This week, Victorian Premier Dan Andrews resigned. And the mainstream media suffered a collective conniption.
What will they ever find to write or complain about? (On second thought, give them a few days to circle in on another victim.)
He leaves office with the latest poll indicating a commanding two-party preferred lead for Labor of 56.5-43.5 — an increase on its 55-45 lead at the last election.
Of course, there were a number of articles this morning about what a shocking job he’d done and how the voters were just idiots who didn’t know how oppressed they were. Phil Coorey who is best remembered for his article on how Gladys saved Australia wrote in this morning’s Financial Review that his government came “stone motherless last on every metric in terms of handling the pandemic”. Interesting that the paper he writes for was also critical of Mark McGowan for closing off his state and streeting the rest of Australia in every metric and lost very few people to Covid meaning that he can’t be accused of being stone motherless last. Surprisingly, Coorey was terribly impressed with Gladys in spite of the Ruby Princess, the untested chauffeur setting off a wave and various other things that one would have thought rivalled any alleged mistakes that Andrews made.
As Steve Bannon said: “The Democrats don’t matter. The real enemy is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”
Next time Peter Dutton announces on Sunday that he’ll hold another referendum if elected, only to say that he won’t on Thursday, or Dan Tehan tells us that Albanese should call off the referendum (which can’t happen without the approval of Parliament which won’t sit before the vote), then ask yourself if they haven’t decided to take Bannon’s advice.
Costello’s headline in the Age attacks Dan with an “If and could” article on Air BnBs. Nothing, in reality, to be seen other than an opportunity to boost the LNP by useful scaremongering. How did mainland Australia become so ALP when 80%+ of our mainstream media concentration is the world’s most Blue? The answer it’s the least trusted. Long Live Independents and the ABC
Capping the number of nights Victorian landlords can list their properties on Airbnb, imposing a “tourist tax” and empowering councils to charge owners higher rates are among the options on the table.
Slaughter on Batman Avenue: Victoria gets election result three months early – Michael West
If the Victorian election were a boxing match, the ref would have stopped the fight. Except that the election isn’t until November 26.
The fact that Melburnians suffered one of the world’s longest lockdowns under Covid won’t be enough to stop Premier Daniel Andrews gaining a third term.
Last weekend Andrews basked in the favourable publicity generated by his announcement of free university places for nursing students. As feelgood stories go, this was a ripper. Meanwhile The Weekend Australian proclaimed on its front page: ”The Andrews era to live on”. The paper’s Newspoll gave Labor a lead of 56-44 (two-party preferred) over the Coalition led by Matthew Guy.
The Liberals live in a world of pain caused by an internal scandal that has overshadowed Labor’s own internal scandals. Under Guy they ceded the plumb seat of Hawthorn in 2018, and now another stronghold, Kew, is likely to fall to a Teal independent.
Peter Costello’s AGE spent yesterday attempting to smear Dan Andrews for his relationship with the Sikh Community in Victoria. They seemingly tried to suggest that a positive and progressive relationship was nefarious and suspicious in nature the equivalent of what we have seen done in LNP’s rorts scandals. The Age was acting more as a PR agent in an effort of damage control for the shambles Matthew Guy and the Liberals had found themselves in. However, even Pr agents can be idiots and chose the wrong community and the wrong relationship to focus on even one one dating back to 2018.
But it’s during difficult times like these that Australians bond together to help each other out — and that can be seen by the efforts of Sikh Volunteers Australia, an organisation that aims to reduce distress in the community by providing free food to people in need. Sikh Volunteers Australia preparing food deliveries
Why 60% Vic supports Dan.. He does what he says and it’s for the benefit of the “common good”
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has announced a widespread easing of virus rules from midnight Thursday, declaring “no more caps, no more closures” in the state. It came with Victoria poised to tick over 90 per cent of over-12s fully vaccinated on Saturday or Sunday.
Premier Daniel Andrews has urged Victorians to stay the course, saying “there is no other way” and vaccinations are “the only ticket out of the pandemic” as Melbourne teeters on the edge.
A biased narrative from the Murdoch press has become unstuck as the NSW COVID-19 crisis worsens, writes Dr Victoria Fielding. IN FEBRUARY of this year, after Victoria headed into a proactive “short, sharp, circuit-breaker” lockdown, Herald Sun and The Australian “writer” Sophie Elsworth published a piece titled: ‘Why Premier Daniel Andrews needs to be more like NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian.’ This article started with the much-repeated trope that Victorian COVID-19 health restrictions were evidence of Daniel Andrews’ dictatorship, represented misuse of his power, were over-reactions and unnecessarily harsh:
Record fiscal stimulus of $25 billion over four years will capture the headlines. But what the Victorian government has done with it is perhaps the bigger story. Education jobs, a massive social housing build, support for the tourism sector – it’s by and large the right package for this recession.
“This isn’t going to solve the problem of insecure work overnight, but someone has to put their hand up and say we’re going to take this out of the ‘too hard’ basket and do something about it – and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” he said.
Support for Premier Daniel Andrews remains solid, with just over half of Victorians backing his handling of the coronavirus pandemic despite months of tough lockdown restrictions and criticism over the failed hotel quarantine program.
Victoria’s lockdown has provoked a self-styled rebellion that postures as defending freedom against the state premier, “Dictator” Dan Andrews. But once you scratch the plebian surface, the “movement” is led by right-wing activists and funded by Liberal Party money.
He spent $600,000 creating a job. giving the money to Corporations
The Victorian Premier has become the biggest challenger to Morrison’s agenda in a national debate over the pandemic. While Andrews puts a priority on shutdowns in the name of saving lives, Morrison puts a premium on opening up the economy.
Trucking magnate Lindsay Fox urged the business community to find solutions and work together to fight the deadly virus that has wreaked devastation across Victoria
Morrison who has no faith in science and readily cuts back on research prefers to get his political advice from God and his only son Lachlan. which miraculously appears on the front pages of Australia’s media. Wh would anyone intentionally sabotage Victoria’s lock-downs by sending 55 NZers across the border to simply flout the States efforts to save lives and then blame the State? Simply because he can and has Ruperts blessing (ODT)
The frosty relations between the federal government and Mr Andrews continued on Sunday, with Mr Morrison and his two most senior Victorian ministers – treasurer Josh Frydenberg and health minister Greg Hunt – saying the easing of rules needed to go further.
So why is this piece titled Frydenberg’s folly?. Because in one fell swoop he has morphed his image as a credible commentator on the nation’s accounts into just another partisan attack dog. He has replaced his reputation in the area of finance with what we have come to despise so profoundly. That is his folly!
Murmours of Andrews being a model of what a PM should look like has set Morrison and Frydenberg off against not just Andrews but Victoria blaming the State for everything they haven’t done. (ODT)
They need him to succeed on their behalf. The Prime Minister might find that destabilising the state government during a recession and a pandemic might not please as many Victorians as he thinks.
#ScottyFromMarketing wants a fall guy for 1st recession in 30yrs: Dan Andrews. Nothing is Scott’s responsibility: aged care failure; dodgy Covid app; slow stimulus when Covid first hit; no infrastructure plan to rebuild confidence. All aided by Murdoch’s Liberal protection racket
Anyone feel there’s a concerted effort to “Get Andrews” maybe because he’s doing a real job. (ODT)
The Wage Theft Bill, was viewed as a cornerstone promise in Premier Daniel Andrews’s state re-election campaign in 2018. It now sees guilty parties – such as business owners, managers, shopkeepers and accountants, or anyone connected to a business enterprise – who deliberately withhold award wages and related entitlements established under the Fair Work Act (2009) from their workers risk prison sentences up to ten years and face fines upwards of $198,264 for individuals and $991,320 for companies.
olddogthoughts 
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