Well, it’s certainly been a tumultuous few days in Australian pandemic politics.
At the start of the week, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews was all-but-guaranteed to pass his pandemic bill, described by that state’s Bar Association as “a blank cheque to rule by decree”. At the same time, NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard tried to pass a similar bill extending his extraordinary “emergency powers” until March 2023.
Before the week was out, “Dictator Dan” was scrambling to save his bill, with an expelled Labor MP returning to parliament vowing to scuttle it. Suddenly, Andrews’ “urgent” legislation was being put on hold until next year.
Now, NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has slapped down his own Health Minister’s bill.
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has spectacularly dumped Health Minister Brad Hazzard’s bill seeking to expand the state’s Covid-19 emergency powers until 2023 following a bitter partyroom backlash. Mr Hazzard had been seeking to extend the state’s emergency powers until March 2023 as part of a proposal approved by Cabinet. It was approved by cabinet but faced opposition during a meeting of the Coalition partyroom on Tuesday.
Good heavens, it’s almost like… democracy, or something. Of course, it’s been so long since we’ve seen democracy here in Australia that I can’t really be sure.
Mr Perrottet says he will rework the proposed legislation over summer. A senior minister told The Australian that many of the extraordinary powers being sought by Mr Hazzard would be removed from the bill, but sensible measures would be preserved […]
The state’s Covid-19 emergency powers allow the Health Minister to make sweeping Public Health Orders of the kind used throughout the pandemic to control the movement of people and other measures, including curfews, mask mandates and limits on mobility between local government areas.
An official familiar with the matter said the numerous MPs spoke against the proposal when it was floated by Mr Hazzard with backbench MPs, with several querying the need for the powers to remain in place for another 17 months.
Of course, as the “public health” panjandrums have done incessantly, Hazzard is trying desperately to gin up the supposed threat of Delta-double-plus-bad, or whatever the latest strain is called. But the real gambit is given away by an anonymous source who said: “keeping the powers in place until March 2023 would also prevent the need to legislate for them ahead of the 2023 election; doing so may be perceived as unpopular with the community, they said.”
NSW One Nation leader Mark Latham said he would not be supporting any extension of Covid-19 legislation.
“The new premier promised a restoration of freedom and we will hold him to that promise,” Mr Latham tweeted.
Innes Willox, CEO of Ai Group, said the government’s proposal amounted to administrative overreach by health officials that would send the “wrong message to the community”.
“Emergency powers should be short lived and used sparingly.”
The Australian
Tell that to Dan Andrews, whose “short, sharp” emergency powers were enacted in March 2020 and are still going strong.
Still, it’s some comfort to know that there are at least some MPs willing to hold even the bastards in their own parties to account.
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