That's a good testing number and we should be pleased with that.
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Coronavirus
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3,038,256 Coronavirus Cases and 1,432 Active in Victoria - COVID Live
Live tracking of coronavirus cases, active, tests, deaths, ICU, hospitalisations and vaccinations in Victoria
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Whilst I'd prefer less sensational questions I think 750 odd extra deaths & a 6 week shutdown and countless lives affected begs itself to a few questions. When you implement an inquiry that reveals high levels of disorganisation and incompetence you open yourself to some scrutiny. This is unlikely to be the last time Dan gets a few questions.
The failure by the hotel quarantine program to contain this virus is, as at today's date, responsible for the deaths of 768 people and the infection of some 18,418 others.
"One only needs to pause and to reflect on those figures to appreciate the full scope of devastation and despair occasioned as a result of the outbreaks."
MDJ personal view which some will disagree with I am sure.
These press conferences are meant to provide information and clarity to Victorians related to the response to the current situation and therefore they are not the time or the place for this type of questioning. If every one of these press conferences were allowed to go down the path that this line of questioning takes us the very reason for having them gets lost . This is now about what is opened, what are the rules, what do the numbers mean, what's the next steps, what's the level of testing ?
I get concerned that if the Premier gets engaged with this stuff now ( remembering that he is a very political animal) he might say something like " we made mistakes but the death toll would have much lower if the Commonwealth government had done a decent job in private aged care". Where will that get us ? The answer is a cycle of political bickering and point scoring that will be counter productive in the short term at least.
The political questioning can happen later and I totally agree that it should happen but we need to keep focussing on the now imo.
As an aside I don't think the inquiry revealed high levels of disorganisation and incompetence because there are plenty who knew that well before any inquiry.
MDJ personal view which some will disagree with I am sure.
These press conferences are meant to provide information and clarity to Victorians related to the response to the current situation and therefore they are not the time or the place for this type of questioning. If every one of these press conferences were allowed to go down the path that this line of questioning takes us the very reason for having them gets lost . This is now about what is opened, what are the rules, what do the numbers mean, what's the next steps, what's the level of testing ?
I get concerned that if the Premier gets engaged with this stuff now ( remembering that he is a very political animal) he might say something like " we made mistakes but the death toll would have much lower if the Commonwealth government had done a decent job in private aged care". Where will that get us ? The answer is a cycle of political bickering and point scoring that will be counter productive in the short term at least.
The political questioning can happen later and I totally agree that it should happen but we need to keep focussing on the now imo.
As an aside I don't think the inquiry revealed high levels of disorganisation and incompetence because there are plenty who knew that well before any inquiry.
But when will the right time and place be? Andrews refused to answer questions once he announced the enquiry , falsely claiming he wasn’t allowed to while it was going on. He doesn’t want to answer the questions during his press conferences during the lock down. Now he said he doesn’t ( or can’t ) answer them until the inquiry releases its judgement. He wants to extend the state of emergency for who knows how long, so he can theoretically keep refusing to answer any questions like that until he resigns/ gets pushed out/ or the next election.
Considering how bad his and his government’s memory has been, wouldn’t the present be a good time to ask ?
The branch stacker speaks.
Why power is deep in Daniel Andrews’ DNA (paywalled)
Adam Somyurek
Herald Sun
September 30, 2020
Being a minister at the time of the now infamous “creeping assumption” decision to use private security guards in hotel quarantine, I share responsibility for the death of 780 Victorians, the cratering of our once strong economy and the locking down of the entire state.
Not because I was part of a collective cabinet decision-making process, but because I failed to insist the Premier comply with a proper cabinet process.
As the only former minister not constrained by party discipline, it is in the public interest that I attempt to shed light on how we got into such a mess, with so much pain and destruction for so many Victorians.
What is not in evidence before the inquiry is the decision-making processes of the executive and the potential intermediary role played by their staff (particularly the Premier’s staff). Therefore, it is assumed that the executive is captured by the bureaucracy whereas, in reality, the bureaucracy is docile and subservient to the micromanaging and commanding style of the Premier.
Daniel Andrews and I go back a long way, some 23 years to when we were rivals in opposing warring factional camps in the south east. Andrews was a key operator in one of the most brutal factional operations in the party — the southeastern Socialist Left. He was rewarded for his service with an elevation to assistant state secretary and then to a seat in parliament.
Andrews may be the only hard-core factional apparatchik to have ever become the Premier of a state government in Australia. The fact that Victoria has suffered the worst public policy disaster in Australian history, and still no one knows who made key decisions that caused the disaster, will affirm that backroom political operators should not be put in party leadership ever again.
Until hotel quarantine, Andrews had been lucky — he appeared to be pulling it off. There is good reason why factional apparatchik are not premiers.
They operate within informal, opaque processes, where scrutiny and transparency is non-existent and where written communication is discouraged. Factional operators are more interested in outcomes than procedural niceties. Andrews cut his teeth in this political milieu.
There is a certain degree of leeway that is afforded to reforming leaders with regard to due process in the belief that the ends justify the means. Therefore, Andrews’ crash-through style was mostly accepted as strong leadership — but those in the know always understood the dangers.
These learned reflexes were largely kept in check by former leader of the government in the Legislative Council, Gavin Jennings. He was both Andrews’ mentor and protector.
Jennings believed in the institution of parliament and cabinet government. Jennings understood that due process and collective decision making was there to provide good governance and protection. Andrews on the other hand believed due process was a waste of time and an unnecessary obstruction.
The retirement of Jennings from parliament in mid-March, removed any constraint left on Andrews. Within weeks, by April 3, Andrews had killed off cabinet government with the introduction of a “Crisis Cabinet.”
On March 27, he publicly decreed the use of private security guards in hotel quarantine without any cabinet decision at all.
Given Andrews’ penchant for informal processes, we do not have a definitive answer to the important question of who made the decision to use private security guards — but through deductive reasoning we can come up with a strong probability.
The fact is the hotel quarantine should have come before cabinet, and then the cabinet decision should have been operationalised by agencies and departments. This never happened. It is custom and practice for government policy decisions, legislation and spending decisions to go to cabinet, where 22 ministers, their staff and departments apply a rigorous level of scrutiny to proposals from ministers so that weaknesses or flaws can be identified.
A routine cabinet proposal requires among other things objectives, key issues, risks associated with the proposal, consultation, and stakeholder feedback. A minister taking to cabinet a hotel quarantine proposal with compliance managed by private security would have been questioned relentlessly given the industry’s sleazy reputation.
Ministers and public servants are intrinsically risk-averse, therefore there is very little likelihood that a minister would have taken such a risky proposal to cabinet unless prompted to do so by the leader.
Furthermore, quarantine is a federal matter, therefore portfolio responsibility falls to the Premier unless he allocates it to another minister. Andrews seems not to have done this before the announcement was made to use private security guards which means the ministerial responsibility buck stops with him.
Within government, that Andrews made the decision to use private security guards is not a matter of conjecture. Why he chose to make such a risky decision is a matter of much speculation.
For the first time in his leadership of 10 years, Andrews found himself without the calming guidance of Gavin Jennings. The result is the biggest public policy disaster in Australian history.
In Andrews’ government, everything is centralised and micromanaged, even the most talented ministers lack autonomy and the bureaucracy is cowered by central control. Take it from me, nothing happens by “creeping assumption” in this tightly controlled government.
Why power is deep in Daniel Andrews’ DNA (paywalled)
Adam Somyurek
Herald Sun
September 30, 2020
Being a minister at the time of the now infamous “creeping assumption” decision to use private security guards in hotel quarantine, I share responsibility for the death of 780 Victorians, the cratering of our once strong economy and the locking down of the entire state.
Not because I was part of a collective cabinet decision-making process, but because I failed to insist the Premier comply with a proper cabinet process.
As the only former minister not constrained by party discipline, it is in the public interest that I attempt to shed light on how we got into such a mess, with so much pain and destruction for so many Victorians.
What is not in evidence before the inquiry is the decision-making processes of the executive and the potential intermediary role played by their staff (particularly the Premier’s staff). Therefore, it is assumed that the executive is captured by the bureaucracy whereas, in reality, the bureaucracy is docile and subservient to the micromanaging and commanding style of the Premier.
Daniel Andrews and I go back a long way, some 23 years to when we were rivals in opposing warring factional camps in the south east. Andrews was a key operator in one of the most brutal factional operations in the party — the southeastern Socialist Left. He was rewarded for his service with an elevation to assistant state secretary and then to a seat in parliament.
Andrews may be the only hard-core factional apparatchik to have ever become the Premier of a state government in Australia. The fact that Victoria has suffered the worst public policy disaster in Australian history, and still no one knows who made key decisions that caused the disaster, will affirm that backroom political operators should not be put in party leadership ever again.
Until hotel quarantine, Andrews had been lucky — he appeared to be pulling it off. There is good reason why factional apparatchik are not premiers.
They operate within informal, opaque processes, where scrutiny and transparency is non-existent and where written communication is discouraged. Factional operators are more interested in outcomes than procedural niceties. Andrews cut his teeth in this political milieu.
There is a certain degree of leeway that is afforded to reforming leaders with regard to due process in the belief that the ends justify the means. Therefore, Andrews’ crash-through style was mostly accepted as strong leadership — but those in the know always understood the dangers.
These learned reflexes were largely kept in check by former leader of the government in the Legislative Council, Gavin Jennings. He was both Andrews’ mentor and protector.
Jennings believed in the institution of parliament and cabinet government. Jennings understood that due process and collective decision making was there to provide good governance and protection. Andrews on the other hand believed due process was a waste of time and an unnecessary obstruction.
The retirement of Jennings from parliament in mid-March, removed any constraint left on Andrews. Within weeks, by April 3, Andrews had killed off cabinet government with the introduction of a “Crisis Cabinet.”
On March 27, he publicly decreed the use of private security guards in hotel quarantine without any cabinet decision at all.
Given Andrews’ penchant for informal processes, we do not have a definitive answer to the important question of who made the decision to use private security guards — but through deductive reasoning we can come up with a strong probability.
The fact is the hotel quarantine should have come before cabinet, and then the cabinet decision should have been operationalised by agencies and departments. This never happened. It is custom and practice for government policy decisions, legislation and spending decisions to go to cabinet, where 22 ministers, their staff and departments apply a rigorous level of scrutiny to proposals from ministers so that weaknesses or flaws can be identified.
A routine cabinet proposal requires among other things objectives, key issues, risks associated with the proposal, consultation, and stakeholder feedback. A minister taking to cabinet a hotel quarantine proposal with compliance managed by private security would have been questioned relentlessly given the industry’s sleazy reputation.
Ministers and public servants are intrinsically risk-averse, therefore there is very little likelihood that a minister would have taken such a risky proposal to cabinet unless prompted to do so by the leader.
Furthermore, quarantine is a federal matter, therefore portfolio responsibility falls to the Premier unless he allocates it to another minister. Andrews seems not to have done this before the announcement was made to use private security guards which means the ministerial responsibility buck stops with him.
Within government, that Andrews made the decision to use private security guards is not a matter of conjecture. Why he chose to make such a risky decision is a matter of much speculation.
For the first time in his leadership of 10 years, Andrews found himself without the calming guidance of Gavin Jennings. The result is the biggest public policy disaster in Australian history.
In Andrews’ government, everything is centralised and micromanaged, even the most talented ministers lack autonomy and the bureaucracy is cowered by central control. Take it from me, nothing happens by “creeping assumption” in this tightly controlled government.
Yep. ..as I wrote. Andrews made the decision but will not own it.
Bloody revealing !
Fascinating to see what follows.
Bloody revealing !
Fascinating to see what follows.
So Andrews is not micro managing but widely a consultative leader? Somaruck is self serving but Andrwes is not? Even The Age wouldn't argue that. I take on board all perspectives. As much as I thought Mikakos was not up to it I would welcome her views now that she is not shackled by cabinet "solidarity"
Though the criticism of the article is that it is old news. Didn't need COVId to find out about Andrews leadership style, it's no secret.
Though the criticism of the article is that it is old news. Didn't need COVId to find out about Andrews leadership style, it's no secret.
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15 new cases, 2 deaths.
3rd consecutive daily increase in new case numbers. Whilst the numbers are not big you'd still want to see them going the other way. That target of 5 new cases for the 14 day rolling average is going to be a challenge.
3rd consecutive daily increase in new case numbers. Whilst the numbers are not big you'd still want to see them going the other way. That target of 5 new cases for the 14 day rolling average is going to be a challenge.
There is no doubt you need to take Somyurek's comments with a grain of salt; given the history between he and Andrews. But what I believe is not in doubt is Andrews' management style. He rules this government with an iron fist. It has always been his way or the highway; that has always been plain to see. He is a micromanager and a control freak. Given his style I find it very hard to believe that he would not have been across all facets of the response to this pandemic and given his imprimatur to the decisions made. I don't have an issue with that; in a situation like this I believe it is imperative that a leader leads.
However,. when it all goes tits up you can't plead ignorance. That is what I have found most disappointing.
The 14 day average for total cases has effectively been abandoned going by Andrews and Sutton's pressers recently. It's the total number of mystery cases that's the key - they'll open up on whatever the average for total cases if there are under 5 mystery cases over a 14 day period.
"Within government, that Andrews made the decision to use private security guards is not a matter of conjecture."
He is calling Andrews a liar. A bald-faced, criminal liar.
He is calling Andrews a liar. A bald-faced, criminal liar.
Thanks I did just see a headline that Sutton was alluding to that. Good news if that's they way they intend to go.
Gee politicians calling each other liars, wake me up when something new happens.
15 is not great, seems to be quite stubborn getting this down. I wonder how they are targeting testing and whether they are finding cases because they are looking in the right places. But, it remains a bit of a worry it is not getting down to consistent single figures.
Here's what it looks like:
Recent trends:
Last few days' numbers:
The drop in the rate of reduction in the 14 day average reflects the shorter-term averages stabilising and rising a little.
Have to keep trying to get this down.
DS
15 is not great, seems to be quite stubborn getting this down. I wonder how they are targeting testing and whether they are finding cases because they are looking in the right places. But, it remains a bit of a worry it is not getting down to consistent single figures.
Here's what it looks like:
Recent trends:
Last few days' numbers:
| Date | New Infections | 7 Day Trailing ave | 5 Day centred ave | 14 Day trailing ave |
|---|---|---|---|---|
26 September 2020 | 16 | 15.00 | 11.20 | 22.64 |
27 September 2020 | 5 | 14.14 | 11.20 | 20.86 |
28 September 2020 | 10 | 11.57 | 11.80 | 18.79 |
29 September 2020 | 13 | 11.43 | | 16.79 |
30 September 2020 | 15 | 12.00 | | 16.07 |
The drop in the rate of reduction in the 14 day average reflects the shorter-term averages stabilising and rising a little.
Have to keep trying to get this down.
DS
For sure. He would rather see a liberal government than an Andrews government as he hates him with a passion.
His view is different to the inquiries’ view on how the decision was made and I assume they would have had access to the minutes of the crisis cabinet meetings. IMO the premier making a decision at that level at that time was unlikely and that’s what the inquiry found (creeping assumption is what they found) but of course it is impossible to know 100%. However FWIW that is what I was told months ago before any inquiry.
I have always felt that the crisis cabinet at both a state and federal level should have had the leaders of the opposition on them to stop political point scoring and to have some bipartisan decision making in a crisis but Australian governments don’t seem to be mature enough to handle that.
I do however understand why they were formed and it is a fact that somyurek is ignoring. The normal cabinet process could never have handled the speed of decision making that was required at that time. Normal cabinet processes take lots of time and it takes months to get papers to them and decisions made.
Personally I still feel we need to get these stubborn numbers down and get to a new COVID normal as a community and this stuff can wait for now. To be clear I 100% agree that it should be dealt with but I don’t believe the time to do that is now when we have so much else still to do.
One that can't be traced to contact with a known positive case. Basically the tracing team can't work out where they caught the virus from.
