Failure is not an option as Premier goes all in

Victorian Premier Dan Andrews’ default position is an all-or-nothing attack. Picture: Wayne Taylor

Daniel Andrews is locking Victoria and the national economy into a long and ugly grind towards Christmas, with grave consequences for many businesses.

This is the depressing consequence of the severity of Victoria’s second wave.

No one wants to be here; the document that charts the way forward for Australia’s second-­biggest state is a horror show for tens of thousands of businesses employing millions of people.

The Andrews measures are even tougher than many were expecting. The business reaction has been blistering. And the political consequences will be lasting.

But anyone who has kept a serious eye on the coronavirus numbers will know the current infection rate is still too high to ­justify any significant reopening of the economy.

It is the awful policy conundrum, a modern day Sophie’s Choice. Open up and risk another wave within weeks or months, or keep the joint closed and shatter livelihoods.

It has been obvious for weeks that the numbers, while starting to edge lower, have been stubborn and are falling too slowly, the price being paid for allowing the second wave to leak from hotel quarantine. The science and health evidence is straightforward enough.

The alternative is to expose millions of people to a European-style yoyo effect, where countries like France are now scrambling to stave off thousands more deaths.

“I apologise for the reality we find ourselves in,” Andrews said on Sunday. “But we can’t change that.”

It is significant that the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has launched into the government after what has seemed like years of fence sitting and largely placating Spring Street administrations.

The constant feedback is that the government does not engage properly with the big end of town or small business.

 

Retailers are filthy, the hotels association irate and small business as a whole has been left feeling betrayed. The Morrison government has strategically distanced itself from the strategy, stressing that the decisions are solely for Victoria.

This seems to be a significant departure from previous positions of support, including for the stage four lockdown. The obvious question is whether or not Andrews has gone too hard and should have provided more hope for the community.

An all-or-nothing attack is Andrews’s default position. If there is a problem, throw everything at it — money, political capital, resources — and hammer it until it goes away.

The problem is that the older a government gets, the money tends to diminish, as does the political capital. This leaves significant political challenges for Andrews, both for his government and his leadership.

Sunday’s announcement is predicated on the assumption that the virus will effectively be dealt with once and for all. Yet we know from other countries that it has a habit of returning.

It is fair to say that Andrews would be run out of town if the state were to endure so many months in lockdown without an overwhelming result.

It will be troubling him that the French experience is that the virus has blown out during holidays, which are fundamentally what Victorians are looking for — and expecting.

Andrews was utterly dismissive of the Victorian Coalition on Sunday, but the other interesting shift in the political landscape is that people seem to be tuning in to what they have to say. We have reached the point of no return. Labor’s policy response has to be seamless, having failed to prevent the second wave from starting. The health-first strategy must work. If it doesn’t, then the political consequences will be vast. Failure is not an option.