State Labor government under pressure to come clean on insulting email

Premier slammed for refusing to name the person behind insulting Covid-19 email.

Daniel Andrews in 2020. Picture: Getty Images

Jacinta Allan is under pressure to unmask the author of the controversial “pig headed know-it-alls” email generated as part of Labor’s $2m-plus deal with political strategy firm QDOS Research.

The Premier’s office has denied any “government employees” were responsible for the email insulting Victorian Covid-19 lockdown sceptics, but has pointedly refused to identify who wrote it and hit send.

Senior Liberal frontbencher David Davis called on the Premier to name the individual responsible for the email sent on April 6, 2022 to QDOS, the firm hand-picked by Daniel Andrews to help shape his government’s pandemic response.

“Mr or Ms Nobody needs to be named by Jacinta Allan,” Mr Davis said. “Public money was funding QDOS’s work for Labor, and now we learn part of that involved labelling in a nasty way members of the Victorian community. To not name the email author is completely unacceptable, arrogant and dismissive of major sections of the Victorian community who had legitimate concerns about the lockdowns.”

The “pig headed” email emerged as part of a Freedom of Information request from The Australian covering communications between QDOS and the Department of Premier and Cabinet. Asked this week if a DPC bureaucrat had written the email, the Premier’s office said: “These comments were not made by Victorian government employees.”

When the email was originally released by the DPC in late 2023, the “pig headed” insult was redacted, with the department claiming its release would be “contrary to the public interest”. The Australian appealed to Victoria’s information commissioner, who found against the government and ordered an unredacted version of the email to be released, which revealed the five-word insult.

Labor strategist John Armitage.

The email also categorised Victorians based on their reaction to lockdown rules and was sent to QDOS, a company that boasts of its ability to shape public opinion, stating on it website; “Fortunately public opinion is a fluid thing that we can squeeze, pump and stir, and sometimes just opening a little gate lets it rush into a brand new space.”

The Australian first revealed QDOS’s secretive pandemic role for the Andrews government in October 2020. Between 2020 and 2022 the firm, owned and operated by veteran Labor strategist John Armitage, conducted mass surveys of Victorians to test the performance of the Premier’s leadership during the 112-day lockdown in 2020. QDOS also monitored what people thought about specific lockdown restrictions such as curfews and travel limits.