What the cat dragged in

Crime and crony capitalism behind the Dan Andrews lockdown veil

There have been three distinct low points for me in the last two weeks, in which the naked bankruptcy of the current governance of Victoria has reached yet another fresh low.

On 1 October 2020, the Age reported what would appear to be serious criminal behaviour by management at Epping Gardens nursing home in northern Melbourne.  If true, this alleged behaviour was unquestionably responsible for the wholesale further spread of Covid-19 inside and outside the nursing home.  Yet the Dan Andrews press conference that morning ignored this gaping and systemic hole in his lockdown framework, and instead blathered on about the usual random idiots Breaking The Rules – as though a half-dozen job-lot of these was infinitely worse than apparent manslaughter by management instruction at Epping Gardens.

Then Victoria’s legal profession earned itself a handy half-million dollars per word, per lawyer.  If I’m not mistaken, no less than three counsel assisting the Coates inquiry into hotel quarantine, summing up in the hours before the hearing adjourned, separately stated that it was a “creeping assumption”, rather than someone’s actual decision, that had led to the employment of untrained and unsupervised (in any meaningful sense, given the stakes) “security guards” to police the hotels – that is, to put the “quarantine” in quarantine.  The same day, it was announced that Victorian government had approved the doubling of the budget for the Coates inquiry, from $3m to $6m.  Paying for a wordy whitewash? Of course there could not have been such a crude deal done, and any apparent connection is just another creeping assumption fading into the beige.

And finally, just yesterday and today, a piquant example of who Dan Andrews considers an “essential worker” – so essential that they have a permit to broach the “ring of steel” between Melbourne and regional Victoria – has emerged.  Sales representative for a tyre company.  Yes, really – because getting the right brand-name in a “modern” font  on an otherwise couldn’t be-more-generic imported product is matter of a life and death, even in a pandemic.  And of course this “essential” sales work couldn’t possibly be done remotely – after all, how can a meal on (I’m assuming) the company expense account possibly be enjoyed while stuck at home, and never mind that a Melbourne resident eating-in at a café in regional Victoria is flagrantly illegal?  But nothing to see here, says Dan Andrews.

Again, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions about the Teflon-coated sales representative by reading anything into the fact that the Australian tyre industry, which Dan Andrews would not say a word against, currently seems to be a cartel run by hucksters of the same ilk who own most for-profit nursing homes.  As long as you put “creeping assumption” in a nice enough font, the public will continue to buy the toxic charade of Dan Andrews as man acting in their own interest.          

Update 14 Oct 2020

With news of the latest Covid-19 outbreak in Shepparton, it turns out that the sales representative for a tyre company – who the ABC has misleadingly labelled a “truck driver” *, which conveniently covers-up the issue of how he got a work permit to travel to regional Victoria – has been even an even better salesperson/liar than I had given him credit for. 

No doubt Dan Andrews will be “incredibly disappointed”, or somesuch, with the man’s actions, and then go on to say that it’s happened, let’s move on, and we can't change the past.  Bullshit.  

I say it’s high time for the affected citizens of Kilmore (hundreds of who have locked themselves at home, mainly of their own volition, as I understand it), and now Shepparton, to take civil action against the man and his employer (currently unnamed, but that shouldn’t take too much longer to come out) for their economic and other losses, with the damages payout easily running into the millions.  Once these defendants have been bled dry – hopefully bankrupted into oblivion – the Victorian government could also possibly be joined as a defendant, for its negligence in issuing a work permit to such a lowdown spiv and liar.  

 * He was labelled as the sales representative for a tyre company by the mayor of Benalla in the above ABC link.  If he was indeed a “truck driver”, he was an unusually leisurely one – the detour from the Hume Freeway to the Kilmore café is about half an hour just in extra driving time (his eating time was also a quite leisurely 45 minutes).  There are, of course, several roadhouses right on the Hume Freeway between Melbourne and Benalla, all with ample truck-parking, should one just want a quick meal and an easy park.  But no, our “truck driver” not only had all the time in the world but was such a gourmet flog that ordinary roadhouse cuisine plainly wouldn’t do it for him.