Andrews has gone the other way, extending the crisis cabinet, which was reconfigured overnight in the middle of a pandemic. Decision-making was centralised around the Premier, his private office and his department; department secretaries began reporting directly to the Premier as ministers were sidelined and the government began to operate in silos. The accountability of ministers and bureaucrats was thrown out the window (that no one knows who was responsible for tasking vital quarantine security guards speaks volumes). Ministers with intimate knowledge of their portfolios were sidelined while those not familiar with those detailed areas were given responsibility for important reforms.
.A previously well-functioning cabinet government was thrown into chaos. Most were in no doubt it was less about the virus than Andrews centralising power in his hands while never wasting a crisis.
.So Victoria is the only state with a crisis cabinet and the only state with a crisis. Andrews has a cabinet and caucus that bat deep and needs to return to full cabinet so vigorous scrutiny can be applied in challenging times.
.I was a member of both the Steve Bracks and John Brumby partyrooms. The Bracks/Brumby partyrooms had robust input into decision-making – the Andrews government caucus, this parliamentary term, is often bypassed. Andrews’s priority is to win the support of the upper house crossbench and bypass his partyroom. But caucus members are at the coalface daily and are best placed to provide feedback directly from their communities.
.The government, to all intents and purposes, has the numbers in the upper house so the partyroom has an important duty to scrutinise the executive (crisis cabinet) and speak up when it overreaches.
.The government has encroached on our lives in ways unimaginable only a few months ago. With our civil liberties being stripped away, we must make sure our institutions are functioning properly with appropriate checks and balances. Governments must keep their citizens safe from threat, and this can require coercive force and curtailed civil liberties but, whether it be from the threat of terrorism or pandemic, measures must be proportional.
.If Andrews removes his rose-coloured glasses to look at China, he will see what contempt for civil liberties looks like. The Chinese Communist Party has detained more than a million Muslim Uighurs because some may have committed acts of terror – this is hardly a proportionate response.
.Does Andrews believe Victoria should go down the path of the CCP in defeating COVID-19? That would be a Pyrrhic victory.
.Adem Somyurek, a former Labor minister for small business and local government, now sits on the crossbenches in the Victorian Legislative Council.
