Andrew Bolt: Victorians must stop the spin cycle of deceit by voting against Daniel Andrews

He gave us the country’s most brutal lockdowns and racked up the biggest debt of any state, so why is the secretive Dan Andrews still hot favourite to win the next election?

The answer scares me. But why is Australia’s most sinister and secretive premier still hot favourite to win the next election?

After all, Premier Daniel Andrews gave Victoria the country’s longest and most brutal lockdowns, yet still the highest Covid death rate.

He racked up the biggest debt of any state, and last month an independent study said his biggest project, a rail loop linking outer suburbs, will cost $75bn more than he promised.

Meanwhile, Andrews’ green policies have left Victoria so short of electricity that the Australian Energy Market Operator warns of blackouts in two years.

And his triple-0 service was so badly funded that a report says 33 people died waiting too long for someone to pick up and send an ambulance (although not all deaths were caused by the delay).

On Tuesday, Daniel Andrews again spun like a flat tyre. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

Yet Andrews’ government is so woke that his ambulance service is spending $760,000 to hire more “diversity” officers instead of more people to field calls.

But check the polls. Why is Andrews still so popular?

The scary answer is that Victorians like an authoritarian leader, no matter how wrong he is.

But I hope they’re simply hoaxed by his incredible spin – and will now see through it.

On Saturday morning, on the first AFL finals weekend and just before the Collingwood-Geelong game, Andrews’ government snuck out that devastating report into his triple-0 service, knowing few journalists had time or room to cover it.

And for four days Andrews stayed out of sight, probably hoping the story would die for lack of oxygen.

Victorians like an authoritarian leader, no matter how wrong he is. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

Not this time. Reporters were outraged by his trick and on Tuesday Andrews had to face them. But he again spun like a flat tyre.

“On Sunday, I was dealing with a rather sick child,” he protested, which doesn’t explain why the report was released on the Saturday before.

Then this deceitful “apology”: “I apologise on behalf of the government to those families and everyone who has lost someone because of this global pandemic and for whom, when they needed a service, the service was not there because the service was overwhelmed.”

Blaming the pandemic! In fact, the report said the triple-0 service failed not because of the pandemic but because the government didn’t properly fund it, and its former chairman, Roger Leeming, says he was pushed to resign after asking the government in 2015 to fix it.

So very Andrews. Control, suppress, hide and slide.

Do we really deserve four more years of this?