Steve Price: Daniel Andrews’ I-know-better-than-Gladys attitude borders on bullying

Did the Premier’s back injury cause memory loss? He needs to remember the months we spent in lockdown and stop gloating.

Daniel Andrews, the self-appointed saviour of Victoria and Melbourne, has clearly never been to southwest or western Sydney.

How else can you explain the idiotic suggestion that his NSW counterpart Gladys Berejiklian impose a “ring of steel” around Sydney to stamp out the Delta variant of Covid.

The Victorian Premier – who I have desperately tried to warm to since his return from sick leave – has zero idea about what such an exercise would entail.

His arrogant I-know-better-than-Gladys attitude this week bordered on bullying, and I am sure a Victorian Labour Premier would not feel comfortable being described that way.

Lots on the left would describe it as mansplaining.

If a male Liberal Premier spoke that way about a female Labor leader all hell would break out.

Premier Andrews smug media appearances throwing rocks at a Covid-ridden Sydney while people in that state were dying and suicide rates were exploding was below even him.

This from the bloke who was in charge of what’s still the longest lockdown Australia has seen caused by the virus escaping his hotel quarantine system leading to the deaths of 820 people.

How dare he stand up there in the middle of the NSW emergency where day after day the politicians and health officers appear more and more panicked.

An appeal to the Premier that will clearly fall on deaf ears – ISN’T IT TIME TO ACT LIKE AN AUSTRALIAN, NOT A VICTORIAN?

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian. Picture: NCA NewsWire

You need to ask, has his back injury caused him major memory loss?

Or does he just choose to forget how desperate Melbourne and Victorians were feeling this time last year when he shut us down for almost five months?

Daniel, that’s how the people of Sydney feel right now and you need to set aside your dislike of Liberals and work out how you can help rather than gloat.

This should be an all-in-this-together moment where you could enhance your reputation as a state leader working his guts out to help other Australians.

If anyone thinks I’m exaggerating, on Tuesday while bragging about his latest lockdown success Daniel Andrews said: “All I’m doing is telling others what worked here (Melbourne) and it’s through painful, tragic, bitter experience that we are able to advise what actually works.”

“A ring of steel will work, it will, and that’s why I called for it.”

He’s kidding surely. Sydney’s red-zone stretches from below Wollongong and Shell Harbor in the south north to the Central Coast topping out at Lake Macquarie and west to the Blue Mountains.

Within that vast area are eight local government areas considered double red.

The suburbs now include Parramatta the construction power -house centre of NSW and those eight local Government areas contain more than two million people -the vast majority of whom cannot work from home.

They are the tradies, the tilers and painters, electricians and plumbers, the truck drivers and couriers the workers who keep Sydney functioning.

Your throw- away line about a ring of steel ignores the geography and cultural nuances of Sydney.

Sure, Dan, you fenced off 10 postcodes last year ahead of the lockdown that would keep us locked up at home for months. But if it was such an effective tool, why did a total lockdown follow a week later? And why have you not been prepared to do so again?

We should be helping our NSW counterparts, not gloating. Picture: NCA NewsWire

And yes, you went in hard and locked down those Housing Commission flats in North Melbourne and Flemington when told you had no choice. But the blowback on that decision continues to this day and I doubt it would happen like that again.

Already in Sydney this tactic is causing major anger from the areas being singled out. The Mayors of Fairfield, Parramatta and Canterbury-Bankstown are publicly angry that the seeding suburb of Bondi escaped any hard lockdown.

Premier Andrews Victorian arrogance also extended to locking out the regional towns of Wagga Wagga, Hay, Lockhart and Murrumbidgee from a travel bubble with communities on the other side of the Murray River.

It might well be a necessary move but then this from one Australian Premier to another “I was too busy to pick up the phone and call her” referring to Gladys Berejiklian.

He said his views on borders are well known. Tell that to the regional Australians in four towns closer to Melbourne than Sydney who have never even had a Covid case.

As Sydney stares at a lockdown to equal the one Dan Andrews guided Melbourne through you would have thought some Aussie team spirit just might shine through.

Like in a bushfire when our hearts swell with pride as the CFA units loaded up with Victorian’s head over the border to help their fellow Aussies in NSW we would like to think this emergency might see a similar gesture.

Sadly, with Labor leaders like Andrews and Mark McGowan in WA they treat this like some State of Origin contest bragging about their numbers.

Instead, we should be offering all the support both with historic intelligence, vaccine supply and physical help to get the Sydney breakout under control.

Glib, mean- spirited barbs chucked around at media conferences should be the last way to go and let’s hope at Fridays national cabinet all the Premiers get the message.

Including Victoria’s.

Australia Today with Steve Price can be heard live from 7am weekdays via the LiSTNR app.

LIKES

- NSW finally calls for ADF help to stem the Covid tide.

- Anything at the Tokyo Olympics. What a blessed relief from the lockdown news.

- UK introducing vaccination passports for incoming travellers. Bring it on, Australia.

- Tough talk from police in NSW warning of mass arrests of protestors taking to the streets over Covid. Let’s hope VicPol do the same.

DISLIKES

- The crazy lockdown-lite policy of having no visitors to your home including your own mother.

- The soaring price of everything from steak to petrol.

- The Melbourne Show cancelled for the second year running.

- Lack of incentive to get vaccinated. Where are the bonus offers like free travel and the right to move around freely?