I am reliably informed that the former premier of Victoria, Dan Andrews, regularly strolls down Collins Street in Melbourne’s CBD, waving and nodding to various passers-by. This is captains-of-industry territory, so no doubt there is quite a lot of cap-doffing on their part as well.

Let’s not forget here that quite a few industrialists made serious money during the pandemic. Indeed, I’m told – perhaps less reliably – that there is a relatively recently purchased beach house in salubrious Portsea that is called JobKeeper, although bear in mind this was a Frydenberg special.

The fact that Dan the Man is comfortable strolling among everyday Victorians suggests most have forgotten the absolutely egregious actions his government took during the pandemic.

The fact is that in my opinion Andrews got away with the equivalent of blue murder during the Covid scare campaign and has never been held accountable for his actions. Think here particularly the botched hotel quarantine arrangement.

He leant on that dummy, Brett Sutton, then the chief health officer, to justify the most ludicrous restrictions, although this is no excuse for his actions. A statewide curfew – done; closing the borders – done; restrictions on travel – done; compulsory vaccination for public sector workers – done; closure of most commercial enterprises – done; closure of playgrounds, for heaven’s sake – done.

The details matter less than the unconstrained exercise of state power over citizens who were cowed into compliance by gross misinformation and the fear of being prosecuted. People were treated as helpless, dependent toddlers who had to be punished if they failed to act according to the rules. For too long, far too many Victorians agreed to play that role.

There were many bad things to come out of Covid. Overwhelmingly, the real damage was the result of misguided – OK, insane – policies implemented by various levels of governments not the virus itself.

One catastrophe that has persisted is the rebalancing of the roles of federal and state governments, with the state governments increasingly acting like jumped-up dictatorships prepared to ignore any budget constraints as well as impose all manner of freedom-sapping restrictions on their citizens.

We should place a fair degree of the blame on ScoMo for establishing the ridiculous national cabinet. Given that the power to implement restrictions based on public health grounds largely rests with the states, this move proved to be part of his undoing.  Essentially, he was forced into a position of supporting all the crazy decisions of the state governments while picking up the fiscal tab.  This was a very bad deal politically for him, but it was an even worse deal for the country.

Even with the pandemic behind us, the state governments have not reverted to their ex ante positions. Rather they have pressed on with more stupid policies, more absurd interventions. Even in the context of the Voice to parliament referendum being trounced in every state, most of them are pressing on with treaty and truth-telling.

In Victoria, there is some sort of First Nations assembly in which less than 10 per cent of the eligible voters bothered to vote.  South Australia is following suit. We are talking serious money, money that the states don’t actually have.

Again in Victoria, Dan’s replacement, Jacinta Allan (Dan without the North Face puffer jacket), proudly announced the new position of Parliamentary Secretary for Men’s Behaviour Change. According to the blurb, ‘This is the first position of its kind in Australia – and will focus largely on the influence the internet and social media have on boys’ and men’s attitudes towards women and building respectful relationships.’

The pimply faced parliamentarian, Tim Richardson, appointed to take up the position confidently declared that, ‘We know that the time to act on men’s violence against women is now and it starts with us men and boys. This is not easy work, but it is important, and we can’t afford not to address it and waste a moment.’

Oh please – spare us all. As if men’s behaviour can be altered from Spring Street. But let’s not forget that there is a department in Victoria called Families, Fairness and Housing. I’m not kidding.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any more ridiculous, we have had the announcement by embattled Queensland Labor Premier Steven Miles that, should Labor retain office, the government will set up a series of petrol stations under public ownership.

We are led to believe that this will introduce more competition into petrol retailing in parts of Brisbane and lower prices. This is notwithstanding the fact that the public sector has no experience whatsoever in establishing and running servos. Miles also has a series of thought-bubble ideas about restricting the scope for privately owned petrol stations to alter their prices. (The ACCC has shown over many years that these interventions either make no difference or drive up prices, on average.)

But why stop at servos, I say? I’m personally hoping for retail outlets specialising in French champagne. How good would it be if the price of Dom Perignon or Veuve Cliquot could be lower? I’d vote for that. (Actually, I wouldn’t.) Let’s not forget here that back in the day – a long time ago – the Queensland government actually owned and ran a chain of butcher shops. Maybe the sun does something to the politicians up there.

Just last week, the defeated Coalition New South Wales premier, Dom Perrottet, conceded that he regretted imposing vaccine mandates on public sector workers as part of the pandemic response. Again, oh please! If he’d taken a few seconds to think about it, he would never have gone along with the entreaties of the NSW Chief Health Officer, Kerry Chant.

It was very clear early on that none of the Covid vaccines had an impact on the degree of population transmission, the only possible rationale for compelling certain types of workers to be vaccinated. The infringement of people’s personal liberties was simply unjustified, particularly as there had been no quality, longitudinal evaluation of any of the vaccines. (There still haven’t been and the AstraZeneca vaccine, which was widely used in Australia, has been taken off the market because of safety fears.)

As Dom heads off to Washington to take up a very well-paid position with BHP, he would be well advised to just shut up. To this day, there are various groups of unvaccinated workers who still can’t work in their preferred roles or who have been punished in a career sense for the decisions they took.

In the meantime, the tinpot tyrannies that the state governments have become wreak havoc with the management of the economy as they overspend and amass more and more debt for future generations to deal with. With their pumping up of aggregate demand, the Reserve Bank has no option but to maintain interest rates higher for longer. This is a steep price for us all to pay for the irresponsible behaviour of politicians who would often struggle in local government.