Locked-up and fed-up: Australian voters put prime minister on notice

[TexasTowelie]

SYDNEY, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Kathy Chalker, a Sydney art studio owner, is just the sort of voter Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison needs to win the country's next election - a long-time conservative party supporter with a small business in a swing seat.

But Chalker has already decided to vote Morrison out.

With her business closed indefinitely under a COVID-19 lockdown in Australia's biggest city, Chalker blames Morrison's government for what she sees as the blundering management of a vaccine rollout that is behind almost every other developed nation.

"Why weren't they prepared? We were all watching this happening around the world - it's pure incompetence," Chalker told Reuters from her home in Sydney's western suburbs, the epicentre of a COVID-19 outbreak that is the country's worst since the pandemic began.

Chalker is not alone in her sentiments. On current polling, Morrison's Liberal Party-led Coalition would likely lose its thin majority in the country's 151-seat parliament at an election that must be held by the middle of next year.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/locked-up-fed-up-australian-voters-put-prime-minister-notice-2021-08-19/