Susie O’Brien: Daniel Andrews’ school report card explained
As Head Boy of Victoria State Secondary College, Year 12 has been an eventful one for once-promising student Daniel Andrews. But with his pandemic response still drawing daily critics, the Premier’s report card has also taken a hit, writes Susie O’Brien.
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TERM THREE REPORT CARD
NAME: Daniel Andrews
AGE: 48
POSITION: Head Boy, Victoria State Secondary College
YEAR LEVEL: 12
PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES
Lacks empathy: E
Daniel often refuses to play nicely with other kids and likes to control them, telling them where to sit, how late they can go out and who they can be friends with. He recently drew large rings on the oval which forced kids to sit far apart from each other. Nonetheless, he wants to be liked, asking kids repeatedly to “call me Dan”.
He is working hard to get along with students from different walks of life, telling them they are “doing a great job”. He fails to understand that head boys like him who earn $40 a week are not “in it together” with junior school kids getting 20c a week on JobSeeker.
He has one enemy called Jenny who has started telling people what she thinks of him, something he doesn’t cope with well. The other kids also call him “Dictator Dan”. Despite this, Daniel is more popular than he deserves to be with other kids at Victoria High.
Daniel is more influential with other students than the other head boy, Michael O’Brien. When he was told to play nicely with Mike and his mates, he responded: “I don’t comment on people who are fundamentally irrelevant”. He has some growing up to do.
COMMUNICATION SKILLS
Some problems with brevity: D
Daniel’s oral presentations need work. He thinks answering hours of repetitive questions means he is doing a good job as head boy. His also needs to keep to time limits.
“I’ll keep it brief,” he’ll say at the beginning of a class speech that’s meant to be 20 minutes but ends up being two and a half hours.
His exam paper on the hotel quarantine inquiry was poorly-argued, repetitive and contained few real answers. Some pages were entirely blank.
But his recent essay: “Why the second wave is not my fault nor the fault of anyone in my cabinet, government, public service or anyone I once may have ever met in the Labor Party or union movement,” was most very enlightening for a fiction piece.
ATTENDANCE AND PRESENTATION
Encouraging: B
Daniel is on time and punctual on most days. He can be very harsh with others who do not share the same work habits. “Fellow, students, it’s not a time to get on the beers,” he often tells them.
He can be sloppily dressed at times, and on occasion has been spotted wearing a fleecy North Face jacket instead of his school uniform.
ENGLISH
Good grasp of language: B
Daniel was recently awarded a school prize for his role as third speaker for the affirmative during the debate topic: “It’s not about human rights, it’s about human life”.
His use of allegory and emotive language is excellent. He recently described the coronavirus as a “wicked enemy”. He needs to stop using the same term in the playground to describe kids not in his group.
MATHS
Lacks the basic building blocks: F
Daniel recently argued that the continued lockdown of 4.9 million people in Melbourne was justified because 203 people had a disease. This shows a fundamental failure to grasp essential mathematical principles.
He also recently failed to answer this question in an exam: “When Victoria moves from stage three to the second step of stage two and five people can gather from two household for two hours, how many people will vote Liberal?”
SCIENCE
Encouraging at first but disappointing results: D
Daniel recently tried to form a social bubble as part of a science experiment, but it didn’t go so well. It was meant to enable single people to socialise with people rather than cats and house plants.
It failed because horny young people don’t want to pash each other wearing face masks. Daniel received an F for his recent paper arguing that elimination of the coronavirus is possible, because he didn’t include vital facts about the elimination of the economy and people’s sanity.
GEOGRAPHY
Needs to try harder: C
Daniel appears to be confused about the fundamentals of geographic principles, believing that a 5km zone is going to cut the spread of the coronavirus when all it does is concentrate people more heavily. He recently argued that a “ring of steel” was a geographical imperative even through it doesn’t appear to be supported by any scientific evidence.
His recent paper entitled “On the road to the new COVID normal” was given an F because the road didn’t lead to anywhere and can’t be found on google maps.
OVERALL MARK: D+
Needs improvement.
Susie O’Brien is a Herald Sun columnist