Imagine you had a time machine and went back to Melbourne in November, 2020.

They’re under the harshest longest lockdown in the world. Police are arresting people at the park. They’re checking your coffee cup to make sure you’re not drinking beer.

Daniel Andrews is fronting up to daily press conferences and scolding Victorians for watching sunsets.

Some are calling him ‘Dictator Dan’.

And then you show them this photo taken five years in the future.

Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, Erdogan, Belarusian guy, and then standing in the corner is, um, Daniel Andrews?

The response you’d get from the locals would be unpublishable.

It’s astonishing.

We already wrote about the absurdity of Andrews and former New South Wales Premier Bob Carr attending the 80th Anniversary of the surrender of Japan ceremonies in China.

It’s a worthy anniversary, but it was also clearly going to be a massive propaganda event for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and with a guest list like that, the reputational risk was massive.

The Albanese government, to its credit and in contrast to its usual cosiness with the CCP, wisely sent a diplomatic representative as a courtesy and kept their ministers away.

Bob Carr also, at the last minute, thought better of attending.

But Dan Andrews turned up and got himself in the main leaders’ photo and a very warm handshake with Xi “Winnie-the-Pooh” Jinping.

By the way, remember that Daniel Andrews is no longer in any government role whatsoever. Being a former Premier means nothing in our system of parliamentary democracy. He’s a private citizen.

He’s just A Guy.

A guy standing alongside a murderer’s row of the World’s Hottest Authoritarians 2025 Edition, looking like he fits right in.

But beyond the ‘Dictator Dan’ jibes coming true, just reflect a moment on what is going on here.

Given Andrews is a private citizen, what is it that got him into that photo?

What connections does he have with the CCP that he’s so comfortable up there?

And how long have those clearly close connections been active?

Leave aside the Covid controversies, and it was still well known Andrews ran a brutal centralised government, largely sidelined his ministers, and shut out anyone who dissented.

And all the while he was cultivating these relationships behind closed doors.

The lack of accountability is a scandal, and it makes you concerned about how robust our democracy is in the face of someone willing to do this.

How is it that our system allows a state leader to run roughshod over his own constituents for three years and then leverage his connections and power into getting into the inner-circle of some of the most hostile regimes on the planet.

This photo should condemn Andrews in history and make him poison in polite society.

If he wants to throw his lot in with these guys, he’s welcome to.

But it should mean he is no longer welcome here.