Jeff Kennett: Labor is in free fall, led by increasingly erratic Premier Jacinta Allan
The Labor Party is in free fall, led by an increasingly erratic Premier desperately grasping at straws as she slowly sinks below the waterline, taking the government and our entire state with her.
I wrote in last week’s column that the work that Brad Battin’s Liberal Party and their National Party partners had done had resulted in the Coalition leading Labor in the polls, driven by the community’s concern for their personal security and that of their property.
Further, the Labor Party had been doing their own polling which had them losing the forthcoming state election, which led to a range of announcements by Jacinta Allan. Again, just words, not action.
On Monday, the Premier told the Herald Sun that judges needed to hand down tougher sentences.
The Labor Party is in free fall. The Premier is increasingly erratic, desperately grasping at straws as she slowly sinks below the waterline, taking the government with her.
Her behaviour and comments over the last few weeks are reasons for concern. How can it be when, just a few weeks ago, she said Melbourne was a safe place to be?
How can it be that for two years, she and her motley crew have been giving safe harbour to those who commit criminal acts? Yet all of a sudden, she does a total about-face and is prepared to give life sentences to 14-year-olds.
Be quite clear: the Victorian Labor Party has allowed a culture of criminal activity to exist, to grow, with sadly at times deathly consequences.
Now in another brain fade, Allan is publicly blaming the judges, most of whom across all of the courts were appointed by her and Daniel Andrews, many of whom are political appointments so far to the left as to be an embarrassment.
To complete this week’s “what is she saying now?” observation, Allan is suggesting if not telling Australia’s superannuation funds that they should be using some of the public’s money to bail out her infrastructure projects and provide funds for basic capital expenditure that has always come from budget allocations.
All such projects are loss leaders. None will ever make money. Super funds cannot invest members’ money when there is no positive financial return for their members.
Let’s be quite clear, as Andrews’ sidekick, as his minister for infrastructure projects, and as Premier, Allan as well as Andrews have personally been responsible for the grossest mismanagement of Victoria’s economy.
To be frank, the reality is that there has been no management of the projects at all.
Contracts have been pushed to one side and all the demands by contractors have been met. Timelines are irrelevant. The Suburban Rail Loop project is just an employment undertaking without any concern for practical use or utilisation of the completed project.
Right now, the buses that provide a public transport system linking Cheltenham and Box Hill travel almost empty.
I have said before that when and if the first stage of the SRL is ever completed, it will only have two purposes.
One, as an underground bomb shelter in the event Victoria is ever under threat (probably from the international debt collectors). Or two, bring Puffing Billy down from the Dandenongs, stick some plastic trees along the walls of the SRL and have Puffing Billy travel backwards and forwards.
Andrews and Allan, with their mates James MacKenzie and Luke Sayers, came up with the idea of the Suburban Rail Loop. Today it is chaired by another failed former Labor minister, James Merlino.
Meanwhile, there are not enough paramedics to provide a reliable ambulance service, our teacher numbers are dropping like a stone, and our police officers are leaving in droves for Queensland where they are much better paid and their profession respected.
Because Labor has so destroyed Victoria’s economy, those of us left behind are being slugged with tax and charge increases beyond the capacity of many to pay. Land tax is killing small businesses, and families who have worked hard to buy a beach house or investment property.
Recently close to $1bn of investment capital fled interstate. Not only is Labor drowning, but so too is Victoria. Labor is taking us all down and they simply do not care.
Some of the more sensible Labor ministers are saying they can’t wait for the next state election, which they want to lose, because of what lies ahead.
Labor and the Greens working together have caused these problems. They must be politically exterminated.
Victoria’s sad decline is all self-inflicted by Labor. Worse, the federal Labor government is considering increasing the national debt to bail out Victorian Labor on the unfunded Suburban Rail Loop. Criminal!
If Victoria is going to offer any opportunity for our children, the Labor Party and their Green partners must be politically exterminated at the next election, otherwise we will all be advised to join those who have already left the state.
Time to act against gross mismanagement.
Jeff Kennett is a former premier of Victoria
Originally published as Jeff Kennett: Labor is in free fall, led by increasingly erratic Premier Jacinta Allan
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