Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews denies ‘economic carnage’ from lockdown

The Victorian Premier has denied his state has become the victim of “economic carnage” due to lockdowns during the state’s second wave.

The Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has denied his state has become the victim of “economic carnage” due to months-long lockdowns during the second wave of coronavirus cases.

During an interview on ABC’s 7.30 with Leigh Sales, Mr Andrews said the decision to lock down the economy was necessary, and hadn’t caused “more economic carnage by running your lockdown longer and harder than necessary”.

“You simply can’t have a situation where you can repair economic damage, get people back to work, start to create confidence and investment, get back to a normal economy — you just can’t do that unless you get the sequence right. You need to bring your health challenge under control first,” Mr Andrews said.

“Look at the United States at the moment, over 200,000 cases a day. This is a tragedy going into a very difficult winter. You need to get the public health part of it right, then you can move to economic repair.”

He said the announcements made in today’s budgets were “not just repair, but strengthening the Victorian economy beyond where we were”.

Mr Andrews insisted there was no way Victoria’s economy could have healed without bringing the “health challenge under control first”.

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The Victorian Premier said it was necessary for the state to get its health situation under control. Picture: ABC

ABC 730 host Leigh Sales. Picture: ABC

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The Victorian government unveiled its new budget on Tuesday along with plans to rebuild Victoria after its economy was battered by the lengthy coronavirus lockdown.

“There‘s not a jurisdiction in the world that’s been able to bring control to the health issue without prioritising that,” the Premier said.

When asked if Victoria could have eased its restrictions earlier, when case numbers were at a similar level in NSW, Mr Andrews said restrictions had been different across the state.

“We had different settings in different parts of the state, metropolitan Melbourne had harder rules than the rest of Victoria,” the Premier said. “It’s really important not to get pulled into these comparisons with New South Wales or Queensland or anywhere else, really, when you think about the amount of community transmission, the depth of our second wave, this whole interplay between large complex workplaces and big families, our virus, our second wave, is very different to anything experienced anywhere else in our country.”

Mr Andrews also said criticism from Federal leaders over his states’s coronavirus response had “not at all” derailed his relationship with Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

“I had a very important meeting with the Prime Minister last Monday. I made some very significant announcements with him around rail, rail to our Melbourne airport, rail to our regions as well,” he said.

“I’ve got a very good relationship to the Prime Minister because it’s about getting things done.

“That’s what the Victorian community elected me to do. I haven’t got time for partisan politics, this sort of sniping stuff.

“Others seem to have time for that. That‘s not me. I don’t deal with those people, I deal with the Prime Minister.

“I’m the leader of my government, he’s the leader of his.”

Mr Andrews also confirmed he’ll contest the next state election as leader of Victorian Labor.

“I‘ll be on the ballot in 2022, fighting hard every day to convince Victorians to stick with a proven team that knows how to get things done and keep Victoria strong.”