Well, to Victoria situation Victoria

suggests the premier, Daniel Andrews,has reached the point of no return.

The head of the premier's department,Chris Henckels, has this morning resigned.

He has given evidence to the quarantine

inquiry about the appointmentof private security guards.

Contrary to the truth, basically,he said he hadn't made phone calls

to the then police commissioner when,in fact, he had.

In the scheme of things, I have to say,it is no big deal relative to all else.

The former health minister whom Andrews

threw out of the bus has confirmedthat a breakdown in cabinet procedure

and governancewas the main cause for the hundreds

of deaths that have taken place becauseof the botched hotel quarantine program.

The former health minister,

Jenny McCarthy,has told the inquiry that the quarantine

program was set up in hasteand that responsibility for the design

and implementation was givento the Jobs Minister, Martin Pakula.

But lines of accountability said

the reporting was such that propercabinet process had been subverted.

And she told the inquiry cop this to treatMr Andrews evidence with caution.

Her political career seems finished unless

her version of events gainsfavour with the inquiry.

But it's clear the Labor Party in Victoriais mobilising against Daniel Andrews.

Mikakos may be gone.

It now seems she'll takeDaniel Andrews with them.

I have spoken relentlessly about thiswhole government approach to coronavirus.

I would have said more today exceptthat other matters have overtaken us.

But let me just say this.

The World Health Organisation is now

appealing to world leaders telling themto stop, quote, using lockdown's as your

primary control methodfor the coronavirus.

We at the World Health Organisation do not

advocate Lockdown's as the primarymeans of control of this virus.

What I've been saying that for months

and months, Melbourne's locked down is oneof the strictest and longest in the world.

But such as Melbourne,

we've got them everywherein the restaurant industry,

the wedding industry on the beach,going to the football.

There are lockdowns.

No one can justify the figures.

Why can twenty thousand go to a footballmatch if it is twenty thousand?

I've forgotten the numbers.The figures keep changing.

Why don't twenty five thousandif only one hundred and fifty can go

to a major event venuethat can cater a thousand?

Where does the figure onehundred and fifty come from?

If this economy is going to find its feet,lockdown's have to go now.

Now there is a thing calledthe Great Barrington Declaration.

It's a proposal written and signed

at the American Institutefor Economic Research in Great Barrington,

Massachusetts,on October four, eight days ago,

addressing the responseto this coronavirus.

And the declaration asserts

that Lockdown's have adverse effectson public physical and mental health

with a particular burdenfor the underprivileged,

and that the focus should instead beon shielding those most at risk

with fewer restrictions placedon the remainder of the population

in order to reduce the herdimmunity threshold.

This was authorised by distinguishedepidemiologists from Oxford University,

Stanford University and Harvardand cosigned by a stack of world

authorities, many of whom I've referredto on this program in the past.

So Netra Gupta from Oxford,Professor Bhattacharya from Stanford.

Professor Mountain cooled off

from Harvard, the Nobel Prizewinner, Michael Leavitt.

The list is impressive.

As of yesterday,the Great Barrington Declaration about

Lockdown's reportedthere were 340000 signatures.

The point is what I've been making

for months,the response in all this has lacked any

sense of proportion and we mustnow live with the consequences.

There is a global catastrophe, right?

Not in terms of death,but in terms of the response.

As my colleague Chris Kenny wrotesplendidly at the weekend, quote,

will not know whether we have blownthe pandemic response economically,

medically and sociallyuntil the worst of it's over.

Yet 10 months in early fears that we'veopted for expensive and damaging temporary

measures to stave off a permanentpest have only grown, he writes.

After a year of jobs axed, industry shut,schools closed, family separated,

events cancelled, travel preventedand communities crushed.

This week we saw the fiscalside of the equation.

It broke our budget deficit record,smashed Wayne Swan's 2009 and 2010 efforts

four times over, and notched up ourfirst trillion dollar debt forecast.

Well, may we argue,

as the distinguished Henry Ergas wrotelast week, the exaggerated perceptions

of this disease have causedus so much avoidable damage.