seized the day by proposing something nice and early that the government was never going to be seen to support. Never say never, especially if it turns somehow into a government idea later. But - without mentioning specifically what the proposal is - one, it is from Labor and two, it is a proposed spend on top of quite a lot of spending to survive the pandemic.
Before you get started, according to the Prime Minister and his ministers, it is a bubble without a thought. An insult. A bankrupt proposal.
What's the idea which has hard-wedged the Morrison government? Amid incentives in other developed nations experiencing a fair degree of vaccine hesitancy like the United States and France, the opposition is suggesting one off $300 cash incentives to get Australians fully vaccinated before year's end. The proposal is retrospective so no-one waits for Labor to get elected.
With newly announced Australian vaccination targets designed to return to "normal" life, particularly to end lockdowns, Labor is offering free advice on a proposal that it estimates could cost taxpayers approximately $6 billion.
"We need to do whatever we can, use whatever measure at our disposal, to make sure that we fix the vaccine rollout and also that we fix national quarantine," said Labor leader Anthony Albanese.
"This is our opportunity to do something about the causes and consequences of these lockdowns at once," offered the shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers.
The response was a firm no thanks. Because, politics.
"The Leader of the Opposition's proposal is a vote of no-confidence and an insult to Australians, suggesting they won't get vaccinated unless you dole out the cash, Mr Speaker. That is an insult," Mr Morrison told Parliament, freshly freed from 46 days in COVID-19 isolation.
"That is an insult to every Australian. Those 80 per cent of older Australians who have turned up and rolled up their sleeves, Mr Speaker. They didn't need the cash. They just needed to know that it was good for them, it was good for their family, it was good for their community and it was good for their country, Mr Speaker.
"We know that under Labor, you and your money are easily parted, Mr Speaker. That, Mr Speaker, is the fiscal record of the Labor Party."
So now in unprecedented times, the one in 100 year pandemic, the global catastrophe which has led to generations of debt, we are arguing about fiscal records?
While Labor might say bring it on, it seems a bit rough when there are so many businesses and families struggling at the moment.
Is $6 billion a lot of money in the scheme of things?
We have heard the economic estimate of the greater Sydney lockdown. The Treasurer put the combined recent Melbourne-Sydney-Adelaide lockdowns at $300 million per day - which comes to $6 billion in 20 days. It could be $7 billion for a month of a Sydney lockdown alone.
The federal government, backed by Doherty Institute and Treasury modelling wants 70 per cent - and then 80 per cent - of the adult population vaccinated as soon as possible. This is where the slides kick in, and specifically, they are the thresholds to start to ease COVID-19 restrictions.
According to the Doherty modelling, Australia could achieve vaccination coverage of 70 per cent of the eligible population by November 1 this year and 80 per cent by November 22.
Treasury's analysis found that the economic cost to the country of managing COVID-19 comes down as vaccination rates go up.
The message to governments is now to go hard and fast to quash COVID-19 cases.
"If they don't, we see lengthier and more severe lockdowns which have a much more significant economic cost," Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said on Tuesday.
The Prime Minister is now a full lockdown convert.
"One thing that you don't do in a pandemic like this is pretend that you can know everything and that you take tools off the table," Mr Morrison said.
Australia's vaccine rollout is now thankfully picking up pace. But where will the nation be, and what will government's do - or offer - if those November dates pass Australia by?
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