As I wrote for Insight this week, how much are the rest of us expected to pay, to save Victorians from themselves? It’s commonly argued that state politics are distinct from federal politics in Australia. In general, that’s true.
Not in the case of Victoria. Not in 2022.
The reason the Daniel Andrews government is a national story is because Victorian Labor has become the template for Labor governments everywhere. And the reason the imminent Victorian election matters to all of us is because the most inept and ethically challenged government this country has seen is seeking electoral vindication.
The Victorian election is not just a referendum on Daniel Andrews and his government. It’s also a test of us as citizens: what is the standard we are prepared to walk by, and therefore implicitly accept in our democracy?
This is the basic argument of the “IStandWithDan” cult. Against all evidence, they insist that “Dan saved us from Covid”. Even if this bald-faced lie were true, does even that excuse what even former Victorian police chief commissioner Kel Glare calls the most corrupt government he’s seen in his lifetime? Which Melbourne talkback king Neil Mitchell calls the “worst government” he’s seen in 50 years? (Bear in mind that that time span includes the Cain/Kirner government.)
Even some Labor people, including former ministers, are sotte voce turning on “Dictator Dan”.
“He says he’s a champion for women … but he treats women appallingly behind closed doors. And if you’re down, he’ll kick you to keep you down.” The treatment of other ALP women such as Jane Garrett, Jenny Mikakos, Fiona Richardson and Kaushaliya Vaghela demonstrates that my whistleblower’s treatment was no isolated occurrence.
Anyone who doubts Andrews’ megalomaniac streak hasn’t paid attention to his behaviour during the pandemic.
As virtual health dictator for the duration of the pandemic, Andrews turned Melbourne into the world’s most locked-down city. With curfews that we didn’t even have in wartime. With 5km travel limits inside “rings of steel”. With playgrounds closed. Loved ones dying alone and buried without family in attendance. With a pregnant woman arrested by riot police in her own home over a Facebook post. And with police using tear gas and rubber bullets against fellow citizens.
The Premier’s decision to reject help from the army and instead to put dodgy private security guards in charge of hotel quarantine was linked to the deaths of 801 people. There was an inquiry, costing $15m, including $8m on ministers’ legal fees, yet no one could remember who made that fateful decision; and somehow, that’s the end of it.
Welcome to Victoria. A WorkSafe Victoria inquiry headed by a former Labor staffer (as so many public bodies in Victoria are) dutifully concluded that no one was to blame. The Lawyer X scandal, where a gangland lawyer was paid by police to snitch on her own clients, has led to precisely zero charges or job losses. Another corruption inquiry concluded that serious misuse of taxpayer funds was endemic in the government — but no one was to blame. Least of all Dictator Dan.
The Premier himself has been questioned in four, maybe five, corruption inquiries, yet – unlike the questioning of his factional opponents on the ALP Right – it’s never been open to the media.
Even on the eve of the election, the government is blocking the latest corruption report.
It’s a state where police can arrest Labor staffers for possible corruption but not their MP bosses, who suffer no consequences for refusing to co-operate with a police investigation even after the Premier said they would, and even after one of his former ministers said that Andrews was up to his neck in the rort. In what other universe could a citizen simply refuse to co-operate with a police investigation and the matter just goes away?
The Australian
In this light, the resurrection of a 2013 car crash involving the future premier and his wife, which almost killed a 15-year-old cyclist, must be seen as not just a “dirt unit” job, but yet another tentacle of the corruption slithering through every public institution in Dan Andrews’ Victoria.
Then there’s the $1m of taxpayer money that Andrews has spent to promote his Facebook page. The collapsing health system, with patients treated in carparks and the emergency 000 call network failing. A promise of 4000 ICU beds that never happened. A promise not to introduce heroin injecting rooms, which have duly been introduced.
If, next week, Victorians vote to ignore all of this, what is there left to say?
