1980s rock group Little Heroes sang that Melbourne Just Isn’t New York. They’re being proved right, yet again. Although it might be a bit like the old East Berlin.

New York’s Central Park is indelibly associated with the iconic horse-drawn carriages. In more recent years, Melbourne has emulated the romantic tourist attraction.

Then, along came Dan.

Horse-drawn carriages are set to be banned in the heart of the city under changes to the road rules being put forward by the Andrews Government.

The tourist attraction has been a feature of the CBD for decades but has faced increasing calls for the practice to be banned.

Street trading permits for operators were withdrawn by the City of Melbourne in 2017 but local councils do not have the power to ban the activity.

After reviewing the current scheme, the state government has proposed to rewrite the road rules so that the practice is banned within the Hoddle Grid.

Herald-Sun

Of course, the government is putting it all down to prostrating themselves before the mighty god of Elfinsafety, but it’s not escaped the notice of many that the ban comes hot on the heels of Premier Daniel Andrews finally securing the passage of his dictatorial pandemic legislation. In order to scrape together the necessary single vote needed to pass the bill, Andrews was forced to do some grubby horse-trading with a gaggle of micro-party cross-benchers.

Including “Animal Justice Party” MP Andy Meddick. As it happens the Animal Justice Party is adamantly opposed to “the use of animals for sport or entertainment”. Its policies include “To immediately ban …horse-drawn carriage rides”.

Well, well, well… what a coincidence.

The list of loony policies the fringe nutters have got as their reward for bending over for Dictator Dan grows by the day: not two, or three, but four new recycling bins; banning the Lord’s Prayer in Parliament, protected wombats, protections for animal activists…

What will Dictator Dan do next? The whacky hijinks in Wokeistan, Australia, just never end.

It remains to be seen whether the Victoria Police will be allowed to keep their equine and canine units.

Fee-fi-fo-fum, Dan spies someone having fun. The BFD. Photoshop by Lushington Brady.

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Punk rock philosopher. Liberalist contrarian. Grumpy old bastard. I grew up in a generational-Labor-voting family. I kept the faith long after the political left had abandoned it. In the last decade...