It is about time the Andrews Government faced proper scrutiny

It is interesting that as we have moved back to phase 3 of restrictions, we have also moved to phase 2 of the Dan Andrews love-in saga.

Phase 1: Us Victorians are so lucky to have Dan as our leader. So much better than ScoMo. He deserves full credit for our success. 

Phase 2: Leave Dan alone. It is not his fault. He deserves no blame for our lack of success. 

In their rush to jump to Dan Andrews’ defence, I wonder if Labor supporters realise how much they suddenly sound like Liberal voters.

It is about people taking personal responsibility for their actions, we are told.

Government is limited in its ability to control human behaviour, they say.

It is up to individuals to do the right thing, they claim.

Well, yes, and welcome to the Liberal club, where sensible people have been saying such things for many years now. And as much as I agree with their general points and do acknowledge the Andrews government is not completely to blame, it would be remiss to let the Andrews government off the hook without a good kicking, because the government has failed to accept its role in facilitating our second outbreak.

It takes next level incompetence and mind-boggling chutzpah to botch the hotel quarantine scheme so badly and yet point the finger solely at Victorians for doing the wrong thing. While other states sensibly hired the ADF and utilised their state police force to control hotel quarantine, the Andrews government outsourced the responsibility to private security companies without even a tender process. When 19 guards were infected at the Rydges on Swanston Street in Carlton, followed by another 35 people at the Stamford Plaza in Melbourne’s CBD, we know where the source of this latest outbreak has come from. It has come from government incompetence.

Could you imagine if Scott Morrison was responsible for this scheme. Remember the visceral hatred he copped over the bushfires when that too was a state issue. Strange how the left are awfully keen to absolve their favourites.

The hotel quarantine was only the latest in a series of missteps. The Black Lives Matter protests, while not a significant direct link to the outbreak, certainly sent the wrong message to the community and exacerbated feelings of complacency that Andrews accused Victorians of feeling. Perhaps he should consider the degree to which his soft response to 30,000 people gathering in Melbourne’s streets may have contributed to such complacency. People understandably saw it on the television and likely concluded, ‘well, if it’s fine for them, it’s fine for me.’

Then there’s the Cedar Meats fiasco. According to reports from The Age, Cedar Meats donated $15,000 to the Victorian Labor Party in 2014, helping to propel Andrews to power. The owner was a long time Labor member. 62 cases were linked to the facility, yet the government delayed identifying the source of the outbreak for days, obfuscating for reasons that are still unclear.

In addition to Labor die-hards suddenly adopting Liberal platitudes to defend Andrews, there is the other irony in all of this: we certainly have a marketing leader in Australia, and it is not Scotty from Marketing, but media savvy Dan from Victoria.

Note how he is now dodging questions about the hotel bungle by referring to the judicial inquiry he has set up to investigate it. This inquiry gives him the perfect cover to deflect questions he already knows the answer to. He could front up and explain precisely what happened and under whose watch, because he does already know, but to do so would probably mean throwing his health minister under the bus, something he is not prepared to do.

Indeed, it is about time people are starting to see through Andrews. The Adem Somyurek scandal was another case in point. Andrews acted the responsible and decisive leader by sacking him on the spot, when everyone knows that as leader of the party it was simply unfathomable that he did not know something was awry. The Somyurek scandal raises legitimate questions about the inner workings of the Victorian Labor Party, questions that have not been sufficiently answered and have again been deflected by a premier who knows how to play the media for a song.

Then there’s the fiscal problems. Even before the botched response to Covid-19 the state was facing a blown budget and several big ticket infrastructure projects running at exorbitant costs and significantly overdue. Did you know that under this government a labourer in Melbourne costs more than Toronto, Munich, Amsterdam and London. For example, an entry-level labourer with just three months experience receives a $143,199 annual wage on the CityLink Tulla Widening project, which is a major road project. And removing a level crossing cost $80 million five years ago, whereas it now costs $250 million to $300 million each time. Jobs for union mates.

Victoria is currently spending upwards of a billion dollars more than it earns each month. The result is 100 billion of debt before COVID spending is factored in.

So, Andrews deserves the scrutiny he is currently receiving and here’s hoping that his dream media run has found its end.

To close out, I also have a confession to make: I too voted for the Andrews Labor government in 2018, mainly because the Victorian Liberal Party offered little in the way of an alternative. Unfortunately, not much has changed in this regard. As much as it is my intention to show Andrews the door in 2022, it is now over to Michael O’Brien and the Victorian Liberals to offer something better.

Because Victorians deserve it.