Victorian premier Daniel Andrews’ controversial pandemic legislation, described by the Victorian Bar as “antithetical to basic democratic principles”, has passed the state’s lower house. While the government holds the lower house by a 13-seat margin, it will require the support of three crossbenchers to pass upper house.
It is widely expected that the crossbenchers, who have supported all of the premier’s emergency powers legislation to date, will provide the required support. With the crossbenchers’ support, Victoria has already been in a continuous state of emergency since March 2020.
The laws grant “Dictator Dan” unprecedented power to declare a “pandemic”, with full emergency powers, even without a single case of a relevant disease in the state. The premier will no longer have to rely on the state’s Chief Health Officer to declare an emergency. Under the legislation, the premier will have sweeping powers to detain citizens, close businesses and declare lockdowns.
A dozen high-profile Victorian QCs have penned an open letter, condemning the legislation as “a blank cheque to rule by decree”. Victorian Bar president Christopher Blanden stated, “Stasi police would have been more than happy with the range of powers”.
The Andrews government also passed an amendment on Thursday to ban unvaccinated people from serving on a jury.
Opposition leader Matthew Guy has described Andrews as “not just drunk on power” but “abusing it”.
Once again, “Dictator Dan” is telling ludicrous porkies to sugar-coat the laws.
Premier Daniel Andrews said the legislation was the “most transparent” of any produced by a state in Australia.
“Modelled on New Zealand, modelled on NSW, modelled on other Australian states, they are the most transparent, there is the best oversight,” he said.
Ha, ha. This is the same premier who boasted that Victoria’s covid standards were the best in the country. Victoria leads the nation in covid cases; deaths in Victoria exceed the rest of the country put together. Its current covid outbreak just keeps getting worse: Victoria reported nearly two thousand new cases, and 25 deaths, on Thursday — the highest daily toll this year.
Paul Hayes QC told The Australian it was “just flatly wrong” to claim Victoria’s legislation would offer more transparency than that of NSW or New Zealand.
Victoria’s proposed system is completely different to either NSW or NZ. Instead of a cross-parliamentary advisory committee, Victoria’s will be appointed solely by the health minister.
“You’d have to be naive in the extreme to think that the government isn’t going to appoint people to that committee who are not in some way sympathetic to their political leanings,” Mr Hayes said […]
Mr Hayes also expressed concern regarding “dangerously broad and subjective criteria” governing the classes of person to whom a pandemic order may apply, which expressly excludes the application of the Equal Opportunity Act.
The Australian
The Victorian legislation specifically allows the state, at the premier’s behest, to slap a “pandemic order” on any “class of people”, who may be identified by “their characteristics, attributes or circumstances”, “their participation or presence at an event”, or “an activity that they have undertaken or are undertaking”.
I’m sure that’ll end well.
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