Emerging fault lines between Scott Morrison and Daniel Andrews widened by Captain Cook tweet

Deputy Chief Health Officer Dr Annaliese van Diemen. Picture: David Caird

Being a dopey ideologue does not disqualify someone from high office.

We see ignorant, constrained thinking in politics with teeth-grinding monotony.

The problem for Victoria’s deputy chief health officer — and the government she serves — is that Annaliese van Diemen is paid for hermedical expertise and political independence and not ideological and inaccurate tweeting.

Van Diemen now holds arguably the second most important bureaucratic position in Australia’s second biggest state.

If her boss falls under a tram, she instantly becomes the person running Victoria’s response to the pandemic.

Her frolic into inaccurate Australian history exposes a significant lack of judgment and timing and embarrasses her government.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’s biggest challenge will be to rebuild a devastated economy. Picture: AAP

It also potentially widens the emerging fault line between Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

At least until thus far into this national crisis, the pair had built a decent platform of respect, even though they come from opposite sides of the political divide.

Indeed, Andrews has done a largely excellent job managing the coronavirus crisis and his chief health officer Brett Sutton has been stronger than his critics have suggested.

Just look at the numbers.

It is logical to follow that van Diemen has done some excellent work as well while executing her day job.

But what she has done by comparing Captain Cook with the virus has undermined the government’s credibility at the exact time it is fighting Canberra over when it is safe for children to return to school.

Morrison and his Coalition cabinet may well be wrong on this point and we will work this out in the next eight weeks.

But van Diemen’s misstep has enabled state and federal Coalitions to revive the argument that Victoria is nothing more than a Socialist Left wonderland.

Andrews can sustain this criticism in the short term. But in the medium term he will have to do what Jeff Kennett did in the 1990s and rebuild a devastated economy.

The economy is now his biggest political challenge and the solutions will not come from the Socialist Left playbook.

So van Diemen should cool her jets and focus on her main game, which is the coronavirus.

She should leave the history to people who know it and allow Andrews to focus on building a path to some sort of economic recovery.