Coronavirus: Victoria’s zombie government, where policy makes itself

Former Health Minister Jenny Mikakos leaves her home in Thornbury a day after she resigned from parliament. Picture: Aaron Francis

So, to be clear: according to the Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, his government operates much like a Ouija board.

Nobody moves the glass.

The glass moves itself.

Nobody makes policy.

Policy makes itself.

Of course, no sensible person believes this, which is why evidence given to last week’s inquiry into hotel quarantine in Melbourne was so incredible.

Incredible as in, not credible.

As in, cannot be believed.

No-one in the Andrews government knows who made the decision to hire private security guards?

It just sort of happened?

If that’s so, then let’s all forget about the problem of zombie businesses in Victoria.

We have a zombie government.

And if that’s right — if nobody knows who is making the coronavirus policy or indeed why – then we need an urgent intervention.

Because so many decisions with life-changing and even life-threatening consequences are currently being made.

Do we even dare follow that thread?

Who, for example, made decisions around contract tracing in Victoria?

How are those decisions being made today?

Collectively? Without oversight? Do any of the relevant ministers know?

If not, well, then don’t be surprised if it turns out that Victoria cannot contact trace an elephant down Bourke Street.

And so will come the third wave, and with it more deaths.

Another question: who in Victoria made the decision to shut down the schools?

One assumes that it was done by senior bureaucrats, who examined the evidence, before making a decision, weighting the risks to staff against the deleterious affect on students.

But maybe that’s not so.

Maybe no-one decided, it just kind of happened, and your child’s year has been wrecked for no reason.

March of the zombie government: Premier Daniel Andrews and his former health minister on their way to a media briefing.

Do we even dare to look at aged care?

Because maybe that’s the next bomb to go off.

Who is making the decisions around the staffing and rostering and quarantining of residents and staff?

Because hundreds of aged-care residents have died, and thousands of health care workers have been infected with the virus, and they have in turn passed the infection into the community.

Are we soon to discover that nobody made any decisions about aged care, either?

Comedians are making jokes but it’s deadly serious.

This is the greatest public policy failure in at least 40 years.

Millions of people are in lockdown, and hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost and we are being asked to accept that this happened by osmosis.

Yes, the health Minister, Jenny Mikakos, quit on Saturday, but not because she thinks she’s responsible.

Look very carefully at what she said: she quit, because she won’t work for Dan Andrews anymore.

But Dan Andrews says he’s not responsible, either.

Asked about his own decision to mention private security just hours after Victoria was told, during a national cabinet meeting with Scott Morrison, that hotel quarantine would be necessary, Andrews said: “I have given this quite some thought … I am not certain … I have tried to search my recall of this, and I simply can’t provide you with detail …’

It’s not good enough.

And if we accept it, well, then, at the end of this multimillion-dollar inquiry into hotel quarantine, we will also have to accept as findings: “A decision was made to use private firms, but as to who made it, well, shruggie emoji?”

It is simply not good enough. There are 700 dead. Their memory will haunt us, until answers are found.