While Berejiklian is gone, it really is Andrews who should resign:
After almost five years in office, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has just resigned. The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) had said it was looking into whether she had breached public trust in awarding grants to various organisations from 2012-2018. The investigation would also be looking into her dealings with her former boyfriend and former MP Daryl Maguire.
Certainly some of the issues ICAC wishes to look into have been of a serious nature. But when it comes to dealing with Covid, while she has been far from perfect, she has been far better than all the other Australian Premiers. And that includes her intention to get NSW out of lockdown in the near future.
Many have thought that all up she has done a quite good job of steering NSW through the virus, and she had had a lot of support. She has been quite popular. But she is now gone. It is likely that the NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet will take over as Premier, but that will be determined in the next day or two.
But the real question for me is why is it that someone like Dan Andrews is still Premier here in Victoria? Given that he is directly responsible for the deaths of over 800 Victorians because of his bungling of the hotel quarantine programme, it is he that should have resigned long ago. Just how did untrained security guards get to staff the hotels after Andrews knocked back help from the army? So many questions remain unanswered.
And of course, he has done inestimable damage to all Victorians with the world’s longest and harshest lockdown. This state may take decades to recover if and when we ever get out of lockdown. And just today Andrews said all essential workers must get the jab or lose their jobs: “By Friday the 15th of October, every single authorised worker that is on that authorised worker list in Melbourne or in regional Victoria will need to have had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.”
Victoria has seen some of the worst health fascism of anywhere in the world. It gets worse by the day, and there is simply no end in sight. While NSW and the rest of the world are opening up and returning to freedom, Victoria remains a massive internment camp with millions of prisoners given no hope whatsoever.
A recent legal move might seem hopeful, but it really isn’t. Several days ago it was announced that the Victorian Health Department has been charged with 58 breaches of the Occupational Health and Safety Act by WorkSafe Victoria. But this is just the department that is being held to account, not any individual. But it is the Premier and other political elites in Victoria that should be charged.
There must be a full Royal Commission inquiry into all this. The WorkSafe charges are really just a farce. No heads will roll and all those who are really responsible for all the carnage in Victoria will simply go on their merry way. Ken Phillips of Self Employed Australia who made the original complaint said that individuals need to be investigated, not generic departments.
Dan Andrews, Brett Sutton, and others need to be properly investigated. It has been one disaster after another here in Victoria. For example, in April of last year, we were promised by the Andrews Government that 4000 more ICU beds would be created to deal with Covid – but only a couple dozen have so far been added.
We must bear in mind that Andrews has been the Health Minister and the Premier for 11 of the last 15 years. The responsibility for all the incompetency, ineptitude, and mess-ups can be directly laid at the feet of Andrews. Recall that it was in February 2020 that the Victorian Government passed laws on workplace safety.
Andrews should be charged under these laws. The death of over 800 Victorians during the March-July 2020 hotel quarantine bungle must be dealt with. Not one of our leaders has so far been charged. Our manslaughter laws need to be used to go after the guilty.
Political accountability is what really matters here. Not just fines but jail times are what we need – starting with Premier Dan Andrews. The WorkSafe charges just do not cut it. And just as bad, the nearly $100 million in fines that could come about as penalties for these charges will simply just go from one government piggy bank to another – and all footed by us taxpayers! That is not justice – that is highway robbery.
At the farcical inquiry headed by Jennifer Coate last year into all this, all we heard from the ministers, health bureaucrats and the Premier was: ‘I can’t recall,’ ‘I don’t remember,’ ‘I cannot recollect,’ and so on. That was a complete whitewash and those conducting it were useless, toothless tigers – no one faced the music.
As said, a proper Royal Commission needs to be held. People like Jenny Mikakos, the ex-Health Minister, are chomping at the bits to give their side of the story. She and others need to be called to such a hearing, and we need to get to the bottom of this deadly debacle in Victoria.
Today we still have 6 million Victorians who are imprisoned, while it is Andrews who should be in prison. All he does is keep blaming others, passing the buck, and lecturing us poor Victorians. He refuses to take responsibility for anything, and he is getting away with murder – quite literally.
We have been in nearly eight months of lockdown so far with no end in sight. We are all suffering immensely for the complete incompetence of this Premier and this government. It is time for the whole dodgy thing to be taken down. The long-standing criminal negligence and corruption must come to an end. Enough is enough.
While there may have been good reasons for why Berejiklian needed to step down (although almost all of those interviewed in Sydney since the announcement was made have not wanted her to go), how much more of a case is there for Andrews to go?
Resign now Dan!
