‘Pig headed know-it-alls’: Labor email insult to Victorian lockdown sceptics

Labor ordered to release an insulting ‘pig headed’ lockdown email the government has been fighting to keep Victorians from reading.

Former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews wearing a mask in 2020. Picture: Getty Images

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Victorians concerned about Covid-19 lockdowns were branded “pig headed know-it-alls” in a mystery email the Allan government has been ordered to release after losing an 18-month fight to keep it secret.

In a development that ramps up pressure on a government already facing criticism over its hardline response in this week’s federal pandemic inquiry report, the full text of the insulting email can be revealed by The Australian.

The Department of Premier and the Cabinet only released the unredacted email to The Australian after Victoria’s information watchdog dismissed government attempts to keep it under wraps.

The “pig headed know-it-alls” insult was blacked out by the DPC when the email to former premier Daniel Andrews’ taxpayer-funded political strategy firm QDOS Research was released under Freedom of Information laws last year. Mystery surrounds who wrote the email – dated April 6, 2022 – with the Premier’s office saying the email was not written by a public servant or politician, but refusing to identify who was responsible for it.

“These comments were not made by Victorian government employees,” a government spokesperson said.

The DPC fought to keep the five-word insult secret by claiming its release could disclose “opinion, advice or deliberations” and its release would be “contrary to the public interest”.

But Information Commission deputy commissioner Penny Eastman dismissed the government’s case and ruled in favour of The Australian. “I note the sensitivity of the commentary, I do not consider it rises to the level the disclosure … would be contrary to the public interest,” she said in her finding.

The email to QDOS – carrying the subject line “restrictions ­categories” – emerged in response to an FOI request for all communications between the firm and the DPC.

“Here’s a go at categorising people by attitude to restrictions, not sure if this is too many words,” the email states, before going on to say categories one and two cover the “bulk of people and are pretty compliant”.

Category three, the email states, are the “main group to persuade” and “are reasonable and need to hear a good case”.

The email’s “pig headed” insult is contained in a reference to category four: “4 are pig headed know-it-alls but if they feel they are being asked rather than forced they do see themselves as good citizens and will ‘do the right thing’ – may take time to get on board”.

Category five is described in the email as “not open to any form of sense or reason (a tiny percentage but a lot of people in raw ­numbers)”.

By April 2022, when the email was sent, most Covid restrictions had been lifted after a world-­record 267 days of lockdown through 2020 and 2021. The purpose of the profiling exercise in the “pig headed” email is not disclosed in the communications between the DPC and QDOS, owned and operated by veteran Labor pollster and strategist John Armitage.

Half an hour after it was sent, a QDOS executive responded, stating: “Yes that covers the ranges … I feel group 3 – or a proportion of it is still going to be tough to persuade.

“Unless they have first-hand ­experience of the impacts on the health system, they tend to dig in. Time might flip them as well as people around them doing the right thing. But they need to ­believe they are making the choice themselves.”

QDOS pocketed up to $3m in taxpayer-funded payments to conduct detailed surveys of ­Victorians, which were used by Mr ­Andrews to help shape his government’s Covid response.

Over the past four years, The Australian has obtained hundreds of pages of QDOS documents under FOI, revealing the secretive role the firm played during the Covid lockdowns.

The ­taxpayer-funded program was used to monitor Victorians’ views about Mr Andrews’ personal performance during the state’s 112-day lockdown in 2020, with Mr Armitage briefing cabinet on the results.

John Armitage. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

Documents have also revealed QDOS conducted extensive and regular monitoring of Victorians’ reaction to lockdown restrictions such as the 8pm curfew, the 5km travel limit, the metro-regional split on rules, industry closures, police conduct and who was to blame for hotel quarantine leaks, which triggered the deadly second wave.

The “pig headed” email also ­describes Victorians who were ­opposed to Covid-19 lockdowns as believing “tyrannical government is the enemy”, embracing “fantastical conspiracy theories” and choosing “individual rights” ahead of “collective rights”. It described category one as Victorians who “strongly support and follow restrictions” and who “trust authorities” and consider “following restrictions is the right thing to do for my family and my community” and “don’t find restrictions overly onerous and will follow them”.

The email described category four and five as the least compliant who believed Covid-19 was ­“exaggerated (just like the flu) or may not exist or doesn’t exist” and “don’t ­accept the authority of the government to ‘tell them what to do’.”