Matt Johnston: Why the latest Victorian ministerial upheaval is significant for Premier Dan Andrews
Since 2014, Daniel Andrews’ cabinet has been plagued by controversy and scandal, but it may be the exit of core personnel that leaves him truly vulnerable.
Opinion
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Eighteen ministers have quit, retired or been dumped since the Andrews government formed in late 2014.
Over two terms, that’s enough people to fill an entire cabinet.
While an extraordinary figure, the slow bleed from the executive has not yet caused a haemorrhage.
This week’s great resignation of senior ministers represents a more significant injury, however.
Deputy Premier and Education Minister James Merlino, Sport and Tourism Minister Martin Pakula, Health Minister Martin Foley and Police Minister Lisa Neville are set to retire in November.
They join current cabinet colleague Richard Wynne, who is Planning Minister, in the November departure lounge.
These five ministers lead their respective departments.
They oversee some of the biggest-spending, and most politically important, of all government departments outside Treasury.
Merlino has led the Education and Training Department since 2014 and quietly embarked on reform while overseeing 100 new schools being planned or built.
Neville took over as Police Minister in 2016, when law and order was threatening to turn sour and became the Coalition’s 2018 election campaign weapon.
She kept her treasured water portfolio, so remained in charge of the Environment Department.
Pakula, once touted as a potential premier – a compliment also recently bestowed upon Mr Merlino – was Attorney-General in the first term and is top dog at the Department of Jobs.
Wynne has held his planning portfolio since 2014, championed social policy alongside left-wing colleagues such as Foley, and now leads the new Department of Families, Fairness and Housing.
Foley has been a minister since 2014 but took on health mid-pandemic when Jenny Mikakos resigned following an inquiry into a botched hotel quarantine scheme.
Merlino, Pakula, Neville and Wynne were in cabinet during the Bracks and/or Brumby years. Foley is one of two non-Bracks and Brumby era MPs sworn in to cabinet for the first time in 2014 who have lasted until 2022, the other being Jaala Pulford.
This is remarkable, and a potential problem long-term.
Some of the 18 ministers who have come and gone were the victims of scandal.
Others were burned out or realised there was more to life than the brutal politics their leader espouses.
But five experienced ministers walking out the door in unison is different.
Those MPs are key lieutenants.
They were in the nine-member crisis council of cabinet as co-ordinating ministers deciding on pandemic controls.
Whether you rate their performances or not, they have helped shape the state over eight years or longer.
Wynne and Foley are senior left-wing warriors, an integral part of the Premier’s Praetorian Guard.
The announcement by Andrews will be badged as “regeneration” and is far enough from the November election for Labor to talk down the perception of a sinking ship – though the Coalition will feast on that narrative.
In 2010, when the Brumby government was looking wobbly before an election it would go on to lose, ministers Peter Batchelor and Bob Cameron waited until October to pull the pin.
This time, the transition will be more orderly – Labor hopes – and the polls are different. Andrews still has his trusty Treasurer, Tim Pallas, as well as his chosen successor, Jacinta Allan, by his side. He thrives on adversity, so he will adapt.
But the exit of core personnel leaves the Premier vulnerable.
Since 2014 his cabinet has been plagued by controversy and scandal which, to cite the famous Monty Python “black knight” sketch, the Premier may describe as “but a scratch”.
Maybe the great resignation will indeed be “just a flesh wound”, or perhaps it will be deeper.
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Originally published as Matt Johnston: Why the latest Victorian ministerial upheaval is significant for Premier Dan Andrews
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