Rita Panahi: Victorians pay the price for Daniel Andrews’ gross ineptitude
The Premier is not very good at governing and Victorians have paid the price. Incompetence and arrogance are a dangerous mix and we’ve had plenty of both in Victoria during the past seven months, writes Rita Panahi.
Rita Panahi
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Dan Andrews excels at politics. It’s all he has known since graduating with an arts degree in 1996.
Sadly, the Premier is not very good at governing and Victorians are paying an unacceptably high price for his gross ineptitude.
Incompetence and arrogance are a dangerous mix and we’ve had plenty of both in Victoria during the past seven months. The contrast between the Premier’s adept politicking and inept governing is stark and the pandemic is hardly the first example of his unique ability to sell and spin terrible policies with terrible outcomes.
We’ve seen it throughout his six-year reign from tearing up the “worthless” East West Link contract to social engineering policies to passing some of the toughest industrial manslaughter laws in the Western world. That last achievement may come back to haunt the Premier, a number of his ministers and the bureaucracy beneath them.
It’s a travesty it has taken this long for Victoria to rejoin the rest of Australia and begin the process of reopening the economy and the community. There was no justification for making year 8-10 students wait until this past Monday to return to school or for keeping hospitality, retail and other low-risk industries closed until Wednesday.
Over the past four days, Victorians have gone through a rollercoaster of emotions.
On the weekend we were reminded of just how far we trail the rest of the country who began reopening in early May. We saw tens of thousands of mask-less fans gather at sporting stadiums in Brisbane and Sydney for the AFL and NRL grand finals.
Across both states pubs, clubs, restaurants and homes were full of jubilant people enjoying the festivities and the company of family and friends.
Meanwhile, back in Melbourne police drones flew overhead to catch any illegal gatherings just in case some recalcitrant fans had a barbecue in the park. Power-drunk bureaucrats even cancelled a COVID-safe grand final screening at the Dromana Drive-In.
The Premier’s decision on Sunday to keep five million people under a crippling lockdown, already longer than the one instituted in Wuhan, because of a small cluster of infections mostly connected to known outbreaks was the last straw for many.
Even some of the lockdown enthusiasts in the media began to bristle. It beggars belief that seven infections delayed an announcement impacting everyone in metropolitan Melbourne.
Finally, on Monday we got the news so many desperately needed, though it did not go far enough. The easing of restrictions is long overdue and must not be withdrawn if there is a new spike in infections.
We cannot remain at the mercy of public servants who are focused on a singular objective even if achieving it causes far more harm to the health and wellbeing of the population.
Then there’s the economic harm; Victoria’s disastrous COVID-19 response is costing Australian taxpayers around $100m per day, according to treasury figures.
Melbourne’s lockdown has seen about 1200 jobs a day lost and some of those jobs won’t come back.
These are real people suffering real consequences so the Premier can crow about zero cases when world-renowned infectious diseases experts tell us an elimination strategy without a vaccine is futile.
Victorians are at breaking point, Premier. Do not fail them again.
As the state reopens, we cannot afford to have Andrews again resorting to the politics of fear when new outbreaks emerge, as will inevitably happen when there is greater movement and contact between people.
Surely Victoria’s 2600-strong contact tracing team can adequately deal with any spikes without the need for further lockdowns.
NSW has been safely reopening for close to six months and has experienced a number of outbreaks but the state’s competent contact tracing has expertly managed each and every incident without reimposing restrictions or contemplating a lockdown.
While Andrews was busy playing politics, NSW was busy improving its pandemic response after the shambolic Ruby Princess fiasco in March.
Forget about asinine comparisons between Melbourne and France, one only needs to compare Victoria to NSW or anywhere else in the country to know how badly our government has failed. If you must make international comparisons, then try Taiwan or Japan, countries that never locked down but have death rates that are a fraction of Victoria’s.
Andrews and his many minions in the media will try to paint the reopening as a triumph of his leadership.
One thing you can say about the Premier is that he’s never lacked chutzpah. From the start of this crisis, Andrews has seized the opportunity to play politics perhaps because that’s all he knows.
IN SHORT
Brilliant, accomplished woman Amy Coney Barrett was sworn in as a Supreme Court Justice on Tuesday by African American Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and the Left, who pretend to care about women and minorities, is apoplectic with rage. Delicious.
Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columunist