Daniel Andrews’ ‘ring of steel’ protects ALP’s key seats

Illustration: Johannes Leak

The transition from Australia’s second coronavirus wave to COVID-19 normal is being executed according to Labor’s business plan.

It has protected its core interest groups while seeking to placate an increasingly agitated community being suffocated by untenable restrictions on movement and socialising.

The partial release from the long-term lockdown was an overt political response to a health problem. Consider the so-called ring of steel imposed around Melbourne, which stops people from entering regional Victoria without a compelling reason; it stays under Sunday’s announcement.

Labor has held power in Victoria for 17 of the past 21 years in part because of the way it has held on to key regional seats, right back to the 1999 Kennett-defeating election.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews making his announcement yesterday.

There are no fewer than eight non-metro Labor seats today that benefit from this ring of steel and party insiders have stressed that Andrews will do whatever he can to protect them from a viral invasion.

While it will be hard to shield these seats from fleets of Griswalds visiting from the city at Christmas, Andrews has created a giant zone of special voter status for those living outside the city.

It means if the virus starts spreading during the next two months, he can simply maintain the shield and isolate the communities, fortifying the Labor vote at the same time. 

Small and big business have united in anger at the government’s delayed reopening of key sectors, notably hospitality and retail.

Victoria cannot and probably should not be reopened too quickly, lest the contact tracing systems are overrun.

Regardless, business has never been a favourite of this government, preferring instead to stimulate activity by old-fashioned pump priming and paying off its sectional interests.

Andrews rarely speaks to the private sector’s importance or strengths, focusing instead on his target supporters: public servants, unions, tradies, insecure workers, welfare recipients and construction.

He has spoken in recent weeks about his family affinity with business but he has almost gone out of his way to downplay the role of profits in industries like hospitality.

It is one of his blind spots.

You can’t hire more staff if you aren’t making money.

For hundreds of thousands of people in small business, the pandemic restrictions have been unspeakably cruel, which will feed into Andrews’s problems next year when the Victorian economy tanks.

But those barracking for the end of Andrews will likely have to wait, regardless of the catastrophic failures of public policy and bureaucratic and political ineptitude that continues with the debate about New Zealand travellers.

The gates to the Royal Park Tennis club in Melbourne remain chained closed. Picture: Getty Images

While the outcome of the hotel quarantine inquiry could shift this dynamic, it is hard to find dissent of the scale to end to his leadership in 2020.

The 105-minute press conference yesterday was classic Andrews. Hair carefully messed up to reflect the voter experience caused by shuttered hairdressers and barbers, he banged on about the dangers of the virus and need for vigilance.

Unless they are in the private sector, most people who watched will be happy they can move around a bit more, have a hit of golf and maybe even go for a swim in Port Phillip Bay.

Even if the real issue is whether Victoria’s contact tracing system can cope with the inevitable virus breakouts.

This virus isn’t going anywhere, particularly in colder climates. The European experience is a warning for what might be to come. So many countries would kill for a coronavirus scoreline that reads two new cases and none dead. It’s easy to forget this.