Former Victorian public servant claims he was ‘stifled from the very beginning’

Former economist at the Victorian Treasury Department Sanjeev Sabhlok, who resigned after being stifled by superiors, has told Sky News top public servants chose not to “rock the boat” as it was not welcome by their “political masters”.

Mr Sabhlok recently resigned from his post at the Victorian Department of Finance and Treasury after being asked to remove online posts criticising the state’s management of the pandemic.

In an exclusive television interview with Sky News host Peta Credlin, Mr Sabhlok said that he raised objections in February claiming data was sufficient to look at actions to “isolate the elderly to protect them” whilst letting the rest of society to “continue with precautions”.

Mr Sabhlok said he was told this was “not the department’s job”, but in fact the purview of the Department of Health and Human Services.

“I’ve been stifled from the very beginning,” he said

“Normally treasury provides holistic advice. That’s the whole point of economics.

He said the Victorian government quickly imposed approaches emblematic of “extreme overreach”.

“We started reaching from one heavy handed approach to the more heavy handed approaches,” according to Mr Sabhlok.

“The public service has not served its role in terms of being an independent and free and fearless source of analysis which provides the government with a wide range of impacts”.

He said the “contractual arrangements” of senior public servants may have made them “bias towards supporting the status quo”.

“I think this whole thing has been policy on the run, and the worst example of policy making in my entire life,” he said.

“We’re focussing on one item, but society has a wide range of issues involved, a wide range of health impacts, economic impacts, psychological, and wellbeing (impacts).

“The entire decision making of every single activity is in fact … communism in practice.

“When the justification is not provided (for restrictions) and proportionality is not there, then the legitimacy of the government itself fails.”