That was when premier Jack Lang refused to pay interest on state debt, defied Canberra and the courts, and tried to run NSW as a cash economy. He was sacked by the governor, the last premier to suffer such a fate. Loading The states are not just imposing controls on behaviour within their borders but also closing their borders to the rest of the nation in a way unseen since the Spanish flu epidemic of 1919. The state premier who has lodged perhaps the clearest vote of no-confidence in Canberra is, like Scott Morrison, a Liberal. So this is not about partisan politics. It's about policy and performance. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Thursday decided to check all overseas arrivals at Sydney international airport for fever. This practice of temperature testing has been routine in other countries. Many Australians will be surprised that their government refused to do it to filter out coronavirus cases.

Berejiklian's action is a rejection of the argument that the federal government has been making for two months – that the tests were unreliable and therefore shouldn't be used. "We can't rely on the federal government to do its job so we have to do their job for them," says a senior NSW Liberal. "Since when did border control become a state responsibility? Since when did NSW Health officials man our borders? It's a Border Force responsibility." Temperature tests on all overseas arrivals "were reliable in South Korea, they were reliable in Singapore, they were reliable in Hong Kong and they were reliable in Taiwan – why would we be any different?" Morrison ministers argue privately that the sheer volume of overseas arrivals made fever checks impracticable when numbers were running at 30,000 or more a day nationwide. Now that they've fallen to 7000, the tests had become more workable, they said. Airports are a federal jurisdiction. But state officials were aghast at footage of the arrivals hall at Sydney's international terminal on Thursday. Densely packed groups of travellers queued without any attempt at distancing and struggled with each other to get luggage. It was too much for the NSW government.

"The one thing the federal Libs are supposed to be good at – border control – they've failed," said a fuming NSW Liberal MP. Separately, a Victorian Liberal agreed: "People have just been pouring across the border with no checks and only token screening," he said. "Until recently they hadn't even been given any information." Loading Governments, NSW and federal, had already blamed each other for the blunder of allowing the Ruby Princess cruise ship to disgorge its infected passengers in Sydney. About 5 per cent of all confirmed COVID-19 cases in NSW disembarked among them. Sydney blamed Border Force for the decision to let them ashore; Border Force said health checks were a state responsibility. Another vote of no confidence in federal border controls was lodged in Perth. Western Australia's Premier, Mark McGowan, announced this week that Australian residents arriving by cruise ship would be put into compulsory quarantine for 14 days on resort island of Rottnest, just offshore. McGowan wasn't about to trust Border Force. The culmination of all this came on Friday when Morrison agreed to a serious tightening of controls on all overseas arrivals nationwide. He announced that all would be put into compulsory quarantine immediately on arrival, from midnight on Saturday, in the city of their arrival, not necessarily their home towns.

Patience with Morrison has worn especially thin on Spring Street as well as Macquarie Street. It was Victoria's government that first broke ranks on school policy. Premier Daniel Andrews closed Victorian schools from Tuesday in defiance of Morrison's position. The Prime Minister on Friday relented further on schools, saying that each state would now make its own decision. His hand had been forced by the states. A Berejiklian ally says: "Daniel Andrews and Gladys are working hand in glove. They are trying to lead the rest of the country." That's despite the fact that the Andrews government is Labor. "They can see a tsunami of virus cases coming at them and they've set politics aside." The premiers worry that Morrison has put the economy above health care, moving too slowly to control the disease, allowing the virus to flourish while protracting the ultimate economic pain. Morrison hinted at this tension at his Friday press conference: "Those who often are pushing for greater restrictions, they will keep their job. I am not going to be so cavalier about it. I will make sure I fight for every job I can." Hospitals are run by the states; the premiers fear the intensive care system is about to be overrun with severe COVID-19 cases.

Federal leaders are frustrated with the states, too. "Premiers," said one Morrison cabinet minister, "are panicking." Loading Federal ministers argue that new controls imposed this week are starting to have a measurable effect. The evidence? Morrison pointed to a dramatic fall in the number of people out and about in Melbourne and Sydney – a fall of two-thirds in a week. And ministers pointed to the number of new infections. The rolling average three-day rate of new coronavirus cases was up by 21 per cent to Thursday night, but the numbers reported for Thursday itself showed a daily increase of 14 per cent. "The curve is flattening," concluded a federal minister. "Our measures are starting to have an effect." National unity has fractured on two other levels. One is at the national political level. Until now, federal Labor has been constructive and co-operative. Its help was essential in allowing the Parliament to pass the $84 billion economic support bills in a single day this week.

But Labor leader Anthony Albanese was unimpressed with some of the Morrison government's antics. Undertakings made and not honoured. Labor will continue to be constructive in its approach to the crisis. But the government can expect it to be much more vocal in objecting to government policy, and more insistent in proposing alternatives. Loading Labor, for instance, is pushing the government to do what Britain, New Zealand and a raft of other countries are doing – pay wage subsidies to employers. This is a key incentive to keep people employed. It is a very good idea that Morrison and Josh Frydenberg need to implement. The cost – social, economic and political – of the coming wave of unemployment will be monstrous otherwise. Morrison's objection is that it would require new delivery mechanisms. This is an excuse, not a reason. Employers need incentives to keep workers employed until the virus passes. This is the best way. Labor, like most of the premiers, also thinks Morrison needs to move more swiftly to a total lockdown of people's movements to halt the virus. "We say you have to put health first or the economic cost and the health costs will be higher," says Albanese.

The third level on which national unity has collapsed is on the health advice. Already under strain, expert support for the government's policy choices all but collapsed this week. Outside the government's own official medical committee, the weight of medical opinion is now converging on the need to move to a sweeping lockdown. Loading And it just so happens that as unity fractures at all three levels – federal with state leaders, federal Labor with Liberal, and any sort of consensus of medical opinion – it is all shifting in the same direction. The premiers, federal Labor and the preponderance of medical opinion are coalescing around the idea that Australia should give urgent priority to a national lockdown of people's movements to stop the epidemic's spread. The Morrison government is increasingly isolated. If Morrison is fully convinced, on the basis of hard evidence, that he is on the right course, he needs to persuade the rest of the country. If he isn't, he needs to move. And quickly.