Coronavirus Australia: Daniel Andrews risks being seen as political manipulator over schools plan

The Andrews government is in serious danger of digging itself into an unnecessary hole over the handling of the return to school.

Dan Andrews has deliberately played wide of the pack on the education issue compared with the other states and appears to be manipulating the issue for political gain.

If this is so, it is a seriously dangerous political tactic that could undermine community goodwill toward the government.

On Saturday the government (presumably) leaked part of the return to school package to The Sunday Herald Sun, which duly published it in the evening.

But it took until Tuesday for Andrews himself to tell people exactly what he was going to do; parents are utterly worn out by the process of home schooling and agitated about the potential health risks to their children.

So why not announce the package on Sunday or Monday, when other lockdown measures were relaxed?

It looks like Tuesday’s schools announcement was timed to coincide with his appearance before the Victorian Parliament’s Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, where the Premier was due to be quizzed, at least in part, on the virus.

The suspicion is that the schools announcement would swamp any negatives out of PAEC.

But Andrews didn’t even bother to turn up in person in PAEC, relying instead on a video link despite sitting in a room 100 metres away, according to reporters at parliament.

Observers complained that the link didn’t work properly and questioned why the government and parliament could not have made it possible for the Premier to attend in person.

These are all reasonable points, given taxpayers have spent a small fortune renovating the parliament.

Politically, the pandemic has been like a one way election campaign for a couple of months, the Opposition effectively silenced.

This means that voters have had a very good look at Andrews, not only the politician but the man.

His handling of the coronavirus to date has been strong but he could quite rapidly lose face if he is seen to be overtly political or tricky in his handling of the crisis, slowing down announcements to create a strategic advantage.

Voters will reject this.