Daniel Andrews announced last week his resignation as premier of Victoria.
He will be remembered as the premier who sent the state into lockdown six times, presided over an ailing health system and ambulance crisis, mandated an experimental vaccination, and constitutionally shrugged off damning findings of multiple anti-corruption inquiries into his government.
Driven by extreme leftist ideology, Mr. Andrews pursued identity politics and radical education policies, often copied by other Labor governments. He leaves behind a nearly bankrupt state with compromised institutions.
Mr. Andrews oversaw an alarming deterioration in the fiscal position of the state. Its prized AAA credit rating was lost under his watch.
Due to a relentless emissions reduction policy, power prices have risen sharply and the state faces an uncertain energy future.
Hundreds of millions of dollars were also wasted on cancelled infrastructure and events with the state debt ballooning wildly, far worse than any other state.
Then there was more ...
First, there were Victoria’s absurdly elongated COVID lockdowns. Then parliamentary proceedings were sidelined, with Mr. Andrews describing them as irrelevant during the pandemic lockdown.
Mr. Andrews also signed up Victoria to Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The federal government assessed the BRI as a dangerous, concerted effort by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to increase its geo-strategic power in Australia.
And yet, when asked if he would do anything different, Mr. Andrews declined to identify anything he would have done differently, saying he was “not a regretful man.”
Mr. Andrews advocated for stringent and longer lockdowns than any other premier in the country.
The state’s capital, Melbourne, was sent into lockdown six times, restricting liberty for longer than anywhere in the Western world.
Those lockdowns across 2020 and 2021 spanned 262 days in total and lacked any nuance. Curfews were imposed, visitors were banned from homes, and people could not travel more than 5 kilometres from home. Playgrounds and skate parks were shut and basketball hoops were removed from local parks.
The first of these lockdowns began in March 2020 and lasted 43 days. Then in winter that year, the longest continuous lockdown in the Western world occurred between July 9 and Oct. 27—111 days in all.
During these long lockdowns, anyone outside of their home could face arrest and imprisonment.
In the name of fighting a pandemic, the government acquired powers to monitor people by using surveillance like drone technology, vehicle license plate recognition and electronic tracking devices.
In October 2020, Victorians were forced into Stage Four lockdowns and almost five million people were told they could not leave their homes without a warrant.
Police demanded to see papers in order to determine if a person had a “valid reason” to be away from their homes. The maximum fine for breaching these heinous orders stood at $4,999 dollars.
On just one day, Aug. 6, 2020, Victoria Police conducted no less than 4,418 stop checks on homes, businesses, and public places.
Police also checked vehicles in total at vehicle checkpoints.
Victoria became a police state. Under the Disaster Act, any law could be suspended with the stroke of a pen.
Informers and collaborators assisted the authorities in tracing and incarcerating people without warrant on the basis of prospective conduct.
Fundamental legal principles inherited from our common-law tradition, including due process, the presumption of innocence, and recourse to the writ of habeas corpus, were substantially undermined.
One notorious example of this occurred on Sept. 3, 2020, when a mother, Zoe Buhler, was arrested at home in front of her children. She was charged under section 321 of the Victorian Crimes Act 1958 for the crime of posting a Facebook message encouraging people to protest against lockdowns in the regional town on Sept. 5.
Ended Up Worse Off
Yet despite everything, more people have died from COVID-19 in Victoria than in any other Australian state.Attempting to control the virus through lockdown measures was a monumental mistake. The harm such lockdowns caused to education, healthcare access, and broader aspects of the economy and society turned out to be greater than the harm done by COVID-19.
What happened was simply disgraceful and it gave new meaning to the phrase, “The cure is worse than the disease.”
Thousands of Victorians sought mental health treatment during these lockdowns.
Mr. Andrews also never took responsibility for the 2020 hotel quarantine bungle that killed 68 elderly people. Families still have not received a clear explanation for who was responsible.
Businesses were closed and countless jobs were destroyed.
Former Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton advised against parliamentary sitting because he did not consider it to be an essential function. And yet, the government-operated supervised injection room located in North Richmond disrespected social distancing rules and remained open well past the 8 p.m. curfew.
Arguably, if people were allowed to shoot up heroin during the pandemic, surely one should allow the Parliament to be opened.
Meanwhile, Mr. Andrews took the opportunity to consolidate his own political power. All the mechanisms of democratic accountability virtually disappeared and Victoria operated like a one-party state with a mostly compliant local media.
Remarkably, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has summed up the premier’s character in this way: “Daniel Andrews is a man of great conviction, enormous compassion and fierce determination to make a difference and he has made such a positive difference to the lives of Victorians,” he said.
But Mr. Andrews is arguably the worst premier this country has ever had. He showed no regard for fundamental human rights, no empathy for his fellow human beings, and no respect for the basic rules of parliamentary democracy.
With joblessness and suicide numbers growing rampant in the state every day, Mr. Andrews leaves behind not only a nearly bankrupt state but compromised institutions and a toxic political culture.
Hopefully, he will be held accountable for the damage his policies have inflicted on the Victorian people.
