A Good Word for the ‘Culturally Unsafe’ Daniel Andrews

My hands tremble over the keyboard as I type this, but fairness obliges me to offer a few good words for Daniel Andrews. I may be the first writer ever to do so in the pages of Quadrant, come to think of it, though I promise I won’t turn this spirit of inclusion and charity into a habit.

If re-elected at the November state election, the Labor government has pledged to rebuild and expand Maroondah hospital in Melbourne’s east. A new hospital needs a new name, the Premier has sensibly argued, and his proposal strikes me as a jolly good one: the site is to be named in honour of Queen Elizabeth II. Two — ah, dash it, make it three — cheers for Daniel Andrews and his tribute to our late monarch.

The Victorian First People’s Assembly and the Greens, however, aren’t all that frightfully keen on the idea, and they’ve registered their objection in a typically fatuous manner. Assembly co-chair Marcus Stewart trotted out the line that every sooky activist and politician…