Tim Blair: Dan Andrews’ cheerleaders are blind to his many failings
Premier Daniel Andrews puts Victoria through hell due to his own incompetence, but media cheerleaders and online Dan fans won’t hear a single word against him, writes Tim Blair.
Opinion
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Sensible Australians are considering their post-coronavirus work options and coming up with various career plans. May I suggest establishing your own religion?
Now, some of you are probably thinking: “But Tim, establishing a religion requires spiritual insights, complicated hierarchies and elaborate rituals crafted and refined over thousands of years, and I just don’t have the time.”
That’s where you are wrong, my friends.
Using DAN, my patented Disease And Negligence faith formation system, you’ll soon be gathering worshippers, offering salvation to believers and collecting tithes like a genuine professional.
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The DAN system is a foolproof step-by-step process to guaranteed veneration. And the good news is, you don’t need any special abilities or skills.
In fact, stunning incompetence and avoidance of any responsibility may even improve your chances of founding a brand-new holy doctrine.
It works like this.
First, weasel your way into a prominent position of authority. This need not involve any significant level of political or social talent.
Heck, even Malcolm Turnbull did it.
Nor do you need to make any friends, as Kevin Rudd demonstrated.
Next, develop a range of worship-worthy policy positions. This is simple. Just follow guidelines presented by the ABC, the Guardian and the Nine newspapers.
These organisations are in charge of anointing Australian saints. Follow their lead and you can’t lose, even if you’re an epic historical failure like Gough Whitlam or Julia Gillard.
Shortly, just like magic, you will have assembled a supportive army of Twitter fans, journalists and other simple folk.
While they are working on your canonisation, without pay and on your behalf, simply sit back and bide your time.
You’re waiting for a particular moment of opportunity — a moment that will catapult you to the status of cult leader.
You’ll know the moment when it happens. The trick then is to do exactly the dumbest thing possible and then double-down on it.
Remember Gillard’s appointment of creepy Peter Slipper as speaker when she was prime minister? And her subsequent goddess-making sexism speech?
That’s what I’m talking about.
For leading DAN graduate Daniel Andrews, his special moment came earlier this year when Victoria’s government had to decide how best to confine and isolate overseas arrivals.
Any sensible government would have invited the police or army to take charge. After all, they are well-trained and already on state or federal payrolls.
But Victoria’s Andrews Labor government went with private security firms.
They put a bunch of young, randy goons in quarantine hotels filled with desperate, disoriented returned travellers, many of them women, and let nature take its course.
Consequently, Victoria currently has more than 70 per cent of Australia’s total coronavirus deaths, more than 70 per cent of total cases and more than 90 per cent of active infections.
At this point you’re likely wondering why Andrews still has a job.
Anyone in charge of a government that has taken such a ruinous path must surely be in trouble, right?
Wrong again, people!
Because Andrews followed the DAN system and had already presented himself as a fellow meeting all of the ABC, Guardian and Nine sainthood standards, he’s immune.
And his crucial doubling-down further secured Andrews’s adoration.
By announcing an inquiry and then hiding behind it, even though the retired judge in charge of the inquiry has said Andrews is able to speak, he can appear as a bullied martyr whenever reporters badger him.
Which isn’t very often. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Last week a journalist at Andrews’s daily doom count asked the premier how many days in a row he had appeared at press conferences and how the premier was coping.
Feel the love! When news of this hit Twitter, Dan fans erupted in rapturous glee:
#DanAndrews Thanks for your leadership. Your humanity, empathy and clear, strong leadership with ownership and responsibility is highly commendable. Some journalists could learn from your example.
— Empath (@JenniferWarwi13) August 6, 2020
“It is nice when they act like human beings.”
“Someone showing some humanity.”
“I literally applauded!”
“Me too! I gave an hallelujah.”
“Thank goodness for that journo.”
“Can this guy just run the whole country already!?”
#DanAndrews is a saint How he hasn’t lost his cool with some of the idiots who challenge him at today’s presser Just because someone in an abbatoir somewhere told you they will be working at peak capacity!!!! Stop wasting the premier and your colleague’s time! #COVIDVIC19
— chris (@theatretragic1) August 5, 2020
Well, let’s imagine that Andrews was in charge of the whole country, and had put in place those same Victorian coronavirus policies Australia-wide.
Right now we’d have 57,609 total cases instead of 20,586 and more than 820 deaths instead of 295. The active infection count would be soaring beyond 30,000.
Hallelujah, as they say in Danland.
Victorian chief health official and Andrews press conference sidekick Brett Sutton is also the recipient of awed affection. But one significant player seems to be missing out.
Jenny Mikakos is oddly absent from the coronavirus hall of heroes. So, late on Saturday night, Victoria’s health minister made her own bid for sainthood.
“Since that fateful day on 25 January, when we had our first ever case, I‘ve worked every day to keep everyone safe,” Mikakos wrote on Twitter.
“I have put every ounce of energy I‘ve had into that effort. If it wasn’t enough, then I’m deeply sorry.”
It won’t work, Jenny. There is only room for a solitary stuff-up deity down in Victoria, and maybe one holy offsider. You’re surplus to the sect.
Sadly, even the patented DAN system can’t work miracles.