"It would have been a busy week at the excuse desk of Dan Andrews’ Department of Premier and Cabinet as its staff searched for something strong enough to immunise the boss from a new outbreak of bureaucratic ineptitude.

Their task was made harder by an unfortunate outburst of hubris on Tuesday when the Victorian Premier appeared at a news conference sans masque, as they like to say on the Paris end of Collins St. He boasted of Victoria’s “gold-standard” hotel quarantine system, even as early cases of the Holiday Inn outbreak were under investigation.

By Friday the mask was back as Andrews revealed some selected facts about breaches in the protocol in a dowdy airport hotel to justify plunging the entire state back into lockdown hell or. as the Premier prefers it, “a short, sharp circuit breaker”.

Andrews should have abided by Aldous Huxley’s precept: “Several excuses are always less convincing than one.” Instead, he and his Chief Health Officer blamed a sick man who had recklessly applied lifesaving medication to himself by means of a nebuliser."

Aidan,

I think that you will agree that it is a competent government that is needed not big government.

Sorry Dan, it's not the 'velocity': http://tinyurl.com/yokbdkzp

How possibly not to deal with Covid: http://youtu.be/LoJ0m4GlGV4

Shadow,
Of course I agree.
But it is small government ideology that threatens competence.

Shadow Minister: There's no doubt that there have been problems managing covid, and we can all see, by hindsight, what should have been done, especially in Victoria. But I wonder if any of us complaining would have done any better, if we had been in charge. When it comes to making decisions and managing human behaviour in uncertain but fast moving circumstances, there will always be stuff-ups.

You wrote that the NSW permit system was better than the Victorian. Service NSW is a reasonably good centralised system, although I still can't get the QR code app to work properly on my smartphone (once it logged me out at any earlier time than my login)! I am not the only one. Most businesses here (rural NSW) will log you in on their system, but I have noticed in the local supermarket many people are just ignoring the requirement and the staff are not enforcing it. Making things too complicated and dependent on having the latest technology, and being comfortable in using it, can be counter-productive.

I live in NSW, in the NSW-Vic border zone, and need to cross the border regularly for medical treatment, shopping etc. When NSW closed the border, we had to apply on line every two weeks for a permit (automatic as a border zone resident), download and print, or save on the phone, then show this at the border check-points. I have a stack of these which I plan to deposit in the local historical society collection! When Victoria closed the border, all we had to do was show our drivers license as proof of border zone residence. Much simpler.

Cossomby,

The point is that every other state has done better than Victoria. NSW who is handling the majority of incoming passengers has caught and stopped the infection without the need for drastic action that Victoria has taken.

Victoria has the highest death rate, the greatest infection rate and the highest drop in GDP.
That the incompetent Dan hasn't been lynched is a testament to his BS artistry.

Aiden,

In the vast majority of cases privatising businesses that are not public goods improves the competence of government.