Andrew Bolt: Time for bully Daniel Andrews to resign

Daniel Andrews needs to resign, not just for his obvious failures, but because he cannot learn from his mistakes and is simply the wrong man for the job.

Premier Daniel Andrews must resign, and not just because he’s broken a world record for failure.

As of Monday, no other city anywhere on earth has been locked down longer than Melbourne. But for what?

Melburnians have suffered 245 days of this cruel lockdown, enforced with shockingly brutal policing, yet Victoria on the weekend still had record infections.

But that alone is not why Andrews should go.

He must resign because he cannot learn from his mistakes, and Victorians have stopped listening to him.

Andrews’ lockdowns have failed above all because he has a dictatorial personality. He is simply the wrong man for the job. A bully. Power hungry.

He banned even golfing, boating, sitting on a beach, going to a playground or exercising outdoors for more than two hours. He sneered at the NSW premier for allowing small picnics in the open air.

Andrews didn’t need to do any of that. The chance of getting infected outdoors by this airborne virus is tiny.

A massive Irish study said just one in every 1000 sick people got infected in the open air.

Premier Daniel Andrews must resign. Picture: Luis Ascui

By making his lockdowns so harsh – even adding a pointless curfew – Andrews made them too unbearable for flesh and blood. Andrews took away the safety valves for people going mad cooped up, staring at their four walls.

The fact that many of his rules were irrational or disproportionate also undermined the public’s confidence. That’s why Melbourne had more passionate anti-lockdown protests than other states.

For more than seven months in total this went on but on the AFL grand final long weekend Melburnians cracked.

Many decided enough was enough and, as Andrews’ admitted, broke his rules and spent time with family and friends to watch the grand final or just catch up for drinks or a meal.

But Andrews learnt nothing from that. Instead, he went in even harder.

On Thursday, he lashed out at the “poor choices” Melburnians allegedly made in spending time on grand final weekend with their loved ones.

But these were not “poor choices” to the people making them. They were choices that made their lives worth living. Even now, I suspect that many who got infected won’t be sorry.

But Andrews’ reaction was typical of this autocratic man: He repeatedly insisted people stay locked down so nurses didn’t have to work so “very, very hard” to save the infected.

I love nurses. My mother-in-law was a nurse. But nurses are there to serve the people; the people are not to be locked up to serve the nurses. The state is the servant of the people, not its master – or jailer.

If there aren’t enough nurses, the Victorian government had a year and half to fix it.

Indeed, Andrews boasted last year he had paid for 4000 new intensive care beds and the staff for them. So where are they?

Worse, Andrews last week doubled down on his bullying, ordering more than a million authorised workers to get vaccinated or lose their jobs.

Dan Andrews’ draconian orders led to protests such as those near the Royal Botanic Gardens on Saturday. Picture: Sarah Matray

Once more, Andrews demanded more from people than he needed or had a right to. I’m very pro-vaccines, but Andrews now threatens the livelihoods of Victorians who are too scared to get vaccinated, but don’t pose any urgent threat.

His no-jab-no-job list included even vehicle repairers, outdoor maintenance workers, pet groomers, roadside assistance staff, sewerage service providers, journalists, horse trainers and volunteer firefighters.

Seriously? There aren’t enough protests in Melbourne already? Not enough people being handcuffed by police, or shot with rubber bullets?

Andrews now barks his draconian orders like a man in his last bunker because he can no longer persuade, and that’s the final reason he should go.

I accepted short lockdowns early in this pandemic to buy time to get everything in place, but a year and a half later, who believes Andrews’ promise that it will all be over soon – that “we are so, so close” – if we just follow his rules for a few more weeks?

The freedoms Andrews promises in three weeks time, when Victorians are 70 per cent vaccinated, are pathetic trinkets and nothing like what NSW is offering.

Who trusts Andrews to give back real freedom by Christmas, so Victorians can live as people now do in Britain or the US?

So Daniel Andrews must resign. We see through him.

No one who respects freedom could lock down five million people for so long, so brutally and for so little – and still not see that the “poor choices” are his own.