Sure the population is low, but both countries rely on tourism and international students/labour; these countries were prime for massive influxes of covid. It is an achievement that they have not been consumed by the pandemic. Things have gone well in Aus despite our politicians. This is because the public health system and the Department of Health have a lot of power. Essentially everything negative that happened, like opening up too early and being too slow to enforce lockdown was because of the politicians wanting to pretend things are normal. But because the Dept of Health is half decent, they were able to strongarm politicians into enforcing lockdowns, turning private hospitals into testing centers and opening up beds for covid patients, setting up drive through testing centers, equipping rural hospitals with the means to handle covid patients, and even right now would have advised every state to close borders to NSW as swiftly as they did.

Scomo doing the trade war is what happens when he is allowed to do his own thing, which is exactly what you'd expect from a conservative piece of shit. What he has done for covid has very little to do with his own policies, especially since he can't stop complaining about Labor run states.