In what’s easily the most Galaxy Brained take of the season, a senior member of the Victorian Liberal Party has openly attempted to question the circumstances surrounding Premier Dan Andrews‘ very real and very serious back injury, which has had him on the shelf since early March.
Shadow Treasurer Louise Staley, who I very much have to stress is an opposition frontbencher and is not some backbench crank, has put out one of the most patently bananas press releases in recent memory, demanding the absolute millisecond-precise minutiae of Andrews’ injury.
Staley, in her press release that she apparently is quite serious about, asserted that “Daniel Andrews has been off on sick leave for 91 days. He has continued to be paid as Premier despite not doing the job.” Which is a real Mask Off moment in that Staley was apparently today years old when she found out what paid sick leave is.
Where the tin foil really starts crinkling, however, is in the wild list of questions that Staley believes Andrews “must answer before he comes back to work.”
If you’ve already blown through your lockdown stash of sweets, fear not. Because this is a treat:
- What time did the incident occur?
- Who was in the house at the time of the incident?
- What is the address of the house where it occurred?
- Who owns the property?
- What time was an ambulance called?
- Who called the ambulance?
- What time did the ambulance arrive?
- Which ambulance station was the ambulance dispatched from?
- Who made the decision to take the Premier to Peninsula Private?
- Were the police contacted?
- Did the police attend?
- Has Daniel Andrews been interviewed either formally or informally by the police in relation to anything that occurred over that long weekend?
Nice to see a high-ranking public official approach a workplace injury with all the energy of an untalented and over-ambitious department store assistant manager stirring up shit in a bid to get the manager fired.
The Victorian Liberals are now claiming a cover up over Daniel Andrews’ extended leave pic.twitter.com/cuxAbfxonV
— Luke Henriques-Gomes (@lukehgomes) June 7, 2021
Of these questions, Staley says, that “if there is no cover up then there is no reason not to provide answers to these simple questions.” Which is the kind of thing you’d expect to be yelled about in relation to why Tasty Toobs got discontinued.
Andrews, for whatever this is worth, suffered broken ribs and a fractured T7 vertebrae after slipping on wet stairs while on holiday down the Mornington Peninsula. A ten-second Google reveals that the average recovery time for such an injury is around three months.
The injury happened on March 9. It’s June 7 today.
Take a lap, Louise.
