The Eunuch Premier is no more. On Saturday last, the Liberals’ fourth NSW Premier in twelve years was dispatched from the Treasury benches in decisive fashion. The usual suspects have given their usual, glib ‘analyses’.

Fourth term curse? Not really. The Liberal National Coalition was not beaten because it had governed for twelve years. It was beaten because it had governed badly for twelve years. Not ‘moderate’ enough? You would have to be joking. It is the NSW Liberal Party we are talking about. Dominic Perrottet was a good man, fighting with two hands behind his back? Not really. Yes, the Liberal rats certainly deserted the sinking ship, but Perrottet made his own Faustian pact with his controllers in the back rooms, and he chose to be a LINO (Liberal in name only). He chose to be green. He chose to be Woke. Was the Premier a bold, innovative policy thinker? Well, if he was, he certainly picked some weird, off-message issues about which to be bold. He tried to be popular, to be liked rather than to right, and respected.

Now the other half of the NSW UniParty (Labor) gets to have a go for four years. The UniParty represents the PGGWC class (progressive, globalist, green, Woke, Covid), where each wing merely fights over who can manage the PGGWC agenda better.

For a case study of the former Premier’s failure, one that prevented him from clawing his party’s way back in for another term, we can’t go past the vaccine mandates issue and Perrottet’s feeble non-intervention. Even former Prime Minister Scott Morrison (of all people) called him out. In a recent radio interview, the former Premier said two things, both, in their own way, astonishing.

First, he admitted that the Covid vaccines do not stop transmission of the virus. I believe he is the first leader in Australia to do this on such a large public stage. His candour comes at a time when Australia has recently announced the campaign for us all to get a fifth – yes, a fifth – booster.

Several responses spring to mind. One, you have only just realised this? Another, when did you find this out? How long have you known? Did you know, for example, when the unvaccinated were prevented from going to Kmart, Big W, and other places? Did you know when the government sacked public service staff at a time of drastic labour shortages?

Yet another question, does the former Premier acknowledge that Covid vaccines do not stop hospitalisation or death? This was the hang-out position of much of the political class in Australia when it realised that its initial position – ‘safe and effective’ – had been demonstrated as palpably false.

Now, the former Premier’s defenders will say, well, he did end the vaccine mandates for shoppers. And he got the National Cabinet to can the self-quarantine rules. His critics – and the number on the right must surely be growing – will retort, far too little, far too late.

His second gob-smacker in the radio interview was the virtual admission that he did not have the power, as Premier of New South Wales, to end vaccine mandates for his own public sector employees. You say what? Please explain. As reported by 2GB:

‘Emergency Services personnel, including nurses and paramedics, lost their jobs during the pandemic if they failed to get vaccinated. Many are now fighting to regain their positions – as the government offers sign-on bonuses to lure retired staff back. Dominic Perrottet told Ben Fordham, he’s repeatedly told the public service to end vaccine mandates.’

True enough. He told them to get rid of mandates ages ago. It is just that they didn’t take any notice of him. Or, at least, many didn’t. Perrottet stated:

‘In the areas of the public service that I can make that direction, I have it and it has been enacted. I’ve also worked very closely with the private sector who have followed my position.’

Yes, but again far too late, and with no sign that any employers (public or private) will entertain the idea of compensation for sacked workers or automatic reinstatement to their old positions. The initial decision made by employers to punish the unvaccinated was always unconscionable and without foundation. Morally bankrupt, one might say. The former Premier’s take on this was feeble, putting it at its kindest. After all, his government had the power to enforce the mandates. And the masks. And the lockdowns. And the curfews. And the use of the army. Oh, and the power to, in effect, prorogue the Parliament. Power to enforce didn’t seem to be a problem back then, so what why not the power to end the measures?

This is what one listener had to say:

John a paramedic, told the Premier that both he and his wife, an emergency nurse, lost their jobs due to the vaccine mandates. Both are still unemployed.

“We are down in Sydney at the industrial relations committee trying to get her job back,” John said.

“Police are still mandated out of jobs, SES volunteers. Doesn’t it seem disingenuous you are offering $10,000 sign-on bonuses to nurses to get them back into the industry, and me and my wife can’t work, my job still hasn’t been replaced as a paramedic. It’s an absolute disgrace.”

Sky News Australia reported last week:

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has been confronted by a man protesting vaccine mandates while campaigning in the key seat of Willoughby on the eve of the state election.

Mr Perrottet was visiting a pre-polling centre on the Lower North Shore on Friday morning, alongside his wife Helen and one of their children, when he was ambushed.

‘You said you don’t like the vaccine mandates what are you gonna actually do?’ the man yelled.

‘Are you gonna show some guts and actually give people back their jobs?

‘Are you gonna compensate people… Do you even care?

‘You said you don’t support the vaccine mandates, why are you not doing anything about it – direct question.’

All very good questions. To which there have only been mealy-mouthed replies, certainly from the NSW Premier. One unvaccinated, unemployed NSW police officer, David Roberts, wrote to the then Premier. (You can read the full letter at Reignite Democracy Australia.)

My name is Senior Constable David Roberts, and I am a former New South Wales Police Officer that was dismissed under a Section 181d of the Police Act for failing to comply with a direction to be vaccinated for Covid 19. For those that do not know, this is the police equivalent to a defence force dishonourable discharge. Such a dismissal is retained for the worst breaches of the NSW Police Force code of conduct, such as theft, assault, domestic violence, fraud and other such crimes. Real crimes. This prevents us from ever obtaining another government position and it has even restricted us from obtaining a simple security licence.

… When I heard you on 2GB announce that you want these mandates to end, as you stated, ‘There is no evidence that the vaccines stop transmission’ it gave me and others a small glimmer of hope, that finally, after all this time, that someone will finally apply some basic common sense to this absurd situation that we are all living through and finally end this utter madness. 

However, no. What occurred next was nothing short of a slap in the face to myself and my former colleagues.

You said that you had no power to remove these mandates. Premier, this is utter rubbish and you should be embarrassed to pretend that you are the Premier of NSW. 

Your government is responsible for these mandates being implemented. Your government held daily press conferences where it pushed the same repeated message of, ‘vaccines are our only way out of this,’ and ‘vaccines are the only way to get our freedoms back,’ and ‘vaccines are the only way to get everyone back to work’. So your predecessors, your government, along with the usual one-sided media propaganda, pushed this mandate agenda, which you refused to change when you came into power. And you still refuse to change now.

Premier, you not only have the power to end this mandate madness, you have the obligation and the responsibility to! You need to do what you were put in this position for, to do your job! And your job is to run this state and to ensure that each and every one of its people get a fair deal and a fair opportunity and are treated equally.

Perrottet’s vacuous non-response was a disgrace, and points to the unseemly inaction of one who disowns a policy yet is complicit in its enforcement. And one who has the power to stop it. Some might call it hypocrisy. Everyone would call it cowardly. And slippery.

The former Premier was ‘frustrated’. Oh dear. He seems simply to have confirmed what James Burnham saw coming in the 1940s when he penned his classic The Managerial Revolution, and what many since have seen as the rise of technocracy also known as the ‘rule by the experts’. It is a situation where elected politicians of whatever hue are rendered mere bystanders, standing at the back of the stage while unelected officials take the microphone.

Dominic Perrottet has shown himself to be a political eunuch, without so much as a position to defend when he faced the electorate. Love him or hate him – and it seems there is no middle position – it is inconceivable that Daniel Andrews could have uttered the defeatist words of his mate north of the Murray – I told them what I wanted, and they ignored me. VicPol? Danny says ‘jump’. They reply, ‘How high, Mr Premier?’

Strangely, as Lismore recently commemorated one year since the big flood and pondered afresh the sinking feeling that we were monumentally ignored, the head of the State Emergency Service, which stopped unvaccinated volunteers from helping to save the lives during the crisis, still has their job. I cannot imagine that too many desperate septuagenarians and older, clinging to their rooftops for grim death as the floodwaters rose, would have inquired of their rescuers, ‘Oi, are you Covid safe?’

Interestingly, Perrottet’s capitulation on 2GB coincided with the release of Flordia Governor Ron DeSantis’ book, ironically titled The Courage to be Free. The manual for conservative leaders is now simply, ‘do what Ron does’. It is a manual that those on the right of the aisle would do well to absorb and follow.

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