In her media realise dated August 17 and headed ‘Applications Open for Premier’s Spirit of Democracy Tour’, Minister Natalie Hutchins states:

‘The Premier’s Spirit of Democracy tour is an amazing opportunity for young critical thinkers to learn about the origins of Australian democracy.’

Forget about inviting students to learn about how ‘classical Greek thinkers’ have contributed to Australia’s democracy. It’s obvious that if anyone needs to be educated about democracy it’s Premier Daniel Andrews (aka Chairman Dan).

Last Friday’s example of refusing to answer questions about the real cost of the multi-billion-dollar suburban rail loop is only the most recent example. Chairman Dan arguably has form when it comes to acting as El Supremo and denying citizens’ expectations regarding transparency and honesty.

Since the arrival of the China virus nearly three years ago, Victorians have suffered under a despotic regime where fundamental and long-cherished freedoms and liberties were ignored or completely trashed.

By giving a master class in the dark arts of self-serving Machiavellian politics, Australia watched a government perfectly illustrate the maxim ‘power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely’.

Closing Parliament, stopping duly elected MPs from entering the building, throwing recalcitrant ministers under the bus, acting as a one-man Cabinet, refusing to take the blame when hundreds died in aged care facilities, and the ongoing theatre surrounding the infamous red-shirts rort – there was no end to Labor’s subterfuge and misdeeds.

Worse still, while one of the central tenets of Western liberal democracies like Victoria (unlike totalitarian communist China and Russia), is the right to freedom, Covid saw police authority supercharged as an instrument to enforce political orders that directly infringed on liberty.

A pregnant woman suffered a home invasion for daring to express opposition to inflexible and cruel lockdowns, demonstrators were fired upon with pepper balls and smothered in tear gas by police, citizens were fined for sitting in the open air in parks, and teachers were summarily sacked for not taking the jab.

Much like East Berlin under communist control where citizens suffered privation and hardship, Victoria’s health system has collapsed. Patients are finding themselves denied much-needed medical treatment, ambulances sit banked up outside emergency departments, and the failure of the state’s triple-zero system is leading to multiple deaths.

Victoria is now the antipodean Venezuela where government debt has skyrocketed, small businesses crushed, and the only solution – like Stalin’s five-year plan – is to announce grandiose, multi-billion dollar infrastructure plans that will bankrupt the state.

Instead of being the ‘education state’, Victorian students have missed months of schooling while suffering a teacher shortage because of draconian jab regulations that have also led to teachers and students suffering record anxiety and stress.

Like in George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, where propaganda ensures compliance, Chairman Dan is a master media performer. Like Big Brother’s slogans ‘war is peace’, ‘freedom is slavery’, and ‘ignorance is strength’ Chairman Dan appears to enforce language control and groupthink by arguing ‘staying apart, keeps us together’.

At a time when Melbourne was the most locked-down city in the world, curfews were enforced, and citizens denied freedom of movement – Chairman Dan painted himself as a stern but caring figure.

In daily media appearances, the Premier described the China virus as a deadly and sinister beast and assured citizens that only he had the power to safeguard Victorian. Like one’s favourite uncle, Chairman Dan tried to come across as compassionate and deeply concerned.

Ignored were those Victorians trapped over the border or the people denied the right to attend dying relatives and funerals. Instead of displaying Christian charity and concern for the acute suffering around him, Chairman Dan hid behind ‘the science’. 

Any probing media questions or requests for information were met with the rejoinder, ‘that’s irrelevant’ or ‘my only job is to safeguard Victorians against this deadly infection’. Questions about government duplicity were replied to with some variation of, ‘It’s subject to an inquiry, I can’t answer.’

While Scott Morrison is rightly being criticised for ignoring Westminster parliamentary conventions and traditions, the reality is that Chairman Dan is also arguably guilty of trouncing the institutions and safeguards underlying our democratic system.

Family businesses have been bankrupted, friends and neighbours pressured to dob one another into the police, Victoria’s social fabric damaged, and people’s trust in government lost.

Chairman Dan is a typical ALP, socialist-left, union apparatchik who has never had a real job and is thus incapable of knowing the value of real money and what constitutes honest, hard work.

A politician much practised in the maxim ‘the ends justify the means’ where self-interest and political subterfuge is the order of the day. Instead of Victorian students studying the ancient Athenian contribution to democracy, what they should be studying is Chairman Dan whose behaviour mimics that of a third-world despot.

Dr Kevin Donnelly is a conservative commentator and author of The Dictionary Of Woke, available at kevindonnelly.com.au

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