Labor knives come out for Daniel Andrews

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Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has been criticised by some members of his own government over his treatment of former health minister Jenny Mikakos.

Mikakos reluctantly resigned from both the health portfolio and parliament over the weekend after Andrews told Friday’s Hotel Quarantine Inquiry that she was “accountable” for the botched program. In doing so, Mikakos’ statement poured lots of salt on Andrews:

In particular, one state Labor MP has described Daniels as a “tyrant” and a “dictator”:

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“It has put a lot of people on edge,” one government Minister said.

Another Labor MP hit out at Mr Andrews saying “he is a tyrant. He is a dictator with a capital D.I.C.K.

“He doesn’t care about anybody but himself … Jenny knows he lied and I don’t like the way she was treated”…

When asked if she felt as though she had been thrown under the bus by Mr Andrews Ms Mikakos responded: “I made a statement yesterday, I have nothing else to say.”

It comes as senior figures within Labor are moving to stop a key member of Mr Andrews’ faction from taking Jenny Mikakos’ spot in the Victorian parliament, citing party requirements for female representation.

As I said yesterday, Mikakos will probably know where the hotel quarantine bodies are buried. So, hopefully she will leak insider information implicating other ministers and public servants in this debacle. She could also blow the whistle on Victoria’s epic contract tracing failures, which helped turn quarantine breaches into a full blown pandemic.

As noted yesterday by Hotel Quarantine Inquiry lawyer Ben Ihle:

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“The program that was intended to contain the disease, was instead a seeding ground for the spread of COVID-19 into the community”.

“The failure by the hotel quarantine program to contain this virus is, as at today’s date, responsible for the deaths of 768 people and the infection of some 18,418 others.

“One only needs to pause and to reflect on those figures to appreciate the full scope of devastation and despair occasioned as a result of the outbreaks.”

Victorians deserve to know what happened and who was responsible for the key decisions and oversights.

After weeks of contradictory evidence and obfuscation given to the Hotel Quarantine Inquiry, we still do not know who made the decision to contract out management of the hotel quarantine system to untrained private security instead of the Victorian Police (with supplementary support from the Australian Defence Force and private security). Nor do we know why these private security guards did not receive training in infection control or the use of PPE, or why early warnings of problems went unheeded. The whole program was botched from front to back.

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Instead, we witnessed the entire Victorian public service and ministers, including Premier Daniel Andrews, display collective amnesia. Nobody, not even the Premier or the secretary of the Department of Premier and Cabinet, seemed to know what went on. Everyone was collectively responsible but nobody was responsible.

Ideally, an inquiry would also take place into Victoria’s underfunded and incompetent contract tracing system, given it was the second key ingredient causing this public health and economic disaster. That seems unlikely, however.

About the author
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.