Dan Andrews does not deserve our sympathy

March, 2020: “I’m so happy we have Dan Andrews here in Victoria to lead us through this pandemic. Can we just have him in charge of Australia and not Scott Morrison?”

August, 2020: “Leave Dan alone. It’s not his fault. He is doing his best.”

How times have changed, and not in a good way. Under Dan Andrews’ leadership, Victoria now has 14,283 cases and 193 deaths, more than Black Saturday.

And yet the true believers are digging in. “You’re doing a great job, Dan.” “So happy we have you to keep us safe, Dan.”

Excuse me? What point do we need to reach before people acknowledge the truth: that this is a monumental failure of government policy and it is the Andrews government that is responsible for this second wave.

Andrews is a conniving, sneaky and media savvy politician, but even I’m impressed (and repulsed) by the political skill of managing to divert blame away from him and his government and instead turn Victorians against each other.

The strategy is Machiavellian and calculated: make Victorians believe that they are the cause so people vent their anger at each other, not the government whose failed hotel quarantine program unleashed the virus back into the community.

Am I being too harsh? Well, let’s run our eye over the stuff ups by the Andrews government and assess whether he is actually doing a ‘good job’ as all the sycophants on his social media comments adoringly say he is.

1. The Andrews government refused to hire the Australian Defence Force for the hotel quarantine because the Emergency Services Union did not want it. The union wanted the government to use its members for the job.
2. The Andrews government instead decided to engage in identity politics and make the jobs ‘inclusive’ for the ‘marginalised’ in the community. So they hired Indigenous-owned company, Unified Security, because it satisfied the government’s social inclusion policy.
3. The government used WhatsApp and GumTree to help source untrained workers for the hotel quarantine.
4. Within 24 hours of the quarantine program starting back in March, senior bureaucrats pleaded with DHHS to make sure police were present at the hotels 24/7. These requests were ignored.
5. In late June, the Andrews government refused to accept an offer of 1,000 ADF personnel to help bring the situation under control. They initially approved it, and then scaled it back within 24 hours for reasons that are yet to be explained.
6. The Andrews government’s contact tracing efforts have been exposed as grossly inadequate in comparison to other states. Even The Guardian reported that in March, Victoria had just 14 contact tracers. Peter Collignon, a professor of infectious diseases at the Australian National University, said the situation in Victoria had deteriorated so much that contact tracers in the state could not work as extensively on each case as their counterparts in NSW.
7. Under the Andrews government’s direction, Victorian officials stopped using the federal government’s COVIDSafe app for several weeks.
8. There’s been reports of positive cases not being followed up for days, sometimes even a week.
9. When asked about the botched scheme in parliament, Health Minister Jenny Mikakos disgracefully held the Victorian people in contempt by refusing to answer questions, pointing to the inquiry. This is despite the fact that the head of the inquiry has clearly stated that there is no reason why government ministers cannot discuss the program.

Make no mistake. This is a failure of government, and it is disgraceful, shameful and an act of gross political expediency that Andrews has pointed the finger at the people he is supposed to serve. While indeed some Victorians have done the wrong thing and this has not helped, responsibility for the outbreak and the failure to contain it ultimately lies with the government.

Andrews says he is ultimately accountable, but what does that actually mean? If he was accountable he would answer questions that he does know the answers to but knows that the truth is devastating for his political image. Are we really expected to believe that a man who controls his cabinet to the point where he once demanded them to relinquish their phones, had no idea what was happening?

And yet the cult followers of Andrews continue to repeat, like trained robots, that he is ‘doing a good job.’ One would hate to think what a bad job would look like then. Some of it is cringe worthy. There is even a facebook event dedicated to giving Dan Andrews a virtual hug. This strange ‘love your lefty leader’, who has forced us into another lockdown, has a weird sort of Stockholm Syndrome about it.

They passionately defend their man, and instead, they get angry at journalists for doing their job at pressing the government for the truth. I’m sorry, but is it inappropriate to ask tough questions when 250,000 Victorians have lost their job, thousands of businesses have gone under, 193 people have died and hundreds of others are at risk of suicide? Is it inappropriate to ask questions because it might hurt poor Dan’s feelings?

No. Andrews does not deserve sympathy. He is as ruthless as they come. He is a master at managing his political image. Defenders of the premier praise him as a hero because ‘he fronts up every day.’ That is part of the strategy! Being seen to do the right thing and being seen to apparently answer questions, while actually not doing very much of that at all.

Anyone who follows his social media accounts knows he is a master of political spin. And many Victorians have fallen for it. But he cannot double space and wordplay his way out of this crisis. He managed to get away with falsifying hospital waiting list records as Health Minister in 2009. He also managed to weasel his way out of the red shirts scandal, using paid public servants to do Labor’s bidding on election day.

But not this time. The fallout from this latest blunder is too big, and people are rightly livid.

Victorians are starting to wake up to the truth. Andrews is a mighty political player, deceptive, duplicitous and sneaky. The carefully crafted image of the stoic family man who just ‘tries to do the right thing’ hides a ruthless political animal underneath, and people are starting to see it.

One of the best, most laughable and ultimately insulting defences I have seen from his adoring fans this week is the point that ‘Winston Churchill also made mistakes.’ Indeed, he did. And Churchill also lost in a landslide.