Jeff Kennett: Is Victoria being misled over ‘five-day’ lockdown?

Eddie McGuire’s administration of Collingwood cost not one life, yet he has resigned. The Premier has 800 lives lost on his watch.

Premier Daniel Andrews prepares to address the media. Picture: NCA NewsWire

On Friday I was prepared to give Premier Daniel Andrews the benefit of the doubt as he again locked down the state.

My generosity was misplaced. I believe we are again being deliberately misled.

On Friday we were told the statewide lockdown would be for only five days. Yet the authority for the lockdown extends to February 26.

Why were we not told?

Another failure of memory? Just withholding information? Or, of course, someone else’s fault?

The Premier, in his press conference on Friday, repeatedly used the justification that his actions were based on medical recommendations.

That the UK strain spreads at a speed 70 per cent faster than the original virus.

Yet medical authorities are very much divided, some suggesting the speed of that spread is much slower.

Of course, the Premier has been telling us Victoria’s hotel quarantine process is “gold standard”. I am surprised he did not boast best in the world.

I was prepared to give Premier Andrews the benefit of the doubt, but have we been lied to again? The UK virus does not spread as fast as we were told yesterday! The lockdown is because the Govt has again lost control and the lockdown is to.protect them not us?

— Jeff Kennett (@jeff_kennett) February 12, 2021

Be assured the reason we are in lockdown is because the Premier has no confidence in the administration of Victoria’s hotel quarantine, nor his contact tracing.

We Victorians, but those in particular who had been planning weddings, parties, sporting events, going to restaurants, not to mention the hundreds of restaurants who must throw out millions of dollars’ worth of food, are paying a huge price for the government’s incompetence once again.

Victoria is the laughing stock of the country. Businesses again the victims of an autocratic leader who has failed the commission he was given.

Victorians are victims yet again of Premier Andrews’ spin.

Go back to when he was first elected, and you will see a pattern that continues today.

He has no respect for the Westminster system of government, he has no respect for the businesses of this state, and he accepts no responsibility for his failures.

Eddie McGuire’s administration of Collingwood cost not one life, yet he has resigned.

Our Premier has had the responsibility for a failed administration that claimed more than 800 lives and destroyed businesses.

Still, he accepts no responsibility for his failures last year and continues to lock down Victoria.

If this was not so serious, someone would one day write a comedy about what Daniel Andrews has done to this state in just 12 months.

Sadly, one should not be surprised, when you have a look at his pattern of behaviour over six years.

Jeff Kennett is a former premier of Victoria