Revenge is a dish best served in the Victorian upper house.
Adem Somyurek’s intervention may lead to some significant concessions by Labor, probably around the oversight provisions in the planned pandemic laws.
It seems unlikely that Victoria will be able to function during a pandemic without a framework for the government to enforce their rules, whatever they are at the time.
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The challenge for Dan Andrews will be how far he is prepared to bend and what model he adopts.
In one pragmatic sense, Somyurek might be doing the Victorian Premier a favour.
The draft laws have been widely condemned as excessive given the declining case numbers and the soaring vaccination rates.
The unpopular nature of the response is fuelled by Victoria’s world record breaking lockdowns and past draconian restrictions.
Specifically, whether or not measures like curfews were warranted and whether the 2020 mega lockdown went on for just too long.
Former Victorian Labor MP Adem Somyurek has revealed he plans to block the controversial pandemic management bill. Mr Somyurek has told the Herald Sun he believes the legislation gives "too much power to the government" and that it could lead to a "tyranny of rule by decree". Mr Somyurek's decision could mean the Victorian government will fall short of a majority today when the bill is voted on in parliament. The Andrews government had assumed the bill would win the Upper House vote with the support of three cross bench MPs.
By apparently failing to have the numbers in the upper house, Andrews has the opportunity to water down some of the provisions and appease his most trenchant critics, many of whom work in the state’s courts and are not sitting on the front steps of parliament.
He can also potentially use the stalled agenda – if it does stall – to run a fear campaign to wedge the opposition as a party prepared to undermine the pandemic health response.
The most immediate take, however, is that the government looks increasingly in turmoil and even out of control.
For the pandemic bill is actually at the core of the government’s political “recovery” after six lockdowns.
The planned laws effectively cut loose much of the chief health officer’s overarching influence, which is what key members of cabinet have been trying to do since 2020.
Brett Sutton, or whoever is CHO at the time, would still have influence, he just won’t be the person seen to be running the entire show.
For Somyurek, who has just finished several days of evidence before Victoria’s anti-corruption commission, the timing could not have been more exquisite.
The former minister will almost inevitably be heavily criticised by IBAC but the upper house numbers give him both influence and an opportunity for some form of political redemption.
Certainly among those who so vehemently oppose the Victorian response.
Somyurek’s power switch has been turned back on.
This is one of those stories that you just couldn’t make up.
Sky News host Peta Credlin says the “hits kept on coming” as disgraced former Andrews government minister Adem Somyurek continued his evidence at IBAC. Victoria’s anti-corruption watchdog on Tuesday played a secret tape of Somyurek and another disgraced Andrews government minister – Marlene Kairouz – talking about staffers doing “factional work” during taxpayer-funded hours. “And if that wasn’t bad enough, it was revealed Somyurek said ‘I’m gonna make the Indians pay’ in relation to alleged branch stacking in Melbourne’s southeast,” Ms Credlin said. “We may only be halfway through Somyurek’s public testimony, but already, the picture he’s painting of the Victorian Labor Party is clear.”
Melbourne
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https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMilgFodHRwczovL3d3dy50aGVhdXN0cmFsaWFuLmNvbS5hdS9jb21tZW50YXJ5L2Nvcm9uYXZpcnVzLWFkZW0tc29teXVyZWstYmFjay10by1ibG9jay1kYW4tYW5kcmV3cy1wb3dlci1wbGF5L25ld3Mtc3RvcnkvMGYzYmY5ZTMwZDg1MWY3MzE3MjAwZjNjNWZjODI4YTjSAZYBaHR0cHM6Ly9hbXAudGhlYXVzdHJhbGlhbi5jb20uYXUvY29tbWVudGFyeS9jb3JvbmF2aXJ1cy1hZGVtLXNvbXl1cmVrLWJhY2stdG8tYmxvY2stZGFuLWFuZHJld3MtcG93ZXItcGxheS9uZXdzLXN0b3J5LzBmM2JmOWUzMGQ4NTFmNzMxNzIwMGYzYzVmYzgyOGE4?oc=5
2021-11-17 22:38:00Z
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