James Campbell: Future of Dan Andrew’s on everyone’s lips
If you were watching Daniel Andrews’ press conference on Sunday and found yourself asking “why is he still there?” don’t worry, you’re not alone. It’s a question his colleagues are asking with increasing frequency too, writes James Campbell.
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On Sunday morning, anxious members of Daniel Andrews’ Cabinet tuned in on their laptops to hear from their leader what was about to happen to Victoria.
The Premier spent 10 minutes briefing them on some of the most important decisions ever taken by a Victorian government, before saying he had to go — and then handed over to his Treasurer, Tim Pallas, to fill in the details. At least they got 10 minutes. At the family caucus Zoom meeting with the backbench later in the afternoon, the Premier was a no-show, leaving deputy James Merlino to answer questions.
You can divide the caucus at the moment between those who fear the government is cooked and those who think like the Dan uber-loyalist backbencher who told her fellow MPs at the meeting yesterday they should ignore the feedback they are getting from voters.
The government’s problem is the longer the lockdown continues the more the public is likely to judge its culpability.
In other words, we wouldn’t find this nasty medicine so difficult if the people who had made us sick weren’t the same ones now telling us to swallow.
We’re in a lockdown hell but it’s not a hell of our own making. It’s the fault of a government that screwed up the hotel quarantine scheme and ran a contact tracing regimen that was not fit-for-purpose.
So if, as you were watching Daniel Andrews on Sunday, the question “why are you still there?” kept leaping into your head unbidden, don’t worry, you’re not alone. It’s a question his colleagues are asking with increasing frequency. As we feared — and the Herald Sun warned last week — basically nothing much will change. Another two weeks — at least — of total lockdown hell.
But as you sit confined in your house for the next month and a half, ponder this: if NSW applied these same rules it would now also have a curfew.
It doesn’t. Why not?
Maybe because, unlike Victoria, it’s not run by the public sector unions for the benefit of the public sector unions, with little regard for anyone else in the business community