Victoria will drag states down
THE Prime Minister said last week that “we’re all Melburnians”. Well, thank God you’re not. I’m here at the moment and it’s a plague-ridden city in a basket case state led by a man who is a lethal mix of political rat cunning, PR spin, unwarranted self-belief and sheer utter incompetence.
Even then, he stands head and shoulders above the ‘brains trust’ of his ministry, most of whom would find running a bingo night a challenge, let alone managing the complex work across multiple government agencies and departments that’s needed to beat this pandemic.
Of last Friday’s 288 new infections in Victoria (the highest single day tally for any Australian state at any time in this pandemic), health authorities had no idea where more than 90 per cent of them came from.
It was much the same story again last Saturday, with another 216 new cases reported. Given the reality of more than 1300 new infections over the past fortnight, nearly all of them community transmission, this disease now looks perilously close to being out-of-control — and if it’s out-ofcontrol in one state, it won’t be easy to keep it contained in the rest of the country.
And that’s before we even factor in the economic damage of this second lockdown given Victoria accounted for 40 per cent of Australia’s economic growth last year.
No other state has tried to manage COVID-19 like Victoria, and no other state has been hit as hard.
For all their clever attempts at media management, there’s just no hiding from the numbers that expose the Andrews Government lie that this second wave outbreak is the result of families getting ‘complacent’, as the Premier bellowed.
Once Australia had shut its national borders and then sent every returning traveller into hotel quarantine, the disease was well on its way to being contained in the general community with statistics showing that from late April to late June, new cases were rarely more than 20 a day, almost all among returned travellers. If I was back advising politicians, putting the greatest effort into managing the jumbo jets of likely infections coming home would have been my priority. Particularly after NSW’s Ruby Princess debacle, checking and rechecking procedures for managing returning travellers should have been a nobrainer. In other states, it was; not so in Victoria.
Where other jurisdictions used ‘uniforms’ — police or army personnel — to run hotel quarantine, Daniel Andrews handed it to his Jobs Minister, who then handed it to the private security industry, which is connected to his own union.
Jobs Minister, Martin Pakula, then spent tens of millions of taxpayer dollars on contracts with these security firms that did not go through the usual tender processes.
We all know the allegations now — firms paid for staff that were never rostered on, guards trading sex with travellers for being let out of quarantine, chronic lack of training and more.
But don’t let this bad behaviour absolve others from their responsibilities — I know government, so where were the audits from health officials, where were the spot checks from police and contact tracing teams once the early signs of outbreaks among security guards emerged? Who was warned and when? Why were so many in quarantine allowed to refuse COVID tests?
Is it any wonder the Premier wants all questions shunted off to his inquiry that won’t report for months and is as toothless as any I’ve ever seen given it doesn’t have the power to compel documents or witnesses making it little more than a sham?
The Premier has admitted that contact tracing is now his biggest challenge and that more help is needed, so why then is he now using call centre operators rather than the Australian Defence Force, the best logistical experts I know?
This coronavirus crisis is costing hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer welfare and more in terms of economic activity, so just like we’re demanding a full and proper global inquiry into COVID-19, we must have a transparent one here in Australia.
There’s a very real chance that Victoria’s outbreak will not be able to be contained. And it will drag every other state backwards, and the country too.
This isn’t just a Melbourne concern anymore, it’s now a national emergency.