Andrews points finger of blame
THIS is a disaster. But I am sure you didn’t need me to tell you that.
Everyone listening to Daniel Andrews on Tuesday will have done a quick run-through in their mind about what it means personally, starting with the get-togethers and holidays cancelled, continuing through to the weeks we have ahead of us “educating” our children at home.
These are but mere irritants, of course, compared to what it means for the economy.
Many businesses which have limped through shutdown won’t make it through the sequel. Casuals and shift workers whose hours have only just started to rise will see them cut again.
Not only has international tourism disappeared thanks to the border closures, so have the interstate visitors that were meant to make up for their absence.
And even if the borders were open there’d be no reason to come here as everything — restaurants, cinemas, galleries and museums — are all closed.
Back in March, however unhappy we were about being locked up, we could at least console ourselves with the thought everyone in Australia was in the same boat.
Not this time. Life is getting back to normal everywhere else while we are stuck in our homes during what the Premier delights in calling “inclement weather”.
Melbourne hasn’t had a shock to its self-image this big since the early 1990s. It will be interesting to see how we react.
As for who is responsible, it is hard not to agree with the Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien when he said
Andrews seemed keener to “point the finger at Victorians instead of looking at the mirror and accepting responsibility for his government’s mistakes”.
He might not have actually used the word “blame” — he said “I’m not here to criticise or lecture Victorians” — but he might as well have.
What else is one to make of his statement that “every Victorian knows at least one other person who perhaps hasn’t been following the rules as much as they should have”? That would certainly apply to thousands of people who gathered in the centre of Melbourne, Premier.
The question going forward is, are we going to be as compliant as we were last time? It’s an open question.
Last time, not only were we all in it together, we could assume everyone who broke the rules would get the same treatment.
The BLM rally shredded that unspoken contract with the public.
As he threatens us all with the full force of Victoria Police — backed up by the ADF — how he must be ruing his decision to give a wink to a rally swollen by Trots, who in any case, detest him.
It’s a disaster all right and it’s far from over.