Liberal South-eastern Metropolitan MP Ann-Marie Hermans has compared former Premier Daniel Andrews to Joseph Stalin during a parliamentary debate on Wednesday, 27 August.
This first began with Western Metropolitan MP Moria Deeming’s opposition to a statue of former Premier Daniel Andrews, questioning whether Andrews “earned” the right to a statue.
She spoke on Andrews’ political career, labelling it as a disaster, and also said that statues are often tools of ‘political dominance’, giving examples such as Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong and Saddam Hussein.
Deeming also likened the Nuremberg trials to what she alleged was Andrews’ ignorance of bodily autonomy.
Labor South-eastern Metropolitan MP Micahel Galea interjected, but it was not long before Hermans began her speech by saying that Andrews’ leadership was comparable to Joseph Stalin, a totalitarian leader of the former Soviet Union.
Hermans further added that Stalin’s rule over the USSR was one built on “fear, on violence and on absolute control”, and that tactics such as total state control, over all aspects of life, free press, and political opposition, were comparable to Andrews’ tenure, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns.
The petition that Hermans and Deeming referred to garnered almost 35,000 signatures against Andrews’ proposed statue, with 12,000 present in paper, and 20,000 in other platforms.
Hermans added that in the unprecedented nature of the pandemic, the additional powers granted to the then State Government, which she described as ones designed for “short-term emergencies”, were over-extended, saying that it was a “permanent blueprint” for the “suspension of freedoms”.
Galea opposed Deeming’s comparisons, especially when Deeming revisited a 2013 car crash that involved Andrews’ family and a collision with then 15-year-old Ryan Meuleman, who was seriously injured and airlifted to the hospital.
Deeming alleged that the police response at the time was mishandled, where she included claims that no breath tests were conducted on either driver (Catherine Andrews and Ryan), and that the major crash investigation unit was not called.
Galea rebutted, saying that the “leader of the opposition’s representative”made “outrageous” comments against VicPol officers, amidst the death of two officers in Porepunkah, but also that Deeming’s reference to the Nuremberg trials was appalling.
Galea asked if Deeming was indeed serious about her comparisons, and that he was “gravely offended”, and while he did not care for the building of a statue, he wondered why Deeming had decided to “implement these bizarre tests”.
Hermans was also hit with a rebuttal by Eastern Victoria MP Tom McIntosh, who remarked that in three years of tenure, there were times when he could clearly remember that he was “deeply disturbed” by things that were said, with Hermans’ comments among them.
McIntosh, with the aid of southern metropolitan MP John Berger, added that Stalin was the perpetrator and the cause of the murder of millions of people.
He also said that those in parliament should be “very thoughtful” of the language being used, asking if the parliament wanted to go “down the path… where democracies are being destroyed”.
The comparisons to totalitarian figures such as Stalin, Mao, Lenin and Hussein drew criticism from the sitting parliament, with opponents warning that equating Andrews’ premiership with regimes marked by violence and mass killings diminished the weight of historical atrocities.
