Rita Panahi: Victoria a state in deep crisis

These are dark days for Premier Daniel Andrews, for he owns every level of the disaster befalling Victoria.

Victoria is a state in deep crisis. Three violent protests in four days is just the tip of the iceberg.

As the state’s billion-dollar-a-week construction industry was shut down in reaction to a violent CFMEU protest, NSW announced construction will return to 100 per cent capacity on Monday, up from its current 50 per cent restriction.

This is in stark contrast from Victoria where the Dan Andrews government spitefully shut down the entire sector after CFMEU members staged a violent protest against mandatory vaccine passports outside CFMEU headquarters.

On Tuesday construction workers marched again, some carrying banners reading “F--- U Andrews” and “Setka the sellout”, before congregating on the West Gate Freeway.

Protesters clash with riot police after closing the West Gate Bridge. Picture: Aaron Francis

Thousands of construction workers march through the city. Picture: Aaron Francis

Stung by criticism, the police response was stronger than the previous day but the protesters were not corralled, indiscriminately pepper sprayed or fined and arrested en masse, as we have seen with anti-lockdown protesters as recently as Saturday.

Instead they were allowed to take over a section of a busy freeway where they sang Daryl Braithwaite’s Horses and jumped on the back of flat-deck trucks.

One can only laugh at the gaslighting from union leaders, and relevance deprived former Labor leader Bill Shorten, pushing the patently absurd claim that Monday’s protest was some false flag operation.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Luis Ascui

That desperate narrative deserves to be treated with the disdain reserved for flat-earthers and Greens voters; the CFMEU don’t tolerate impostors and they hardly need any help in behaving thuggishly.

On Tuesday the Dan Cult was being mocked as DAnon for advancing the fake tradie conspiracy theory rather than deal with the reality that a number of unions are opposed to vaccine passports.

The United Workers Union, Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union, the Transport Workers Union and the Communications Workers Union are just some that have expressed opposition to mandatory vaccine passes.

As the protests continue many non-construction workers may join their ranks but this started as a CFMEU protest by CFMEU members.

The reality is the great majority of those opposed to the ruinous policies of the Andrews government would never think of taking to the streets, it’s simply not in their make-up.

Premier Andrews has succeeded in turning Victorian against Victorian, he has used the politics of division to seize greater personal power over the Labor Party, the crisis cabinet and the government.

And yet these are dark days for Andrews, for he owns every level of the disaster befalling this state.