Rita Panahi: The Premier thrives on seizing and exercising control

Daniel Andrews embraces every facet of cultural Marxism, pretending to care for downtrodden minorities yet turning a blind eye to the most horrendous systematic abuse of religious minorities.

April is set to be a momentous month for Dear Leader who will pass John Cain to be crowned Victoria’s longest-serving Labor premier.

Daniel Andrews’ grip on this state is so tight that the Premier has no qualms about jumping on a jet for a secretive visit to a foreign power that poses a significant danger to Australia.

A threat so profound that his Labor counterparts in the Anthony Albanese government will be spending upwards of $368bn for nuclear submarines to provide the nation some level of protection from potential Chinese aggression.

But that appeared to be the furthest thing from Premier Andrews’ mind as he became the first Australian state or national leader to visit China since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the origins of which Beijing has worked tirelessly to conceal.

Daniel Andrews is the first Australian state or national leader to visit China since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Picture: Instagram

The only Australian leader willing to get into bed with the CCP and sign up his state for the contentious Belt and Road Initiative – before the federal government intervened to junk the deal – is naturally a favourite with Beijing.

Andrews has won plaudits from Chinese officials as he swans around the superpower, minus any pesky members of the Australian media. Li Xukui from the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries was generous in his praise for “the firm determination of the Premier himself and Victoria to persist in developing relations with China”.

This would be the same comically named body that US intelligence has identified as seeking to “directly and malignly influence” US political leaders to promote China’s global agenda.

A 2022 US National Counterintelligence and Security Center report explains: “Some of the goals of (Chinese government) influence operations in the US are to expand support for (China) interests among state and local leaders and to use these relationships to pressure Washington for policies friendlier to Beijing … Leaders at the US state, local, tribal, and territorial levels risk being manipulated to support hidden (Chinese government) agendas.”

Andrews has won plaudits from Chinese officials as he swans around the superpower, minus any pesky members of the Australian media. Picture Supplied

But then Andrews would’ve known that the Belt and Road Initiative he signed up to was also designed to expand Beijing’s political and economic influence around the globe. Perhaps at some point the Victorian Premier will explain why he appears entirely untroubled by China’s global ambitions, its use of economic coercion against smaller nations, including Australia, and its gross human rights abuses.

Andrews has embraced every facet of cultural Marxism, relentlessly pushing its divisive oppressor and oppressed narratives, pretending to care for downtrodden minorities yet turning a blind eye to the most horrendous systematic abuse of religious minorities.

It’s well and good to falsely label women’s rights protesters as “nasty and hateful” for wanting to protect women’s spaces and sports, but the Premier is curiously silent when it comes to Xi Jinping’s regime.

It’s much easier to punch down, with the assistance of the media, on a bunch of women than say anything meaningful about China’s litany of human rights abuses, from the ethnic genocide of the Uighurs and forced organ harvesting of prisoners such as Falun Gong practitioners to the brutal treatment of political dissidents.

One cannot forget Andrews was among the most enthusiastic advocates for CCP-inspired restrictions to combat Covid-19, his government implementing six lockdowns in Melbourne.

The Premier thrives on seizing and exercising control, and that’s precisely what he does in Victoria thanks largely to a feckless opposition that has zero political acumen and even less courage.

Within Victorian Labor the Premier’s powerbase has also strengthened after revelations of a branch stacking scandal and national intervention. Andrews’ Socialist Left faction now has absolute control of the parliamentary party.

“It’s all about control, now he’s secured the numbers which will give him complete control,” one Labor insider said. “There will be no oversight or accountability from within the party.”

Others point out that the Premier’s control of state Labor and the organisational wing of the party “effectively eliminates the notion of democratic socialism with no room for accountability or dissent”.