Patrick Carlyon: Lack of trust in leadership spreading quicker than virus
When Steve Bracks called for Victorians to band together and stop debating blunders made during the coronavirus crisis, he misread the mood. Melburnians are angry at their leaders at a time when they most need our trust, writes Patrick Carlyon.
Patrick Carlyon
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Premier Dan Andrews and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian have taken opposing trajectories in their handling of the pandemic.
Berejiklian started poorly, with Ruby Princess, but is now seen to be control. Andrews started strongly, but sagged in the hotel quarantine bungle.
Former premier Jeff Kennett said of the Andrews government on TV earlier this month: “They have dramatically failed and they refuse to accept any responsibility for their actions.”
Another former premier, Steve Bracks, has been more kind, as you might expect of a former ALP premier assessing the efforts of a current one. This week Bracks rightly spoke of the need to unite behind a leader in times of fear and uncertainty.
Bracks fretted for the “spirit” of the state. He identified “a minority” who undermined the collective effort. They had “agendas” that “go beyond the standard scrutiny”.
Bracks skated over the mistakes of the Andrews government, and instead sounded a clarion call for “banding together”.
In eight years of office, Bracks never seemed tone-deaf. It’s surprising that he has misread the mood.
People are angry. Small business owners are demoralised. Stop, start, stop will end many of them. Victoria was not unlucky. The widespread feeling is that we are in a second wave because the state government botched our care.
That’s why Victoria is the pariah of a nation. Not because of recalcitrant individuals, but because of its leaders.
Melburnians feel like they are suffering for reasons far more mundane than the foibles of a deadly virus. And those they blame, such as Daniel Andrews and his ministers, have squeezed their eyes shut in the hope that the people will, eventually, look the other way.
Recent days have featured arguments about pandemic strategy. Should we opt for elimination, instead of suppression, given the successes of New Zealand, and the other states?
Elimination has advantages, as does the current approach. Yet neither strategy is the right one.
There is no such thing. The talking points ignore the uglier truth. Neither strategy would have prevented Victoria’s second wave.
The hotel quarantine system in Victoria was a slow-motion car accident. The biggest surprise is it took two months for the bungling to surface.
The state ignored offers of army assistance. The police did not oversee supervision. The job was given to a private security industry notorious for its rorts and deception.
The fact of this catastrophic policy is a lightning rod for some. That we still don’t know why it happened explains why a deeper resentment festers in the suburbs.
Bracks said the knockers were “feigning shock” about a second wave. Yet Victorians were not shocked by the fact of the second wave, but the inexplicable nature of its rise.
Andrews described the quarantine program debacle as “unacceptable” a few weeks ago. A fuller explanation didn’t follow, even though Victorians needed more.
A judicial inquiry is eager to explore the details. Expect insights into whether guards traded sex for freedom, or refused tests.
Yet by launching the inquiry, and deferring all questions to an independent power, the Andrews government squibbed the more urgent political imperative.
The hotel quarantine mistakes cracked the spirit of the people’s response, not the critics who wanted to know how this had happened. Who “undermined” who, to use Bracks’ term.
The roads look busier during this lockdown. Stories of secret gatherings are more common.
Fatigue probably explains some of these poor choices. But the state government should shoulder responsibility, too. Bungling the program was a starting point. But fumbling the need to win back the hearts and minds was the greater ill.
A judicial inquiry did not preclude a frank explanation for the mistakes of policy and implementation. It did not deny an opportunity to apologise.
Victorians needed to hear an acknowledgment for the crisis. Instead, they got flimsy excuses.
Andrews needs the support of Melburnians, lest their lack of compliance triggers a deeper and bigger spread of the virus.
But in his hackneyed political response to the quarantine crisis, Andrews lost the opportunity Bracks claims a minority is now seeking to deny him.
Imagine, if you will, if the state was in recession because of poor economic management. Would we trust the leaders who dug the trough to steer us back to prosperity, even if they refused to explain their poor choices?
That’s what Bracks appears to expect. And what Andrews hopes for each day he addresses a press conference, all pinched and tired, in his North Face jacket.
Andrews was strong and decisive early in the crisis. If he was parodied for his stridency — “don’t get on the beers with your mates” — his approach also comforted those living in fear.
He took credit for canvassing the hotel quarantine program, and he has enjoyed a bipartisan bromance with Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
Such are these unprecedented times. Andrews needs our trust. He can’t do his job properly without it.
So why did he choose to lose it by squandering his chance to be candid and accountable?
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Patrick Carlyon is a Herald Sun columnist