Daniel Andrews doesn’t care, but he has lost his moral compass

2 weeks ago 3

Former state premier Daniel Andrews clearly just doesn’t give a stuff any more about what people think.

Footage of the former Victorian leader shaking hands with the Chinese Communist Party’s supreme leader, Xi Jinping – and then posing with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un– is not just an opportunity to try out some jokes about “Dictator Dan”.

It’s actually quite serious.

Andrews was present for China’s celebration of 80 years since Japan’s surrender at the end of World War II. Tanks, troops and fighter jets rolled by as world leaders, including Putin and Kim watched. Canberra kept its ambassador away, sending a lower-level diplomat instead.

Defenders of Andrews may argue that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese recently travelled to China and shook hands with Xi as well. But the prime minister did not pose alongside a roster of dictators and autocrats, admire China’s military might or give comfort and succour to undemocratic regimes from around the world by palling around with their leaders.

Putin has overseen murderous wars against Ukraine and other neighbours that have killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and his own citizens, while locking up dissidents and enriching himself and his cronies to the tune of billions of dollars over the last 25 years.

Just on Wednesday, Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of murdered former Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, came to Canberra to petition leaders while urging the world to “be braver over Putin”.

Kim, the third in a generational dictatorship that oversaw the deaths of between 600,000 and 1 million North Koreans in a mid-1990s famine, is best known for threatening the country’s neighbours with nuclear weapons and imprisoning the citizens of his hermit kingdom.

It’s not clear if Andrews got a chance to discuss the Suburban Rail Loop with Kim, who stood three rows in front of him, or if Vlad and Dan (six people apart from each other) got a chance to discuss the back nine at Kingston Heath.

Andrews, reviled and celebrated since the COVID-19 lockdown years, has a long history of brushing off criticism.

“Dictator Dan” is the nickname that has stuck, long after he stepped down from Victoria’s top job, his name still brandished on placards as recently as the weekend’s March for Australia.

But Andrews has always ignored the brickbats and his success as an election-winning machine speaks for itself: even if Victorians hated lockdowns, they kept voting for him.

Now that he is in the private sector, with a business consultancy that has an interest in China, his clout is far weaker than it was, but while he can’t sign a Belt-and-Road style deal as he did while premier, there is commercial utility in rubbing shoulders with Xi.

What is clear is that Andrews’ attendance has created an unwanted distraction for the Albanese government, which has carefully tried to repair the Beijing-Canberra relationship while maintaining the right amount of distance.

Every single press conference on a busy day in parliament was hijacked by questions about Andrews.

Albanese and Andrews go back to the 1990s, when they shared a flat and worked in Canberra together, and Albanese was playing a straight bat to defend his mate on Wednesday. He said Andrews was not meeting with Kim or Putin and noted that the former Coalition had sent then-minister for veterans’ affairs Michael Ronaldson to a similar parade a decade ago.

Given that Andrews was not meeting one-on-one with the North Korean or Russian dictators, perhaps he could chat with Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian, whose government organised antisemitic attacks on Australian soil. After all, we sent Iran’s ambassador packing last week.

Bob Carr, another former premier who is also in Beijing for the broader commemorations of the 80th anniversary, belled the cat when he decided not to go to the parade.

Despite being a vocal defender of China for years, including serving as the director of the Australia-China Relations Institute, Carr read the play and had a last-minute change of heart because he did not want to attend a “Soviet-style” military parade.

Andrews’ attendance has temporarily upset the delicate equilibrium of the renewed Australia-China relationship and become an irritant for the Albanese government.

Andrews never did make any apologies for his decisions, and he revels in the fact that he’s not obliged to provide a running commentary now.

But the fact that Andrews’ political allies are having to make excuses for him because he’s given a PR win, comfort and cover to a rogue’s gallery of dictators, autocrats and murderers, suggests he has lost his moral compass.

And that’s worth giving a stuff about.

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