Daniel Andrews has broken his promise to the people of Victoria and broken the spirit of one of the world’s great cities. He’s also breaking the bank of the entire nation.
I only lived in Melbourne for six months, but I worked in and regularly visited the city for decades. I grew to love its renowned streets and precincts: Chapel Street in Prahran, Lygon Street in Carlton. Brunswick Street quickly succumbed to a pall of bourgeois smug in the 90s, but Victoria Street remained a slice of Hanoi transplanted to Australia.
Now, that’s all gone. Maybe forever.
A recent video shows the devastating toll that “Dictator Dan” has inflicted on once-thriving precincts. Rows of empty and boarded-up shops. Chinatown in Bourke Street was the first victim, as its famous Chinese restaurants folded in the first months of 2020, but the others have followed. The businesses that were the soul of Melbourne’s urban life have all gone broke.
The rest of the state – and the country – are being sucked into the same black hole of Daniel Andrews’s authoritarian incompetence.
Melbourne’s lengthy coronavirus lockdown is costing Australian taxpayers $200m a day in direct economic support, with new analysis showing 1200 jobs are being lost daily.
The dire economic figures come a day after Daniel Andrews put a “cautious pause” on plans to ease restrictions, despite repeatedly suggesting a decision on reopening shops and restaurants would be announced on Sunday.
Andrews’s own “roadmap” promised an easing of restrictions by the end of October if Victoria’s new COVID cases dropped to single figures. That benchmark has been met – but Andrews has simply shifted the goalposts.
That led Scott Morrison to accuse the Victorian Premier of lacking confidence in his state’s public health system and said the decision not to proceed was a “profound disappointment”, while the Business Council said Melburnians were “at a financial and mental breaking point”.
Business groups also criticised the pause, having anticipated Mr Andrews would announce that the reopening of retail and hospitality would be brought forward, saying the continued lockdown was “inexplicable” and a “betrayal”.
The cost of the Andrews government’s failure – remember, 99% of the new infections are linked to the botched hotel quarantine scheme – is becoming an unconscionable millstone around the nation’s neck.
Treasury data obtained by The Australian shows total commonwealth direct fiscal support for Victoria was on track to reach $75bn — a third of the national total — with daily economic support through JobKeeper, JobSeeker and household payments now reaching $200m. Victoria’s lost economic output for the September quarter had also reached more than $100m a day, it showed.
Separate Australian Bureau of Statistics analysis also shows the average number of daily jobs lost over August and September in Victoria was 1200, representing 52 per cent of total national job losses since March.
Josh Frydenberg said the dire economic situation meant it was “time businesses be allowed to re-open in a COVID-safe way and people (be) allowed to get back to work”. “The hardship and cost caused by this extended lockdown is immense,” the Treasurer told The Australian[…]
Business Council chief executive Jennifer Westacott said it was “just inexplicable that a state with comparable or lower case numbers than NSW cannot … implement that state’s tools and technologies to contain local outbreaks and effectively manage contact tracing and tracking”.
“A pattern of delays, maybes and apologies doesn’t excuse Victoria’s failure to manage local outbreaks. “It is taking too long and too much is being lost,” Ms Westacott said.
“Victorians cannot hang on week-to-week.
“People are at a financial and mental breaking point.”
This is not mere hyperbole. As the evidence shows, Melbourne’s commercial heartlands are wastelands. Meanwhile, very ill people are going without treatment – some even dying – because of Victoria’s COVID restrictions. Mental health services are seeing an unprecedented spike in demand.
Daniel Andrews has suffocated what was once “the world’s most liveable city”.
Melbourne’s normally thriving streets have been empty for months. Will the city ever recover? The BFD.
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