Australia’s version of Sturgeon is about to ‘get away with’ the world’s worst lockdown | Express a comment | Comment

In Australia, state governments have enormous power. More power than the Scottish government or the Welsh administration. The biggest difference between Australian politics and Britain’s is federalism, as in the US it gives sub-national governments enormous powers, and public health powers in Australia are held by the states.

Many state governments in Australia have done bizarre things during the pandemic. Western Australia has closed its borders to the rest of Australia, with several people sent to jail for visiting Perth without permission to watch an Aussie Rules football match.

Queensland’s premier has said Queensland hospitals are for Queenslanders only, while Queensland’s chief health officer has told people not to use the life-saving AstraZeneca coup.

The most sensible state, New South Wales, with a Conservative government, had the most proportionate response, but closed its borders to Victoria and was stuck for a while.

Remember that throughout the pandemic, the Australian Federal Government has closed its international borders, ensuring that Australian citizens were stranded around the world.

This brings me to the case of my hometown, Melbourne, the capital of Australia’s second largest state, Victoria.

Named after Queen Victoria, it has always been considered Australia’s most liveable city.

Not anymore, it’s been ruined by the world’s longest lockdown and the craziest hard-left government Australia has seen in decades.

Often because of a handful of covid cases, Daniel Andrews locked us down six times for a total of 263 days in 18 months.

It wasn’t just any old lockdown; it was house arrest. You were not allowed to travel more than 5 km from your home.

You had to wear a mask every time you left your house. There was an imposed curfew at 8 p.m.

You have been banned from visiting any other property, enforced by a ‘ring of steel’ around Melbourne. All “non-essential” businesses have been closed.

Schools were closed, some students literally missed their last two years of school in class. Police handcuffed a pregnant mother at home in front of her children for promoting an anti-lockdown protest on Facebook.

Police shot anti-lockdown protesters in the back with rubber bullets but allowed a Black Lives Matter protest and did not charge anyone, although the right to protest was suspended on “health advice”.

As one columnist wrote this week, “no other state has so many Karens. Every day, more than 600 Victorians have called the state’s crime reporting hotline to report neighbors and friends for sneaking out to visit relatives or for not wearing a mask outside.

The profound economic destruction and damage to mental health cannot be underestimated. Business occupancy in central Melbourne was recently as low as 38%.

Like Nicola Sturgeon, the far-left Labor government in Melbourne has been preoccupied with authoritarian control, gender transition, the application of dumb political correctness everywhere, massive debt and the deliberate destruction of national cohesion .

The Victorian government has more debt than any other Australian state by a mile.

He is proposing new infrastructure projects that he cannot afford. It constantly complains, often wrongly, of being short-circuited by the national government. Sound familiar?

Yet according to all opinion polls over the past three months, the left-wing socialist Labor government in Melbourne will continue to govern either in a majority or a minority with the Greens after this weekend. How is it possible ?

Australians are generally sensible people, but apparently more in Victoria.

Unfortunately, conservatives have failed during the pandemic to vigorously oppose outrageous incursions into individual liberty, they have failed to offer an alternative vision for rebuilding the economy after the pandemic, and they have left it too late. in the election campaign to advertise a cost-of-living relief package.

The Conservatives’ “me too” response to Labor, to everything from climate and energy to submission to their woke agenda, ensured that there was not much difference between Labor and the Conservatives.

The Conservative slogan is “don’t let him get away with it”. The tragedy is that Daniel Andrews is probably about to get away with the world’s most brutal, unjustified and longest pandemic lockdown and be re-elected for four more years.

No wonder so many of us leave. See you soon England.

• Tim Smith is the outgoing Liberal (Conservative) MP for Kew in Victoria’s Parliament.