Rita Panahi: Melburnians must now pay for Dan’s failures
Millions of Melburnians are now paying a heavy price for the gross incompetence of Daniel Andrews’ government — but the Premier is busy shifting blame to everyone but himself, writes Rita Panahi.
Opinion
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Victorians are paying a heavy price for the gross incompetence of Daniel Andrews’ government. The Premier should give careful consideration to stepping down after overseeing mismanagement on a scale unrivalled in modern Australian politics but instead he’s busy allocating blame to everyone except his own administration.
The decision to inflict stage three lockdown on about five million residents is the latest indignity that will push many families and businesses to economic ruin.
From midnight, residents of metropolitan Melbourne and the Mitchell shire will be condemned to six weeks of strict stay-at-home orders, only allowed to leave home to buy essential items, for medical care or care giving, exercise and work or study which cannot be performed from home.
School holidays will be extended and students, with the exception of those completing VCE, will be expected to return to remote learning with Victorian children set to fall behind their counterparts across the country.
The indiscriminate manner in which these restrictions are being imposed is evident in the inclusion of the Mornington Peninsula Shire despite there only being a single active case in the whole region at the time of the announcement.
How many businesses and livelihoods will be needlessly destroyed due to the latest lockdown?
Former premier Jeff Kennett made a pertinent point last week about the human cost of restrictions, noting that “since January 1st about 375 Victorians have taken their own lives”.
No other state or territory has suffered as much as Victoria thanks to the ineptitude of an arrogant government that imposed the harshest restrictions in the country but failed to manage the virus among returned travellers in hotel quarantine. Trusting poorly trained nightclub bouncers to monitor the highest risk group in the community, 60 per cent of all coronavirus cases are from overseas arrivals, has seen Victoria record a spike in infections with the worst rate of community transmission in the country.
None of this was necessary.
All Andrews had to do was to accept the offer of assistance from the Australian Defence Force. Instead, he thought he knew better.
Victoria has become the pariah state. Isolated and mocked across the country, we are suffering the consequences of bungling by an inept government.
Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist