Patrick Carlyon: Out-of-touch Daniel Andrews now a target for contempt

The Pandemic Bill should have been stomped on, shredded and set fire to — but as mums and dads fretted over it, Daniel Andrews showed he didn’t care.

The pandemic Bill looks doomed to fail, in a victory for Adem Somyurek, the once loyal lieutenant who has thrown a few haymakers after he was shown the ALP door.

But Somyurek’s win is our win, too. This Bill was dreadful. Lawyers hated it, for lots of sound technical reasons. Non-lawyers feared it.

The Bill should have been stomped on, shredded, set fire to and urinated on once the public galvanised in opposition.

Its future appears to have been stymied by Mr Somyurek, whatever his motives. But its defeat is a bigger tale in arrogance.

The extreme measures built into the proposal were never needed.

Premier Dan Andrews didn’t care.

Mums and dads fretted about the laws over dinner tables.

Andrews didn’t care.

Daniel Andrews has made himself a singular target for contempt. Picture: AAP

Andrews has been the best politician in Australia for saying what he wants to say, and nothing more. He shows a ruthless adherence for his talking points.

Put him in front of pesky journalists for 90 minutes, and not one word is out of place.

The message is everything. But what’s been his message in recent days?

Andrews has defended the laws, tinkered on the margins. He has argued for their necessity, as if future-proofing Melbourne requires the meek acceptance of the masses.

The takeaway? That Andrews doesn’t care what Victorians think.

Andrews has spoken of a “small ugly mob” outside parliament. He failed to appreciate the large angry mob beyond.

These are not anti-vaxxers who pronounce upon the magnetic dangers of a shot.

These are parents who tried to work and home-school. Year 12s who mostly missed the last two years of school. Small business owners who gave up in the absence of optimism.

They are afraid of the proposed changes, because they have suffered, as Somyurek put it, under the kind of “elective dictatorship” that the new laws would allow.

Andrews, in the most accidental of ways, has united separate tiers of society. He has made himself a singular target for contempt.

Andrews has spoken of a ‘small ugly mob’ outside parliament but failed to appreciate the large angry mob beyond. Picture: Getty Images

He has spoken of the supposedly unattainable “luxury to consult and consult and consult”.

Not only has this luxury been available, it has been exercised. The Andrews government has secretly negotiated the bill with three selected crossbench MPs since March.

If Somyurek’s change of mind was “disingenuous”, as one of those crossbench MPs has suggested, the same descriptor could apply to Andrews.

The Andrews government consulted for many months, just not with the people they represent.

Consulting the public over powers which lock them in their homes, or puts them in jail with no right of appeal, is hardly an optional extra.

Andrews has accused the opposition of “political games”. It’s a bold call from someone who set out to game the system of democracy.

He has claimed the cover of crisis, yet the crisis has mostly passed. He has tried to shove the laws through parliament, as if our immediate futures relied on its passing. But there is no hurry for new laws.

We want out from lockdowns, to embrace a post-Covid world where vaccinations preserve us from the dangers, and going to the pub does not demand as many planning controls as a heritage-protected tree.

We want out from cynical decision-making, when the very secretiveness of the process inspires suspicion.

There were no apologies for taping up playgrounds or the muddled pursuit of a zero Covid policy. Picture: David Crosling

At some point in 2021, Andrews stopped listening. There were no apologies for taping up playgrounds or the muddled pursuit of a zero Covid policy.

To seek to enshrine the kind of extreme powers misused through 2021 is the political equivalent of raising your middle finger to the electorate.

Andrews appears to have stopped trying to win hearts and minds. His paternalistic praise for Victorian vaccination rates grates as a kind of misplaced sense of ownership.

If he’s a father figure, he belongs in a tin-pot world of corporal punishment, where a “this hurts me more than you” rhetoric thrives.

An overwhelming majority probably precludes a change of power next year. But Andrews might confront a rejection not dissimilar to the electoral defeat of prime minister John Howard in 2007.

Howard had forgotten to listen. He seemed, as an internal party memo had pointed out years earlier, “mean, tricky and out of touch”.

As others have already pointed out, Andrews has lost the trust of the people. He seems mean, tricky and out of touch.

He has jettisoned the crowd, as if public opinion does not count for much.

That’s why this week might be remembered as the time when Andrews jumped the shark.

Patrick Carlyon is a Herald Sun columnist