Daniel Andrews detractors are being critical, not political

Illustration: Eric Lobbecke

Let’s debunk a rather silly idea gaining traction in some surprising circles. Criticism of the Andrews government is not a left-right thing. Maybe for a few, Daniel Andrews is their political bete noire. But for most people critiquing government responses to COVID-19, whatever political party, whether state or federal, it is a free vs unfree thing.

It is an evidence vs poor evidence thing. It is a good modelling vs bad modelling thing. It is a proportionate vs disproportionate thing. It is about searching for common sense, rather than blindly accepting dumb, sometimes dangerous, bureaucratic rules that make no sense.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews. Picture: Getty Images

In each of these equations there is not always a definitively correct answer; it can require a delicate balancing act. But those of us who sit closer to the freedom end and expect sound evidence, who side with common sense, and seek proportionate responses, are not getting political kicks from running a ruler over the Premier’s lockdown. It is being done to ensure that the damage done to the liberties, lives and livelihoods of millions of Victorians, and Australians beyond the Victorian border who will pay dearly for these decisions, must never be repeated.

The fact that fewer people on the left side of politics are raising concerns about Victoria’s lockdown, the most draconian in the western world, suggests that for many of them, freedom, evidence, common sense and proportion do not count for much. This is not a debate over politics; it is a battle about values.

It is no surprise that #IStandWithDan groupies on Twitter will dismiss analysis of their dear leader as base politics. But it is monstrous for the clearly rattled Premier to confect a wicked game of politics with fellow Victorian federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, given the Premier’s stubborn attachment to lockdown policies is destroying lives.

*Our Premier* is the man trying to give us long term freedom from Covid. And he's succeeding!

It's *time* for Liberals to stop interfering.

Constant selfish sniping like yours causes devastating mental health consequences.

Ain't no economy if we're all dead.#IStandWithDan pic.twitter.com/mQno2O7Hpn

— slow hula 🦋 #IStandWithDan (@slow_hula) October 16, 2020

And it is disappointing, and frankly shallow, for those outside this creepy ecosystem to ape the Andrews line that critiquing his policies should be dismissed as kneejerk politics.

The World Health Organisation’s special COVID-19 envoy David Nabarro wasn’t offering political commentary last week when he said that lockdowns hurt disadvantaged people the most. He said that using lockdowns is a sign that a country, or a state, does not have effective disease control mechanisms to deal with COVID-19. He pointed out that, in March, countries chose lockdown to buy time to set up testing and contract-tracing systems and build up hospital capacity.

But it is now late October. In NSW, a much bigger state than Victoria, life has resumed because the Berejiklian government set up efficient testing stations, providing quick results, and effective contact-tracing regimes, and it put in place hospital capacity to deal with outbreaks of COVID-19 that now exceed daily numbers in Victoria. But no one is talking about lockdowns in NSW.

By contrast, Andrews clings to a false dichotomy at his press conferences. He says that Victoria can’t keep going in and out of lockdown. Of course it can’t. But notice that Lockdown Dan threatens further lockdowns as the only alternative if there is another spike in COVID-19 cases. To paraphrase Nabarro, this is an admission that he has no confidence in his government’s testing regime, contact-tracing systems and hospitals. There is nothing political about this observation. It is a matter of logic to conclude that Andrews has locked Victorians in their homes for more than 100 days as a consequence of his government’s failings across one or all of these fronts.

It is not political to observe that the Victorian government chose a “shock and awe” strategy more extreme than other states. It was evident in the restrictions Andrews imposed, and his hectoring and scaremongering language. Victoria’s Chief Health Officer, Brett Sutton, has admitted that the nightly curfew that put Melburnians into home detention for 23 hours of the day has no science behind it. The Premier equated a round of golf with death. He dismissed loving, personal relationships as having nothing to do with caring for people.

It is not political for a group of distinguished lawyers to question the erosion of basic liberties in the Andrews government’s omnibus bill that would have allowed “designated authorised officers” — anyone, really — to arrest and ­detain a person suspected of breaking the law.

It is not political when concerned doctors point to the dreadful mental health consequences of the lockdown, and the deaths and ill health due to diseases not being diagnosed or treated properly.

It is not political to identify the sheer stupidity of the Andrews government banning a bloke from Jim’s Mowing from mowing a front lawn but allowing council workers to mow public lawns. Nor is it political for businesses, big and small, to plead for a more balanced, compassionate response from a government that appears not to understand that you can’t put a business into deep freeze for months on end, with no clear path out, and then warm it up.

It is not political to expect that Victorians be given accurate data about the numbers of people dying with COVID-19 compared to those dying of COVID-19, given Victorians are hemmed in by a rolling average set by Sutton and Andrews.

It is not politics to ask for credible medical science behind the 100-day 5km limit and the 25 km wall that applies from Monday. It is not politics to demand the truth from the Andrews government — and bureaucrats including Sutton — about the use of private security. Someone is hiding the truth. Nor is it political to ask why hasn’t the Coate inquiry into the hotel quarantine debacle investigated whether there are links between private security firms and Labor and/or the unions?

It is not about politics to spotlight the lack of proportionality around many COVID-19 responses, let alone the hypocrisy of the Andrews government over protests, or to ask why the Andrews government is turning citizen against citizen by demanding that small business owners in regional Victoria dob on customers who may have travelled beyond their permitted zone — or else face a $10,000 fine.

Nor is it politics to call out the other baloney around Victoria’s lockdown. Take this tweet on Monday by former ABC staffer Emma Alberici: “Yes there’ve been more job losses in Vic than any other state. But we need to stop focusing on short term & look to longer term ‘success’ of Vic & our country & the world as a whole. The real question we should be asking our leaders is WHOSE happiness matters most in an economy?”

Where to start? Damage to mental health is often long-term; it can last a lifetime. A lost year of education can be indelible if a kid drops out of school and never regains lost ground. Damage done to dignity, let alone to a family’s financial security, from not having a job can be permanent too. It’s terrific that Alberici landed a new job so quickly. But it is not political point scoring to remind the fortunate political class that Australians are not all in this together because millions of people may never get back on their feet.