Patrick Carlyon: Secrecy a cultural norm for Andrews government

After its latest scandal, you have to wonder just how many more secrets, bred of arrogant disregard, are yet to be revealed about the Andrews government?

Documents from a Supreme Court case show that Victorians were, once again, led to believe promises which might not be able to be kept. Picture: David Crosling

Remember the playground ban, when we were told that Delta’s virulence drove the unusually cruel restriction, when really the Andrews government just wanted to stop parents socialising over a beer or chardy?

Who can forget hotel quarantine, when zero members of the government or its bureaucracy could remember who authorised a recent decision that directly damned more than 800 Victorians?

Remember our “gold standard” contract tracing system that failed because it could not keep up? Or the health advice leading to drastic pandemic restrictions that the government does not want us to see?

Secrecy has thrived as a nasty prerequisite for power in modern Victoria.

Pandemic decisions have had unprecedented impacts on Victorians.

Yet the people have been denied the often cynical and improper motivations for making them. This theme traces back to 2014, when the Labor Party secretly and inappropriately used taxpayer-funded staff to campaign for votes in the notorious Red Shirts campaign.

The Andrews government boasts an underground industry in deceiving the people it’s supposed to serve. Picture: Sarah Matray

Do we need more evidence to draw such a conclusion?

We have it, in documents from a Supreme Court case showing that Victorians were, once again, led to believe promises that might not be able to be kept.

We were told our contact tracing details would always be protected, when they weren’t.

A court ruling, which would have remained secret but for a Herald Sun investigation, confirmed in November that personal information shared with contact tracers, or through QR codes, did not have “absolute protection”.

In the current climate of secrecy, it almost makes sense that Covid commander Jeroen Weimar tried to have this case suppressed for five years.

Presumably, ignorance is healthy for a public routinely blocked from the details it needs to know.

Politicians and government bodies have always tried to hide unhelpful facts.

Yet the Andrews government boasts an underground industry in deceiving people.

You have to wonder: how many more secrets, bred of arrogant disregard, are yet to be revealed?

And how many more victims have been treated as collateral damage along the way?

Originally published as Patrick Carlyon: Secrecy a cultural norm for Andrews government