Who knew that among Victorian premier Daniel Andrews’s hitherto-hidden talents was a penchant for stand-up comedy? Well, if the nation-wide chorus of guffaws that greeted “Dictator Dan’s” latest podium pontification are anything to go by, Dave Chappelle and Bill Burr might as well hang up their mics and go back to bussing tables.
Here’s Dan’s knee-slapper that got the whole nation laughing in disbelief.
Mr Andrews declared Victoria would never take as many overseas return travellers as NSW because his state has “higher standards” in the hotel quarantine program than its northern neighbour.
It was classic setup-punchline, laff-a-minute stuff.
“I can foreshadow for you that we’re not going to go anywhere near the capacity that NSW has,” Mr Andrews said.
“We have less capacity because we have a different model and I believe higher standards … I can say that because it’s true.
He had them rolling in the aisles with his follow-up, the classic banana-peel slip.
Two more COVID-19 cases have been linked to Victorian quarantine hotels, bringing the total number of transmissions identified in the program in less than a week to five across three hotels — on the day Premier Daniel Andrews declared his state’s system had “higher standards” than those in other jurisdictions.
Every comic needs a straight-man to puncture their absurd clowning and plenty were willing to step up and be second banana to Joker Dan.
Health Minister Martin Foley and Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton late on Tuesday said a returned overseas traveller left hotel quarantine after completing 14 days at Melbourne Airport’s Holiday Inn on Sunday but had returned a positive result after getting tested on Monday.
“I can also inform Victorians that literally in the last 10 minutes we have been advised of another positive case related to the Holiday Inn,” Mr Foley said, confirming the latest case was a worker at the Holiday Inn.
Humour truly is infectious in Dan’s Victoria.
The newest cases follow news on Sunday night that an authorised officer working at the same hotel had tested positive for what was later confirmed as the highly contagious British variant of the virus. Four days earlier, a 26-year-old man had contracted the virus while acting as a residential support officer for the Australian Open tennis entourage at the Grand Hyatt, while earlier that Wednesday a female resident of the Park Royal hotel had contracted the virus from a family staying across the corridor.
Victorian health authorities were on Tuesday contacting dozens of past residents who have completed quarantine at the Holiday Inn over the past fortnight, ordering them to complete an extra 14 days in isolation.
Professor Sutton said the former Holiday Inn resident’s case was likely evidence of transmission in hotel quarantine, rather than a long incubation period for an infection that could have been contracted overseas.
The Australian
It’s said that comedy is tragedy plus distance, but I suspect the families of the 800 people killed by Dan’s botched hotel quarantine, not to mention the millions of Victorians plunged into the most draconian destruction of civil liberties Australia has ever seen, will fail to see the joke.
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