Jenny Mikakos’ explosive claims provide ultimate plot twist in Premier’s never-ending pandemic saga
Daniel Andrews’ seven-month coronavirus management saga, as depicted in daily press conferences, has played like a never-ending soap opera, but its latest plot twist by his estranged ex-Health Minister might make for the most dramatic episode yet, writes Patrick Carlyon.
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Dan-TV promised to be an explosive episode yesterday.
The seven-month saga, as depicted in daily press conferences, has played like a never-ending drama. Has there been a more enduring mystery? Why did 800 people die, and who was to blame?
The chief suspects have had their say, united only by a disingenuous inability to explain or recall the most critical choices of their careers.
Yesterday, however, in a radical plot shift, one of the suspects turned on another.
Former Health Minister Jenny Mikakos, a political zombie killed off several weeks ago, slipped out of her coffin. She was reprised in the role of a wronged woman, a resurrection to be welcomed after the slow pace of recent weeks.
She said her former boss, and latter accuser, Dan Andrews, had subverted the Cabinet process. His evidence to the inquiry needed to be treated with “caution”, she said, which is a restrained way of saying he had misled or lied.
Andrews, a scholar from the Hymie the Robot from the Get Smart School of Method Acting, defaulted to key phrases. “Not appropriate” he said, and “not running a commentary”. He is “not in the business” of debate, and he “has many other things to focus on”.
Andrews didn’t like the latest plot twist, plainly, as it extended to 15 tricky questions in succession. But he wasn’t about to amplify any shift to his intended course.
His problem, perhaps, is that this show jumped the shark some time ago. The collective evidence of government ministers and their department heads lost the crowd.
The premise that private security for hotel quarantine came about by a “collective assumption”, rather than the muddle-headed decision of someone in charge, will not sate the audience appetite.
Andrews forecasted answers in a few weeks, when the board of inquiry publishes its findings. Stay tuned, he urged. The truth is out there.
Yet the inquiry has not been furnished with the script details for a satisfying conclusion. The “it’s the vibe” defence has apparently withstood weeks of evidence and hundreds of thousands of pages of documents.
As Sky News’ Peta Credlin put to Andrews yesterday, phone records might expose the “someone” who told former police chief commissioner Graham Ashton that private security was to be used for the quarantine program.
A six-minute time frame, after 1.16pm on March 27, could identify the overseer for the catastrophe ahead.
“It (the inquiry) is there to get us answers,” Andrews said yesterday.
Yet these insights remain buried in half-truths, limited powers, and an institutional disdain for transparency or candour.
The truth may be out there. But will we be deprived of the reckoning we have been promised?
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