The Nationals leader and Member for Murray Plains, Peter Walsh, has conceded Daniel Andrews might finally be right about something when he says Victorians are doing a good job.
But Mr Walsh said in all the Premier’s effusive carryon for the TV cameras each day; he manages to skip over some of the worst numbers to hit this state during the pandemic.
Because, he said, “if he was even half as good as the general public; we wouldn’t have the numbers we do”.
“And I want him to start listing those each day, when he and his mutual admiration society roll up for their daily chat show,” Mr Walsh said.
“I want the Premier to tell Victoria – and the rest of Australia – the whole story and I want him to start including in his daily dose the numbers of business closures,” he said.
“The number of bankruptcies.
“The number of school days lost.
“The number of mental health referrals.”
Mr Walsh said these numbers all count; and none of them would be as high as they are “if Andrews et al had not been bungling this pandemic from the get-go; had not botched contact tracing or hotel quarantine”.
“And certainly had not needed five lockdowns to get it right – that’s assuming they do get the whole job right, not just track down and eliminate the small number of cases we have but try and save all those small businesses and their hundreds of thousands of staff from being eliminated too,” Mr Walsh added.
“Premier, your government’s support for small business and sole traders has been, and still is, pitiful,” he said.
“You need to step up; and step up now – Victorian small business owners and the hundreds of thousands of people they employ, deserve much better than you are giving.”
