Andrews ‘struts and frets his hour upon the stage’

John Carroll gave a thorough assessment of the now perilous relationship between Premier Daniel Andrews and the people of Victoria (“Brought low in pursuit of a Covid whale”, 17/9). As Carroll rightly states, there is an unwritten social contract, which both parties have a duty to uphold.

The simple reality is that the majority of Victorians held up their side of the deal, but the powers-that-be did not hold up their side. I am not the least surprised that lockdown fatigue has caused numbers of embittered citizens to protest in public.

In my own mind, three events demonstrated the breaking of the social contract by the government.

First, former deputy chief health officer Annaliese van Diemen confusing James Cook with Arthur Phillip and likening the former’s extraordinary cartographical achievements to the Coronavirus in a Tweet. Thoughtful citizens lost respect for the role.

Second, the Premier decided to use a catch-all proclamation in affirming the virus does not discriminate according to age, race or gender and ended up blaming all the citizenry for the second wave, rather than being seen to speak directly to minority groups by encouraging them to avoid holy celebrations in large gatherings.

And third, the limp and lax government caution on the Black Lives Matter protest, which was bizarre given that earlier dictums warned that playing a round of golf would equate to a death sentence. People understandably questioned why they, too, couldn’t bend the rules slightly for the sake of a gathering.

There is a sense in which Daniel Andrews is frenetically clinging to the desire to be the saviour of the great southern state. Federal assistance was treated with suspicion and the brazen edict that anything Victoria does will always be on its own terms, in its own time.

Yes, we eventually brought southern state coronavirus rates down low and they will hopefully stay low, but the hearts and minds of the people — as well as many small businesses — will have been lost, as endgames are hazily annunciated and frustration seeps in towards those we have looked to for robust leadership.

Peter Waterhouse, Craigieburn, Vic

Thanks to John Carroll’s masterly portrait of Daniel Andrews, it’s hard not to feel a degree of pity for the man, who has arguably become his own worst enemy. But the lion’s share of my sympathy is reserved for the people of Victoria, the hapless victims of the Andrews government’s dreadful blunders.

Helen Jackson, Higgins, ACT

As John Carroll contends, Daniel Andrews’ “impiety” to take on the COVID-19 monster single-handedly is obscured only by the evidence. I join with many Victorians in hoping the Premier will begin to feel and comprehend that his efforts are rather otiose.

Alison Van Nooten, Cremorne, NSW

John Carroll pinpoints the difficult and complex reality of political leadership, writing that Daniel Andrews “looks more and more like a solitary figure on a spotlit stage”.

With the Premier’s daily COVID briefings, responding not just with “inflexible indifference”, but obfuscation, including his repeated denials about the ADF offers made to him by Scott Morrison, he seems more like Macbeth’s “poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage”

Paulyne Pogorelske, E. Melbourne, Vic

Thirty-five years ago I told my parents I was emigrating to Australia. My father gave me some advice I have never forgotten: “Nick, as you know, I served alongside the Australians in the Korean War. A more decent group of people would be hard to find. But watch out for their bureaucracy. It has a malign incompetence that is quite extraordinary.” As I watch the continuing disaster of raging ineptitude in Victoria’s response to COVID-19, and the mind-boggling police and legal issues, two things occur to me: first, nothing much seems to have changed since 1950; and second, I thought this was odd advice in 1986, but you nailed it, Dad.

Nick Bretland, Yokine, WA

A fortnight ago, Melbourne University predicted there was less than a two in 100 chance that on September 17 the 14-day average of COVID cases in Victoria would be fewer than 53. On September 16 it was 48. Daniel Andrews proposes restricting the liberty of five million Melburnians until at least the end of October because he relies on a model that can’t make reliable predictions a fortnight ahead.

Michael Kottek, Ocean Grove, Vic