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Steve Price: Daniel Andrew’s X defenders are sad, pathetic and deeply delusional

Social media warriors who still rally to defend Daniel Andrews — always with abuse rather than argument — are pathetic for backing his King’s Birthday honour or thinking the former premier cares about them in the slightest.

‘People are very unhappy’: Petition circulating to strip Daniel Andrews of his award

After we learned Victoria’s most destructive Premier ever — Daniel Andrews – was to be gifted the equivalent of a knighthood, I called the appointment pathetic.

More than 95 per cent of Herald Sun readers rejected Andrews getting the honour in an online poll and talkback radio was flooded with angry Victorians slamming the King’s Birthday award, with many emotionally slamming the bloke who locked Victorians down longer than anyone else in the world.

Apparently, the criteria for such awards doesn’t consider a track record that includes wasting more than $600 million not staging the Commonwealth Games, or racking up state debt bigger than that of NSW, Queensland and Tasmania combined.

Bungling hotel quarantine and seeing more than 800 people die during the pandemic that smashed Melbourne businesses, closing schools for month after month and sealing outdoor playgrounds with police tape, doesn’t count either it seems.

Awarding Daniel Andrews a Companion of the Order of Australia is pathetic. Picture: Tony Gough
Awarding Daniel Andrews a Companion of the Order of Australia is pathetic. Picture: Tony Gough

Only a fool would endorse Andrews being recognised for his “eminent service to the people and parliament of Victoria, to public health, to policy and regulatory reform, and to infrastructure development”.

You’d have to have a warped idea of what service to the people means, and the nomination included praise for eminent service to public health. As I said Monday night on The Project: what a sick joke.

Cue the crazy “I stand with Dan” cult members who emerged from their dark caves to defend their man of the people.

Destructive Dictator Dan can do no wrong in the eyes of these delusional morons who presumably owe Dan their livelihood. Why else could you blindly support this bloke.

Out they came to attack what I thought was a measured assessment of the award and the committee that endorsed it.

The social media site X — formerly known as Twitter — lit up like the MCG on a Friday night.

Let me trawl through some of the responses to my criticism that are fit to print because much of the abuse is too robust to share.

Police on the street during Melbourne’s record-breaking lockdown. Picture: Darrian Traynor
Police on the street during Melbourne’s record-breaking lockdown. Picture: Darrian Traynor
A locked down playground during the Covid pandemic. Picture: David Crosling
A locked down playground during the Covid pandemic. Picture: David Crosling

Let’s start with X correspondent Patrick Clarke, who in just one post labelled me a poisoned loser and pathetic, and suggested the TV show I’ve been a proud contributor to for over 10 years loses credibility when I appear on it.

Like Stephen Cheeseman, whose contribution was “now you have wasted airtime on this blowhard can you give some time to showing the good works done by other recipients of today’s awards”.

HG joined the pile on — via X again — thinking my stature (short) was relevant, labelling me as “the short man” and wondering if I said an Australian honours award to John Howard was “pathetic” as I labelled the Andrews gong.

Seriously HG, John Howard was our second longest serving PM who led a government that retired the nation’s debt, banned automatic weapons after Port Arthur and secured the nation’s borders during a period of great prosperity.

Then we have the Murdoch haters, like someone with the handle “Boycott Murdoch”, a very independent thinker I presume, who used his keyboard while hiding in a dark room to add “no-one gives a crap what Price thinks”. Such high level debates.

Andy Earper suggests I should just say thanks Dan, and makes the ludicrous claim that Andrews made the hard decisions and “saved us all”.

Ramesh made this valuable contribution: “Steve Price perfect for dwarf throwing competitions, useless for anything else”.

Seems you need to be tall in the leftie Twitter world to have an opinion. I wonder if my weight or age might become an issue going forward.

And remember these people are advocating for a Premier who single-handedly thought it OK to ban people from visiting their own elderly parents if they lived more than 5km away, told you a maximum of two people could exercise together at any one time, shut down kids’ playgrounds and outlawed selling alcoholic drinks with straws in them.

He even introduced warlike curfews banning people leaving home after dark and before dawn. Can anyone believe we put up with that?

Do the brave rock-throwers on X have collective amnesia or do they just feel the need to slam anyone who dares question their brave leader Dan.

No wonder the former Premier was so full of hubris that he thought appearing daily in his winter jacket alongside rock star Chief Medical Officer Brett Sutton was an invitation to do whatever he liked, regardless of the impact on real people.

Incredibly Sutton himself was honoured in the Australia Day Awards back in January.

Mark Knight's take on Daniel Andrews. Picture: Mark Knight
Mark Knight's take on Daniel Andrews. Picture: Mark Knight
Mark Knight’s take on Dan’s Big Build. Picture: Mark Knight.
Mark Knight’s take on Dan’s Big Build. Picture: Mark Knight.

A Canberra based ex-journo, Peter Logue, whose X profile claims he was a reporter on politics during the Fraser-Hawke years — I vaguely remember him working on the ABC — joined the pile on observing “he’s a small man in every aspect of his persona and life and no-one will remember him when he’s gone”. Nice.

In just two days I was called a loser, a dinosaur, jealous, miserable, a paid big mouth, evil and boring as watching paint dry.

This all for questioning an Andrews award in the name of the King of England.

All these faceless critics should try defending Andrews’ actions to the families of the over 800 people who died in Victorian nursing homes.

Try explaining it to the thousands of businesses who fell over during lockdowns, to the parents dealing with teenage mental health issues after school closures or the people who lost their jobs over mandated vaccine rules.

So, as you prepare to have another crack while sitting around in cheap tracksuit pants tapping away on your phones, go your hardest because I don’t care.

And guess who else doesn’t give a crap – your hero Daniel Andrews who walked away from the job of Premier with a $300,000 a year pension for life plus a lifetime, taxpayer-funded driver.

Plus of course he’s now a Companion of the Order of Australia.

LIKES

— Medical professionals like former AMA boss Dr Kerryn Phelps starting to call out political decisions during Covid.

— Cold snap across southeast Australia dumping snow at our mountain ski resorts Mt Buller, Hotham and Falls.

— US Open golf this weekend at Pinehurst in North Carolina featuring six Aussies in the field.

— The great Dustin Martin celebrates 300 Tiger games at the MCG.

DISLIKES

— Vic Roads registration bungle billing motorists too little.

— John Setka’s union bully boy tactics aimed at the AFL’s umpires’ boss completely out of line.

— Out of control teenagers on a Richmond bound tram Monday night intimidating passengers and breaking into the vacant drivers cabin at the back.

— Foodbank Australia charity warning it’s seeing more working poor queuing for food.

Steve Price
Steve PriceSaturday Herald Sun columnist

Melbourne media personality Steve Price writes a weekly column in the Saturday Herald Sun.

Read related topics:Daniel Andrews

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Original URL: https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/steve-price-daniel-andrews-x-defenders-are-sad-pathetic-and-deeply-delusional/news-story/1622d29134c0d08e52ca0dd5e34a8480