Shannon Deery: Thwarting critical debate not a good look for Dan

Proposed pandemic laws will be the true test for a government which appears to have grown increasingly emboldened about how it approaches legislative reform.

For almost eight years Daniel Andrews has had little trouble pushing an ambitious legislative agenda through the parliament.

It’s seemed virtually effortless since the landslide election win of 2018, which means he only ever needs to garner the support of a few crossbenchers in the upper house and anything goes.

There have been some challenges along the way: most notably introducing a voluntary assisted dying regime in 2017 that saw several government MPs vote against the move. But he got there in the end.

Many other significant reforms have made it through with far less parliamentary resistance – the introduction of Victoria’s first drug injecting room, protection zones around aborting clinics, and a ban on gay conversion therapies.

The Andrews government scrapped the $8bn East West Link toll road and initiated Australia’s first royal commission into family violence. And it pushed through divisive anti-association laws that gave police the power to ban certain groups of people from spending time together.

Increasingly, the government has appeared more emboldened about the way in which it approaches significant legislative reform.

Daniel Andrews has previously had little trouble pushing an ambitious legislative agenda through the parliament. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

Last week, in just two days, one of the most significant pieces of legislation to be introduced to the parliament in years passed the lower house.

If passed, the Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment (Pandemic Management) Bill 2021 has the potential to have a more profound impact on the lives of Victorians than any other legislation introduced during almost eight years of Andrews government.

The laws would bestow on the Premier the power to make a pandemic declaration and extend it in three-month blocks for as long as he considered it necessary.

Power to make special orders would be transferred from the chief health officer to the health minister.

Consequently the government would wield virtually unlimited capacity to restrict movement, ban public gatherings, close businesses or order quarantine requirements as required.

The proposed laws have sparked widespread concern among dozens of the state’s most senior lawyers who say the current Bill, as drafted, is seriously flawed and, if uncorrected, would give dangerous powers to future governments.

Health Minister Martin Foley described it as “the first legislation of its kind – laws specifically designed to assist in the reduction and management of public health risk posed by pandemics in Australia”. And yet, debate in the lower house was reduced to just two days, with calls to extend that time voted down.

A request for the specialist committee that examines all Bills introduced to parliament to urgently review the pandemic management Bill was also denied.

It will look at the Bill the day before it is introduced to the upper house. Hardly enough time to read it, let alone properly consider and scrutinise it.

Martin Foley has described it as ‘the first legislation of its kind’.

The state opposition has accused the government of purposely dodging proper process.

“When an ordinary, pedestrian, run-of-the-mill Bill comes into this place the minimum time that the opposition and indeed the people of Victoria have to review that legislation is two weeks,” Liberal MP Ryan Smith said in parliament last week.

Instead, he said, the opposition was given just hours to digest the 113-page Bill “that will have the most far-reaching impacts on every one of the 6.5 million people that live in this state”.

“(It) will have huge impacts on all of those people in a greater way than the government has had impact on them in the past two years.”

Manager of opposition business Louise Staley described the move as an “utter abrogation of democracy”.

“It is bad enough that the government are trashing democracy with the way they are handling this Bill in this place, but it is doubly bad that they are doing it in a Bill that directly goes against the human rights of Victorians.”

Manager of opposition business Louise Staley described the move as an ‘utter abrogation of democracy’. Picture: Sarah Matray

The government defended the way it rammed the Bill through, arguing there had been widespread consultation in drafting the legislation. Certainly, there had been significant consultation with the three key crossbenchers who have flagged early support for the Bill, since March.

It’s an awful look for the government to be working so closely with three MPs for more than six months, but then rush the Bill through parliament.

But of course that’s the prerogative of a government with such a whopping majority.

However, could the luxury of such parliamentary privilege be coming to an end? There is an increasing view that the upper house is set for a major shake-up following the 2022 election.

That is supported by recent polling that has shown a swing toward independents, with support for non-party-affiliated candidates almost double what it was in 2018.

At least one new political party is also planning to field a series of candidates that would position themselves between Labor and Liberal. It could pick up votes from rusted-on but disillusioned Labor diehards who are angry at the government’s pandemic handling but could never bring themselves to vote Liberal.

A significantly redesigned upper house could prove a real challenge for a third-term Andrews government.

And it might force the return of real debate and proper process too.

Shannon Deery is Herald Sun state politice editor