Andrew Bolt: Dictator Dan’s new move a dangerous direct threat to democracy

Daniel Andrews’ transformation into a democracy-threatening dictator is complete with his latest push to extend the so-called “state of emergency”, and his track record means we should be afraid of what he’ll do with that power, writes Andrew Bolt.

They call Victoria’s Premier “Dictator Dan” and it’s no longer a joke. Daniel Andrews wants to extend his “state of emergency” by another year.

Democracy is now in danger from this messianic bully, who has been restricting peoples’ freedom without Parliament’s permission.

Like all dictators, the Premier says he’s doing this for our own good.

It seems democracy is a health hazard, and only Dictator Dan can save us from the coronavirus: “I’m asking, respectfully, people of all political persuasions to support those changes so we have the rules to keep us safe in place beyond challenge, legally certain, for another 12 months.”

Or longer, he hinted: “Until we get a vaccine, there is going to be a Covid normal, not a normal”. But a vaccine may never come.

Can this really all be happening in Victoria, once praised as a liberal democracy that respected freedom?

I don’t need to make scary predictions of what Andrews might do with these powers in the year ahead.

I only need tell you what he’s done already.

He has cancelled a sitting of Parliament, or at least the lower house, on the advice of a chief health officer who claimed it might infect people.

He banned fishing, golf and surfing, despite none of those activities posing any health risk.

He forced all Victorians to wear face masks even in the open air – even in the country – where the risk of getting infected without physical contact are nearly zero.

He imposed a curfew, and stopped Victorians from visiting their children or parents.

He ordered so many businesses shut that hundreds of Victorians lost their jobs and suicides rose.

He did all this and more on the advice of his chief health officer, Brett Sutton – a middle-ranking bureaucrat – and without bothering to ask Parliament to approve any of these assaults on our freedoms.

Andrews also has the power – via Sutton – to have people arrested and their homes searched without warrant. To fight the virus, you know.

Now he wants to do more of the same for another 12 months, claiming that without a longer state of emergency his bans may not be “legally certain”.

To that there are two responses.

One is, who wants Andrews to be allowed to do more things to us that are normally not “legally certain”?

Second, what does Andrews want to do to Victorians that he could not ask Parliament to do with a vote of the people’s representatives?

Parliament could pass all the laws he needs, not wants, and with the checks and debates that are the difference between a democracy and a dictatorship.

But is that what bugs Andrews? Never forget that Dictator Dan isn’t a fan of limits to his power.

This is the Premier who froze out many of his ministers, and now rules with a special gang of just seven of them.

This is the Premier who used a vote-stacking scandal as an excuse to ban Labor members from voting in pre-selections for three years.

But what has Andrews done with the past five months of state-of-emergency powers that proves he should get 12 more?

In that time, he’s turned Victoria into a medical, economic and social disaster. More than 80 per cent of all virus deaths in Australia have occurred in Victoria alone.

Or compare. Deaths in Victoria under Andrews state of emergency: 415. Deaths in NSW, which never declared a state of emergency: 52.

But be warned. When Andrews says he wants 12 more months of this power, he may not even need Parliament to agree.

Under the state of disaster that he’s also declared, his Police Minister has the power to suspend laws that she thinks could inhibit the response to the virus “disaster”. She could theoretically suspend even the six-month limit on the current state of emergency due to run out next month.

Citizens, that really is how close we are to a dictatorship.

True, I still expect Andrews to let Parliament sit, and at some stage give up his astonishing powers.

But Andrews has set an terrible precedent. He has got voters used to the dangerous idea that their freedoms – even sittings of their Parliament – can be surrendered. For, allegedly, their our own good.

Look how easy it was this time. Where are the human rights lawyers to complain? Where are the journalists of the Left, usually fast to denounce attacks on civil liberties?

This is how democracy dies. Not in the darkness, but in apathy.

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