Daniel Andrews knows he can’t survive a third coronavirus wave
If he has not spent these past weeks personally overseeing the embedding of processes to guarantee inevitable future breakouts are contained — as they have been in NSW — then he may as well follow his former health minister, Jenny Mikakos, out the door today. There can be no third wave because there can be no third lockdown on his watch.
Even the ruthlessly efficient Victoria Police, whose reluctance to police hotel quarantine is partly responsible for the disaster, would struggle to enforce compliance. Mobs would occupy the streets. And who could blame them?
Andrews understands this. If he doesn’t, his Labor colleagues do. The most disturbing aspect of the whole debacle — after the deaths, the illnesses and the disruption — is the abject failure across the board by politicians and bureaucrats to do their jobs.
They professed not to know basic information they should have known. Worse, they did not sound as if they even bothered to find out what they should have known. Basic information such as who was doing what. The politicians did not ask what appeared to be obvious questions and the bureaucrats did not tell ministers what they needed to know. No one was in charge, no one was prepared to accept responsibility. Dysfunction, collective amnesia and a failure to communicate contributed to the tragedy.
Premiers have been deposed or resigned or eventually lost elections for much less than this. Barry O’Farrell resigned as NSW premier because he had forgotten to declare an expensive bottle of wine he had been given. Nobody was killed or harmed except himself.
Still it is possible, if the virus is conquered, if the Victorian economy rebounds, if the Liberals continue fighting rather than uniting behind Michael O’Brien’s sensible leadership, that Andrews will survive. He certainly has no intention of quitting now. That would sate the bloodlust; it wouldn’t fix the problems.
Andrews finally apologised unreservedly for the failures on Friday afternoon as he wound up his appearance before the inquiry he had established to get to the truth of what happened. Good luck with that.
In her statement on Saturday resigning as health minister, becoming the first although not the last high-profile, victim, Mikakos did not make a graceful exit. She said she was deeply sorry for the situation Victorians “found themselves in”, saying she did not believe her actions led to them.
Pardon? Victorians did not “find themselves” in such a rotten place. They were put there partly through bad luck; largely, though, through the bad management of those elected or appointed to look after them.
Andrews knows that despite the purported improvements to testing and tracing, the risks of a third wave increase if he reopens prematurely, which is why he dismissed Scott Morrison’s gibe that Victoria’s lockdown had lasted longer than many other places around the world. Although the Prime Minister’s swipe was factual, it also had a gratuitous smack to it.
Every other place in the world experiencing a second wave is in deep strife trying to get the virus back under control while keeping economies functioning.
If Morrison is frustrated by Victoria dragging down the national economy, then Andrews sounds fed up with the sniping from the feds. They all need to get over it. Andrews should take every bit of help on offer, then ask for more. Morrison should make sure his Health Minister, Greg Hunt, and Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck have fortified defences so if and when there is another breakout in nursing homes, elderly and vulnerable people are protected.
The spreading of the virus from hotel quarantine was responsible in the first instance for the deaths; however, the weaknesses in the system and the tardiness of the federal response contributed mightily.
Former chief medical officer Brendan Murphy, who now heads the federal Department of Health, admitted on Tuesday there would have been fewer deaths — 663 in aged care as of Tuesday night — if the response had been swifter.
With so much at stake, so many lives lost already, so many businesses wrecked, so many families under strain, there can be no such thing as overkill now in preparation and response.
No amount of jawboning or arm-twisting by Morrison and his ministers will induce Andrews to open up a day or an hour before he is ready. That will be when the virus is quashed and he is confident he can do what Gladys Berejiklian has done in NSW: keep the state open, keep the economy going and keep COVID-19 under control with significant testing, world-class contact tracing and proper protections for her people.
Although the poll numbers do not reflect it, Berejiklian is the best leader, bar none, in Australia today. She began the year that way, and without jinxing her or inciting her enemies now pretending to be her friends to undermine her, she looks like finishing the year that way too. Her handling of the black summer fires was exemplary (as was Andrews’). The Ruby Princess was a blemish, but the response since to the pandemic has been near exemplary.
It is no easy feat to keep borders open, handle the lion’s share of quarantine, reopen the economy, ensure COVID-19 is kept in check, and simultaneously put down an internal insurrection. No one else has been able to do that.
She was absolutely right to stare down Deputy Premier and Nationals leader John Barilaro. Her government is better off without him, and if she had given in to his demands her leadership would have been irreparably damaged.
Morrison is right to hold up Berejiklian as a role model. Not just for premiers and not just on COVID-19.
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Daniel Andrews is many things. Stupid is not one of them. As a smart man and a clever politician, he would know that three waves and he’s out. Finished.