Rita Panahi: Dan’s puppets Fiona Patten and Andy Meddick finally get their comeuppance

Two of Dan Andrews’ three useful idiots have got their just deserts after two years of pitiful kowtowing to Labor and its demands for greater powers.

Call it instant karma, poetic justice or just “useful idiots” getting their comeuppance.

Two of Dan Andrews’ three useful idiots have got their just deserts after two years of pitiful kowtowing to the Labor government and its demands for greater powers.

Throughout the pandemic we’ve seen Dan’s puppets in the upper house, the Reason Party’s Fiona Patten, the Animal Justice Party’s Andy Meddick, together with the Greens’ Samantha Ratnam, rubberstamp Labor’s radical legislative wishlist while simultaneously voting against a bill for greater transparency.

But despite all the bootlicking the Reason Party and Animal Justice Party will be preferenced behind the Liberal Democrats and the Justice Party on Labor’s how-to-vote card for the Senate in Victoria.

It’s a slight that Patten has taken personally.

Reason Party leader Fiona Patten is furious with the Andrews government after working with them to pass radical legislation.

“You can imagine how disappointed I was to see that the relationship that we had built through very tough times was not reflected in their preferences at a federal level in this state,” the Reason Party leader said.

“I am taking this personally. It does make me question the relationship that I thought we had.”

Patten is particularly perturbed that the man who has served as Victoria’s de facto opposition leader, David Limbrick, who has taken a principled stand against lockdowns, curfews, mandatory masking and other illiberal measures, will have his Liberal Democrats preferenced ahead of her ironically named Reason Party.

“They’re recommending that their voters vote for David Limbrick before they vote for Reason. In what world would that seem logical?” Patten said.

“They couldn’t work with him at a state level, but they reckon they’ll be able to work with him at a federal level.”

Andy Meddick Animal Justice Party. Picture: David Crosling

Greens MP Samantha Ratnam. Picture: David Crosling

Cry some more, Fiona.

This betrayal is a fraction of what many voters felt when you, Meddick and Ratnam voted for measures that saw their livelihoods destroyed, their children’s education and mental health damaged and their liberties decimated as Melbourne lived through the world’s longest lockdown.

Yes, Labor used and discarded you and Meddick but that’s no worse than what you allowed Andrews to inflict on this state.