Tsar of all
the Victorians

Today, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews did another of his star turns before the Melbourne press corps, announcing that he would be granting his subjects a number of reprieves from the arbitrary, largely unexplained and all too often capricious rulings on what is and what isn’t permitted.

As of tomorrow, for instance, those who reside within 5km of a body water can do some angling, albeit for no more than two hours every day. Golfers, however, must continue to leave their clubs in the closet. Why? The Premier rabbited on about the danger of COVID-soaked crowds assembling on fairways, but the key indicator of his explanation’s worth and the speaker’s veracity was that his lips were moving.

And finally the hated curfew has been scuttled. Premier Andrew’s beneficence? No doubt he would wish his subjects to conclude as much, but like so much else in his disastrous handling of the COVID outbreak and subsequent efforts to unshoulder the blame for some 800 deaths, deviousness would seem once again to be afoot.

Tomorrow in the Supreme Court the documents and modelling detailing the rationale for the curfew  — if indeed there was one — are to be revealed.

And, lo, suddenly the curfew ends!

Watch the video atop this post. Not so long ago many might have dismissed it as the ravings of a man in the grip of terminal paranoia. Today, with Victoria’s economy in ruins and fines for defying Premier Andrews’ will now stand at $5000, being paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.

— roger franklin