Covid inquiry: Why light must be shone on state leaders’ responses

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews in 2020. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Daniel Pockett

The most significant unforeseen consequence of the Australian response to the global Covid-19 pandemic was the sudden promotion of the nation’s premiers.

During those dark lockdown years of 2020 and 2021, as the nation confronted its greatest threat since World War II, we needed unifying national leadership.

Instead, we woke up one morning and found it wasn’t the prime minister or federal government that would run much of this show.

We would be under the control of parochial premiers and their ­previously faceless state public ­servants who were armed, and willing, to use crushing health laws in pursuit of a “Covid zero” political fantasy.

“To hell with more than a century of federation, I’m in charge” was the mantra, as our mostly Labor premiers who sell themselves as progressives transformed into progressive dictators and slammed their borders shut, and kept them shut for too long.

To understand just how outrageous Anthony Albanese’s decision to shield the premiers from his Covid inquiry is, you need to remember the above.

The terms of reference stating that “actions taken unilaterally by state and territory governments” would be excluded from what looms as a soft ball inquiry is the final pandemic insult.

Everything Victorians endured after the first national lockdown – lasting 43 days – lifted was the result of decisions made by Daniel Andrews and a small number of ministers and bureaucrats.

The hiring of private hotel quarantine security guards responsible for the virus leak that sparked a 112-day lockdown and 800 deaths was an Andrews government decision (although during his own pretend inquiry, the Premier and others couldn’t recall specifically who made the ­decision. Funny about that).

The curfew, the 5km limit, closing playgrounds, restrictions on leaving your home, banning visitors, building a “ring of steel” to catch city fugitives sneaking into the country were all decisions made by the Andrews government as it locked Melbourne down for a world record 260-plus days.

Forcing hundreds of thousands of children into home schooling for month after month – now increasingly linked to long-term mental health and learning problems among kids – was another Andrews government decision.

And what about Andrews’s ­secret Covid political and social polling conducting by QDOS?

Victorians deserve to know everything about every decision that Andrews made.

Premiers are quick to make the point that these were unprecedented times.

They are right.

They had to act, and mistakes were inevitable.

This is the reason to shine a light on them, not shield them.