Lockdown is the blunt instrument Victorians fear

Victorian premier Dan Andrews. Picture: Getty Images

So, maybe you think the worst of government’s attempts to control the population are now behind us?

I may have some bad news for you. In Britain, it’s now become a requirement in many workplaces, the BBC among them, for employees to wear “proximity devices” around their necks when they are on the premises. Such devices buzz when two employees come within 1.5m of each other, prompting them to step back.

No tasers yet, but you can be quite sure that’s not far behind and, when they arrive in Australia, they too will be ecstatically embraced, in particular by Dan’s claque of mad-eyed fans in Victoria. Punishment? Coercion and control? They cannot get enough.

The Andrews government in Victoria has to date proven the most pernicious, and capricious, in its handling of COVID-19. Yet citizens of the garden state seem quite willing to accept all manner of injustice as really quite reasonable.

We’re going to have a look at why that might be.

Early on, Dan and his minions instructed armed police to lock hundreds of vulnerable residents – non-English speakers, the disabled, and the destitute – inside public housing towers, without any notice. Those who tried to flee were wrestled to the ground.

Some weeks later, a pyjama-clad pregnant mother was arrested in her own home, in front of her children, by heavily-armed police. Her crime? She had posted anti-lockdown posters on Facebook.

Victorians were for months on end locked in their own homes for 23 hours a day. They could not attend the funerals of their own children, or parents.

Two weeks ago, bureaucrats decided to set fire to the holidays of 60,000 people, by ordering them home from NSW with less than 24 hours’ notice on New Year’s Eve. Never mind that these people had done everything Dan asked of them, including homeschooling kids who hadn’t been outside to see their friends for who can even remember how long.

They were ordered over the Christmas-New Year break to pack up their bikes, and their tents and hitch-up their caravans, to make a mad dash for the border, or else face being locked up in hotel quarantine for two weeks.

Those watching on Twitter thought it was a hoot: “Have an empty plastic bottle so you don’t need to leave the car for a nature stop!” “Or nappies, like the mad astronaut a few years back?” “Do I need to hold my breath if I have to stop for a wee?” “No, I need more advice than that: should I stand up or sit down when I pee please Mr Andrews?”

Some of the frantic travellers who called the Victorian DHHS hotline for advice were apparently told not to open the car windows as they raced through NSW, trying to get home, meaning they had to sweat out the drive. Some were told not to turn on air vents, lest COVID climb in like a huntsman spider.

Of course it wasn’t so funny if you were the one sitting in a six-hour traffic jam at the border, with crying kids and a dehydrated dog in your car. People were in tears. They’re frazzled, at the end of their ropes.

And why did it happen?

Because NSW had recorded a handful of positive tests for COVID-19 – not deaths, not hospitalisation, not even runny noses, but positive tests. And so, under Victorian law, people from Ballarat couldn’t have their longed-for holiday in Byron Bay.

Now, you might say, well, things are equally insane in Queensland, where residents were this week instructed to wear masks while driving alone in their cars.

And that’s quite right, because riddle me this: you’re driving alone in your car, you need to wear a mask to protect yourself from coronavirus? Do you also have to put a cork up your bum in case you fart? Because that makes about as much sense.

And if you don’t wear a mask, a police officer can pull you over and fine you. And that is, of course, the only time anyone other than you will have been at risk.

But then, that’s just silly.

The action taken against Victorians who dared take their holidays in Brisbane this year is outright cruel.

At time of writing, more than 5000 Victorians have been denied permission to cross the border.

You might think that it’s got to be illegal to lock people out of their home state. You’d be wrong.

They have to stay where they are, and none have any idea when the border might re-open.

It’s not like we have a system where it’s 50 cases, or 30, or five or three, or one.

The official stance is: we will tell you when we feel like it.

In the meantime, let them stress. They’re only taxpayers. Also, in case we’ve forgotten, human beings.

Never mind that many Australian families cannot afford to just sit there, paying for hotels for days and weeks on end. Of course, on Dan Andrews’ salary, it’s no problem. On a bureaucrat’s salary, it’s no problem. For the average Australian, it’s stressful beyond belief.

Also, locking your own people in Brisbane or Sydney because you think those cities are germy and people might die there, is disgusting.

If the Victorian government truly believes that, they should offer safe passage, and allow their own people to shelter in place, in their own homes.

Clearly they don’t think that.

So, why is any of this happening? Well, let’s be frank about the reason, shall we?

Dan Andrews cannot survive another outbreak. He has created a situation where even the death of a 97 year old in an aged care home will be on him.

His leadership has been so weak, he wouldn’t be able to ride it out. He has no authority, and has created no sense of calm. And so he has instructed the bureaucracy to prevent an outbreak at any cost. The bureaucracy has, in turn, employed the dumbest, bluntest tools at their disposal.

Lock everyone in. Lock everyone out. Why not just build a wall and be done with it? Because the fact that somebody had a runny nose on Sydney’s northern beaches shouldn’t mean that somebody in Castlemaine can’t have a holiday.

It’s out of all proportion.

It’s appalling also because when you boil things down, there just aren’t many things that people truly want from life. Mostly, they want to spend time with people they love.

That is what the Andrews government is taking away from people: the right to spend time with the people they love. “I make no apology,” said Dan, during one of his dreadful press conferences.

Of course not. But how, you might wonder, can he justify to himself taking such a crouched and mean-spirited stance?

Well, because, when Andrews and his team look at the polls, they are able to smugly tell themselves that the Victorian population favours the borders being closed.

And that’s quite right. Whenever there is a minor outbreak in NSW or Brisbane, you do see Victorians online, begging for the borders to be slammed shut.

But why?

Not because they believe in their government’s ability to make mature, compassionate decisions.

The truth is: Victorians are frightened. Their own government has made them skittish with dread. They are afraid, but it’s not the virus they fear.

It’s the lockdown. They know what their government is prepared to do to them.

They know how blunt the punishment will be.