IS it just me that finds it patronising to be thanked for something you have been given no choice in?
To be threatened with fines if we leave our house, and then thanked for not doing so. Perhaps we should be thanked for not robbing a bank today, too?
But this has long been part of Daniel Andrews’ COVID-19 media strategy with Victorians.
He was at it again this week when he thanked 6.4 million Victorians for suffering through a third lockdown that he enforced.
As expected, he boasted that his circuit-breaker five-day shutdown strategy worked. But of course it worked. If you lock down healthy people so they don’t mix with other healthy people then after five days chances are they will remain healthy.
No, if Daniel Andrews was honest with us, he would have assured Victorians the latest COVID-19 outbreak was contained as it should have been, by tracking down and isolating the close contacts of six locally acquired cases, all of which were linked to the Holiday Inn outbreak.
He should have admitted that locking down businesses in Wangaratta had nothing to do with it. Neither did cancelling weddings in Mildura. Or junior sport in Warragul.
He should have apologised to us all for the gross overreaction and promised that next time he would have more faith in his systems. And not take a billion-dollar gamble on, as he admitted, an assumption that maybe there were more cases out there.
But he offered nothing of the sort. Instead, it was more spin and distraction, and a warning that another statewide lockdown could be just around the corner.
“I can provide no guarantee (another lockdown won’t happen) because I am not prepared to present to the Victorian community this is over,” Mr Andrews said.
So, after a year, we remain no more confident that the government is in control, nor that it won’t slap us down at any given moment.
It can’t go on like this, especially for our children and businesses.
As Victorian Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien said this week:
“We can’t keep having this yoyo where we open, then close, then open again. Schools are open, schools are closed. Businesses are open, businesses are closed. Masks on, masks off.
“If the government gets hotel quarantine right and they get contact tracing right, we can get on with our lives. NSW has done it, NSW is doing it. That’s the model for Victoria: good contact tracing, good hotel quarantine, proportionate responses, stay open. That’s where we need to be.”
Fortunately for Mr Andrews, the Liberal leader attracts little attention, and his own popularity remains high.
So, as Victorians, we just need our leader and our government to be better.
We need them to run on a platform of trust and clarity rather than continual fear.
We need them to make proportionate responses, unlike last Friday’s five-day lockdown, which caused such collateral damage to all parts of this vast state.
No one has ever suggested running a government in a pandemic is easy, or that the crisis is over.
But people and businesses are on the edge, Mr Premier, and many others have not survived.
They don’t need your thanks for being continually locked down. They need you to get it right.
