The Prime Minister and the Premier have been known to swap bottles of their favourite whiskey as they crossed paths on the national stage.But their close working relationship has been tested in recent months by a series of pointed attacks from the state Labor leader on his federal Liberal counterpart.So what’s made them fall out of love?VACCINE MANDATE PROTESTSThe latest spat was sparked by Mr Morrison’s condemnation of violent threats at anti-vaccine mandate protests, in which he also said he understood the frustration of Victorians taking to the streets.Mr Andrews accused him of sending dangerous mixed messages and “pandering to extremists”.“It has taken too long for some to call out this sort of violence,” he said.“I am offended on behalf of all Victorians.”But Mr Morrison maintained he had “absolutely no truck” with violence, threats or intimidation.“I don’t have sympathy for violence, I don’t have sympathy for threats,” he said.“I have sympathy for Australians who have had a gutful of governments telling them what to do over the last two years.”VACCINE SUPPLY DISPUTEMr Andrews also unleashed in September over what he said were “secret arrangements” to prioritise New South Wales in the vaccine rollout.“I signed up to a national plan to vaccinate our nation, not a national plan to vaccinate Sydney,” he said.“Some don’t like to see this as a race, but a race it surely is. What I did not know was that Premier (Gladys) Berejiklian is in a sprint while the rest of us are supposed to do some egg and spoon thing.”“We want our fair share. These allocations which are totally unfair and were under the table and need to stop.”Mr Morrison maintained other states had not been short-changed by the decision to deliver more doses to Sydney early in the city’s Delta outbreak.“I wasn’t going to have doses move from other states to NSW – I went out and got more doses from Poland,” he said.LOCKDOWN SUPPORT PAYMENTSAfter the end of JobKeeper, the federal government made several tweaks to the financial assistance on offer to states impacted by continuing lockdowns.When Mr Morrison unveiled changes in July, in response to the Sydney lockdown, the Premier’s office issued a statement saying Victorians were “rightly sick and tired of having to beg for every scrap of support from the federal government”.“It shouldn’t take a crisis in Sydney for the prime minister to take action but we are seeing the same double standard time and time again. His job is not to be the Prime Minister for NSW,” Mr Andrews’s office said.Mr Morrison said that was “nonsense” and “just not true”, as all states were able to access the same support and that Victoria had already received more JobKeeper payments than any other jurisdiction.SYDNEY’S COVID RULESAs Covid cases increased north of the border in the middle of the year, Mr Andrews said Sydney was “on fire with this virus”.“We need a ring of steel put around Sydney,” Mr Andrews said.“We will finish up with the whole country locked down if we don’t do this properly.”But Mr Morrison rejected any suggestion Sydney’s restrictions were “lockdown lite”.“I’m quite certain that people living in Greater Sydney do not feel they are under loose restrictions,” he said.
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