The best advice could be found on the back page, rather than the front page, of the paper this week. Chief Minister Andrew Barr and Canberra Raiders chief executive Don Furner were asked about their plans for dealing with unvaccinated players and spectators at rugby league games. They sensibly agreed that they would "cross that bridge when we come to it. It's silly to speculate." Other political leaders should take notice.

One staple of the past 18 months has been petty bickering between state political leaders, with the Prime Minister firmly in the corner of the Liberal state premiers, especially NSW's Gladys Berejiklian. In fact, Mr Morrison has been so NSW-focused that the other Liberal premiers, Peter Gutwein in Tasmania and Stephen Marshall in South Australia, have hardly gotten a look in.

Berejiklian and Morrison don't always agree, but the NSW Premier can usually rely on the PM having her back. At the moment they are agreed on the twin aims of getting vaccinated and "learning to live with Covid". Their main opponents are Labor premiers Mark McGowan (WA) and Dan Andrews (Victoria). Queensland's Annastacia Palaszczuk is temporarily in the background.

McGowan, sitting safely behind his closed border, takes issue with the concept of living with Covid. Having just pocketed the AFL grand final from Victoria, he has reason to be smug. His line is that he wants to protect Western Australians. Being accused of being a cave-dweller by the Prime Minister doesn't hurt him. It just plays to the anti-eastern-states sentiment so prevalent in that part of the country. Morrison has not learnt to hold his tongue.

Andrews, coping with his own Delta outbreak, can't afford to be at all smug, with Melbourne in its sixth lockdown. But he can still take pot shots at Berejiklian over her plans to relax restrictions even while the number of infections remains high in both Sydney and regional NSW. Andrews takes issue with Berejiklian promising small picnics, while still receiving special deliveries of vaccine at the expense of other parts of the country.

Locally we have also witnessed our own clashes, including the "battle of the poo" between ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr and NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro over the latter's suggestions rogue Canberrans may be responsible for traces of Covid in sewage on the South Coast. Barilaro himself is noticeably more prominent recently in Sydney media conferences. We must remember that the pandemic is not just bad for opposition leaders, but also for the leaders of junior coalition partners if they don't get their share of publicity - good or bad. Barilaro has deliberately pushed himself into the limelight.

All this bickering looks juvenile, even childlike. But it is rarely accidental. Political leaders are given their script by their political advisers. The Croods, the poo, the jibes - they all have a political point.

Behind the bickering we are seeing a struggle over where our attention should be focused. Berejiklian, supported by Morrison, is a case in point. Her attempt to shift attention from the present to the future is a brave, if transparent, strategy to extricate her government from a terrible situation.

Faced with rising infection numbers and interminable lockdowns, she has taken steps to deflect attention. Her daily media conferences have a new focus. She gives most of the relevant numbers - infections, deaths, tests, vaccinations, those in intensive care and on ventilators - but with a different emphasis. Those wanting infection numbers must wait. The number of vaccinations and Covid tests come first, because in her eyes they are the most important.

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Berejiklian and Morrison want to concentrate on the future because of legitimate doubts about their handling of the present. They want to cover up the bad news and the heartache with an emphasis on planning, positivity and optimism. Morrison has thrown in his lot with the modelling of the Doherty Institute in Melbourne because it suggests that living with Covid after vaccinations reach 80 per cent of the eligible population is the best option. Associating with that Australian icon, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist Peter Doherty, is also a good move.

Berejiklian is also announcing long-term plans for what life under Covid will look like. These plans include opening public schools, or at least some classes in most schools, on October 25. She is also doing her best to dampen down aspirations by predicting October will be the worst month for infections. These long-range plans, two months ahead, are like long-range weather forecasting. They may not be terribly reliable, but at least they convey a sense of control of the future. She is walking a fine line between optimism and realism.

There is something legitimate in this political strategy, because people do need hope, distraction from the present and a sense of certainty. Lobbyists for a variety of industries are always complaining, on behalf of their members, about a lack of certainty.

Morrison has been criticised for lacking a plan. Well now he has a national plan, which has been discussed and (perhaps) agreed to by the national cabinet. That doesn't stop dissent from McGowan and others, but it does give Morrison something to hang on to - and puts Anthony Albanese under pressure.

All this bickering and planning is not the detail, but the big picture. That means political leaders trying to control the narrative, an awful modern use of that term. It means they want their interpretation of the course of events to be embedded in the public mind.