Coronavirus Victoria: Liberal MP’s dig at Daniel Andrews backfires sensationally

One of the Victorian Premier’s biggest critics invited his Facebook followers to send the state’s leader a message but it blew up in his face.

A Victorian opposition MP’s clever dig at Premier Daniel Andrews’ handling of the state’s coronavirus outbreak backfired sensationally after his Facebook post was flooded with support for his rival.

Liberal MP Tim Smith invited the online community to send the state’s Labor leader “a message” through a cheeky straw poll.

“Should Daniel Andrews Resign,” the post asked, partnered with a dark and menacingly edited photo of the premier.

The clever catch from Mr Smith was that all the reaction emoticons, from “like” to “love” and through to “angry”, indicated a “YES” vote.

But Andrews supporters noticed the MP had neglected to include the “care” emoji — a face hugging a love heart. And they exploited it with clicks.

RELATED: Brutal letter Andrews can’t hide from

The cheeky dig at the premier backfired. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Ian Currie

RELATED: World’s media makes Dan Andrews a star

“Care react means we want Dan to stay!” one user wrote in the comments. After being online for a week, 45,000 out of the overall 53,000 votes were for the “care” option.

Mr Smith unfortunately forgot about that “care” reaction. Picture: Stuart McEvoy/The Australian.

From Brexit, to the 2016 US election through to our very own federal election last year, polls have continually failed to accurately gauge the feeling of electorates.

But this online straw poll certainly proves there are plenty who disagree with Mr Smith.

Send him a message.

Posted by Tim Smith MP - Member for Kew on Thursday, 17 September 2020

Mr Andrews’ controversial attempts to give power to health authorities to lockup high-risk coronavirus spreaders has faced a chorus of criticism from Victoria’s top legal minds.

This landed a glancing blow to the premier’s plan to usher the Omnibus (Emergency Measures) Bill through the upper house, though support throughout the community appears to be swinging in favour of the Labor leader and his government’s strict lockdown policies.

As new case numbers remain low and steady, a CNN report declared Mr Andrews’ strict shutdown the blueprint to containing the deadly coronavirus.

It said policy makers and critics were sceptical of the strict lockdown approach originally adopted at the source of the pandemic’s outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

“The situation in Victoria proves that the lockdown strategy does work elsewhere, and that, given the proper information and reassurances, people are willing to make the sacrifices required to contain the virus,” the CNN piece declared.

Meanwhile, The Australian’s Newspoll showed 62 per cent of Victorian voters backed the premier’s handling of the health crisis despite failures of hotel quarantine being responsible for much of the state’s cases.

Separately, 61 per cent of voters around Australia, including 57 per cent of Coalition voters, said the restrictions, which have locked Victorians at home, were appropriate.