If only Victoria’s problems stopped at the south bank of the Murray River, perhaps the rest of the nation could afford to turn a blind eye to the circus in the south. But, like it or not, what happens in Victoria affects the rest of the nation. In particular, the Andrews’ government’s botched hotel quarantine, which unleashed a wave of Wuhan plague infections in Melbourne and, in turn, gave Andrews the excuse he was looking for to unleash his inner dictator. Victoria’s restrictions, the harshest in Australian history, are costing the entire nation billions every week.
How long should the rest of Australia tolerate the authoritarian incompetence of the Victorian government?
The state of Victoria is in grave danger of making its third catastrophic mistake in dealing with COVID-19.
The first two mistakes have left the state in a perilous position, with widespread employment destruction and capital loss.
The first catastrophic mistake was the hotel quarantine scheme. Ignoring what every other state had done, Andrews contracted security out to a dodgy diversity hire; medical services were handed to a firm run by Labor party cronies. The incompetence of the government and its bureaucracy was so egregious that state ministers are in real danger of being prosecuted under their own industrial manslaughter laws.
The second mistake was Victoria’s massive testing program. Although the idea was a good one, especially in the early stages of the pandemic, its execution was as botched and catastrophic as hotel quarantine. Put simply, the job of informing people of their test results became mired in Victoria’s ossified, quasi-socialist bureaucracy. People went without their results for weeks. Consequently, infected people assumed they were virus-free and resumed their normal lives. Many of them did so explicitly following the official, but confusing and contradictory, advice of health bureaucrats. Contact tracing also failed spectacularly.
Premier Daniel Andrews then had the cheek to blame the victims of his government’s incompetence as “Covidiots” who were knowingly and flagrantly “doing the wrong thing”.
But now, although the known infection rate in Victoria is much higher than NSW, the Victorian testing rate is lower. This means that large numbers of infected people are spreading the virus despite the population movement restrictions.
Evidence from overseas has been known, and getting stronger, for months: lockdowns do not work. Efficient testing and contact tracing does. Victoria has bollixed and then largely abandoned what works and is doubling down on what doesn’t.
And all of Australia is paying for it.
The Victorian strategy of trashing the economy but not testing those without symptoms is foolhardy. The commonwealth knows Victoria has insufficient contact tracing and other capacities and offers help. It is not known whether there is sufficient Victorian capacity to make sure those in home quarantine honour their obligation. Sadly the whole process has become bureaucratic, undermining the great work if individuals.
Andrews is openly thwarting the commonwealth government’s frustrated attempts to loosen the states’ stranglehold on the national economy. States like Victoria might have the luxury of knowing that they can be bailed out by commonwealth – the federal government has no such option. The national economic buck stops in Canberra, whether the federal government likes it or not.
The damage to the state of Victoria and the nation of these errors is enormous.
If the current set of high-risk strategies does not work quickly or any lower infection rate is not maintained then the commonwealth needs to devise a strategy to intervene.
If the Victorian government were a local council, it would have been sacked and administrators appointed by now. But the coercive power of the commonwealth over the states is limited by Australia’s federal system.
In 1932, the state governor sacked Jack Lang’s government in NSW. If Victorian governor Linda Dessau declines to intervene in Victoria’s crisis, the Morrison government will surely have to explore its constitutional options.
Australia cannot afford to be held hostage to “Dictator Dan”’s megalomania for much longer. And the rest of the state premiers need to be put on notice, too.
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