Susie O’Brien: Dan’s blatant disregard for transparency and accountability is breathtaking.

There seems to be no limit on what Daniel Andrews is willing to spend to fix his government’s credibility problem.

Premier Daniel Andrews is using hard-earned taxpayer dollars to buy his government another term in office it doesn’t deserve.

He’s spending his way out of the corona crisis. There seems to be no upper limit on what he’s willing to blow to fix his government’s credibility problem.

The blatant disregard for transparency and accountability is breathtaking.

In recent days we’ve learned he spent an astonishing blatant disregard for transparency and accountability is breathtaking.

And he spent $7.7m on lawyers covering up for his government at the Coate inquiry that didn’t find anything.

While Andrews has spent millions making his government look good, some of the money he’s promised the rest of us in grants has failed to materialise.

The Herald Sun has revealed that $78m was paid to more than 1000 hotel quarantine workers during five months when there were no international flights and the program was on standby.

Many were also receiving the JobKeeper payment as well as $2000 a week from the state government.

=Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews.

Only a few hundred workers were given anything else to do. It was an outrageous waste of money at a time when so many were struggling.

But what else should we expect from a state government that leaves 64,000 families languishing for a decade on public housing waiting lists, but pays millions of dollars to hotel chains for rooms that sit vacant?

Of course, we don’t know exactly what we paid for these empty rooms because it’s “commercial in-confidence” — like everything else.

This willingness to pay whatever it takes the protect the reputation of the Premier and senior ministers is another hallmark of the Andrews government.

We now know Andrews and his cronies spent $7.7m on lawyers to hide the truth about whose idea the deadly hotel quarantine program was.

That’s nearly $8m to help politicians and senior public servants avoid scrutiny, cover up facts and finesse their skills in political defection.

It’s nearly $4m more than the inquiry cost.

It’s a lot of money for an inquiry that didn’t find out what it was set up for: who made the fatal decision to use private security guards for the hotel quarantine program. This is not surprising given the involvement of so many lawyers protecting the interests of those in charge.

All we got for all that money was advice that wasn’t followed in full and a muddied train of events. And we still don’t know how much individuals such as Daniel Andrews and former health minister Jenny Mikakos spent on their lawyers.

Let’s not forget this money comes on top of the $200m that the first hotel quarantine program cost, which led to the loss of more than 800 lives.

While the government is lavishing funds on high-paid lawyers, bumbling bureaucrats and hapless hotel staff, questions are being asked about the funds being paid to Victorian businesses.

Figures from the Opposition show that despite government claims they’ve allocated $2.6bn to 129,000 businesses, the real figure is much lower than this.

In fact, figures provided to parliament suggest that less than 12 per cent of the total amount of business bailout funds have been handed over for three key grants.

This includes 4000 out of 400,000 sole traders given $3000 grants — $12m out of the $100m promised.

And only $3m out of $30m paid under the Hospitality Business Grant program and $1m out of $40 million under the Night-time Economy Business Support Initiative has been paid out.

While 6008 businesses were paid $122m under the Licensed hospitality venue fund, that’s less than half of the total amount allocated. What’s happened to the remaining $129m? And what help has gone to the state’s 470,000 other small businesses?

This lack of accountability is something we’ve come to expect from Daniel Andrews.

Ombudsman Deborah Glass has launched in inquiry into the grant schemes, receiving hundreds of complaints about claims being rejected for minor administrative errors, lengthy delays, a lack of clarity and a lack of common sense.

In response to questioning from the Herald Sun, the government confirmed that some of the biggest areas of assistance are income tax deferrals ($1.7 billion) and land tax deferrals ($420 million).

It’s typical of the government for trying to get kudos for deferring - not wiping out - money it’s owed from workers and home owners doing it tough.

This lack of accountability is something we’ve come to expect from Daniel Andrews, who’s also well known for his big-budget campaigns trumping his government’s achievements and major project cost overruns.

As businesses and workers face the end of JobKeeper and JobSeeker, state support is more crucial than ever.

It’s not good enough to have a government that looks after its own while ignoring the needs of the workers whose toil fills state coffers.

Our work pays their wages, not the other way around, and it’s high time Daniel Andrews remembered this.

Susie O’Brien is a Herald Sun columnist

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