I recently posted the following on Facebook and received numerous responses from Melbourne-based small business owners, friends and colleagues about the devastating impact of the incompetence of Daniel Andrews in managing Victoria’s contact tracing and then its hotel quarantine. He’s been responsible for over 800 deaths so far and seems to have learnt nothing other than how to avoid responsibility.

 

A pattern of plausible deniability

True to form the Premier is shoving ‘the blame’ of the lockdown on to someone else...this time a returned traveller with a nebuliser who continues to state that he informed nurses that he had it and was using it and that no one from the Victorian Government’s agency, COVID Quarantine Victoria, had contacted him to discuss what he told the nurses. Predictably the Agency’s chief said there was no evidence their staff were told. Oh just like the missing phone logs and emails that couldn’t be produced for the Victorian Hotel Quarantine Inquiry. You see the pattern of obfuscation here right?

Moreover, the hotel quarantine program is not following the same infection control standards drawn up by a PPE taskforce, which were being applied to the rest of the state's health system. That is: Tier 3 PPE requires N95 masks, face shields or goggles, and disposable gowns. You know the N95 masks I suggested Dan purchase online if he didn’t know where to get them.

This has left one member of the PPE taskforce panel "flabbergasted".

"If the PPE taskforce is not the group to set the standards for these settings, who the hell is,'' one member asked.

Certainly not Daniel Andews.

I then read with interest Robert Gottliebsen’s summary of why the most recent 3-day lockdown might go on for longer…and why there will probably be more for Victorians. Given it’s in The Australian I can share the link but unless you are a subsriber you won't be able to access so I've summarised it below.

• There’s been a complete breakdown in the communication, decision-making and administrative systems of the Victorian bureaucracy

 

• There’s the failure of WorkSafe and crown prosecution to properly investigate the blatant abuse of Victoria’s occupational health and safety rules that led to the death of 801 people last year. 801 deaths!

 

• The old Dept of Health and Human Services was disbanded and replaced with three arms: a new Dept of Health; hotel quarantine moved to the Dept of Justice under the Corrections Division (go figure); and a new body, the COVID-19 Quarantine Victoria.

 

• Most functions of the hotel quarantine are contracted out to various companies but they have no control over the day-to-day activities which require, you guessed it instructions from this new three-headed bureaucracy;

 

• Contractors say that the old structure effectively ceased functioning on 1 February. Any wonder, therefore Victoria has had this outbreak. The government and departments were too slow to act.
•  

This was then topped by Andrews himself, again taking no responsibility for anything and seeking support from the National Cabinet to use surplus land outside Melbourne to house returnees...oh while he houses Australian Open competitors and their teams in 5-star accommodation?

And now he’s leading a discussion about a new quarantine strategy – allowing people to enter Victoria only in clear humanitarian need such as people who had gone broke or were dying. REALLY, are you kidding me? And just who does he think is going to pick up bringing back and looking after the Victorians who don’t fall into the humanitarian group? The Federal Government and other states? Yeah Right.

 

KN 95 masks one of many simple things to implement

All the while frontline hotel quarantine workers are not supplied with the superior KN 95 masks, Victorian government bureaucrats are too scare to make decisions so that they can’t be thrown on Daniel Andrews’ next COVID bus.

Tennis lovers now have to be content watching the Australian Open to canned crowd noises and hoping that the lockdown will stop so they can get to watch the last four days of the tournament. Meanwhile Brett Sutton (Victoria’s chief health officer) is playing down the chances of Michail Pervolarakis contracting COVID in Melbourne. Just how would he know given the state’s appalling contact tracing efforts. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. More plausible deniability from an Andrews administrator.

Florists, cafés and restaurants meanwhile have had to throw out tonnes of food, flowers and funds for a third time.

 

Ban Dan in 2022

It would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious, if Victorians weren’t so battered by Andrews’ woeful leadership that they can’t muster the energy to pressure his resignation, or that more people at put at risk and still more Victorians can’t get home.

There’s a telling story I want to share. A colleague of mine travelled from Sydney to Melbourne last week on Wednesday. They secured the necessary permit and took the COVID test prior to departure and had all the paperwork. They were waved through the airport on arrival, no checking by anyone. On return to Sydney a day and a half later, he was greeted at Sydney Airport by health and security staff, all COVID covered. They were temperature checked, paperwork (NSW COVID app) checked and split into two groups… those cleared to go, those not.

And, they still have not received any communication from any one of the three departments/agencies in Victoria.

Victorians, I get it, you're so battered by numerous lock downs, so isolated from one another, so 'snowed' by your Premier, that you want to believe he'd worked it out, has it under control and that he's your only option. 

No he's not. You need to get a new leader who can get to grips with managing COVID-19.

In the meantime, I feel for you all, our state is still open (as it always has been). You are welcome, although you will be tested, processed and

communicated with.