Steve Price: is our new Premier Jacinta Allan qualified to run the state and erase debt?

Dan’s parting gift to Victoria was appointing a 50-year-old arts graduate who has been on the public payroll for the last three decades as his successor, but can she save our once great state?

Will Jacinta Allan be the new premier Victoria needs?

Daniel Andrews quit as the 48th Premier of Victoria four weeks ago next Tuesday.

Twelve days earlier in this column I wrote an open letter suggesting it was time he went. I have no delusion that Andrews would have read that letter or even known about it.

It’s political legend that Daniel enjoyed being disliked, hated even. I didn’t hate him, I just thought he was a dreadful Premier who used the misery of Covid to prove how he could, with the stroke of a pen, lockdown the citizens of Victoria.

His arrogant dismissal of mainstream media as an inconvenient annoyance became a weapon as he took perverse pleasure torturing the Spring St media pack during hours-long media conferences. Batting away any suggestion of incompetence and denying policy errors had anything to do with him he soaked it all up and then retreated to social media to read nice things about himself from the I STAND WITH DAN mob.

Then Deputy Premier Jacinta Allen and Premier Daniel Andrews during Question Time at Victorian Parliament in May. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Geraghty

A bunch of delusional sycophants inside and outside his office telling him how great he was, and Victoria and Victorians were lucky to have such a great man in charge. It was all nonsense of course and his nine-year rule ended with Victoria in more debt than NSW and Queensland combined, a raft of over budget and overtime infrastructure projects bleeding money and a bloated lazy public service dragging the state down.

In nine years he turned Melbourne - in particular- and Victoria in general into a rundown, often depressing and expensive place to live and do business. His parting gifts were a raft of residential property taxes and workplace insurance levies that are crippling the people of this state.

His other parting gift was Jacinta Allan the 50-year-old Arts Graduate from Latrobe University. Jacinta was anointed by Andrews at what has been reported as an expletive laden party room meeting that dared question the dear departing leader over his choice of a successor. Sadly, I was out of the country and unable to celebrate Dan’s departure but there really is nothing to celebrate.

Jacinta Allan when she was announced as the new Premier of Victoria at Parliament House in Melbourne. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

We all know the fish rots from the head and the new Premier will have learnt at the feet of the man many Victorians couldn’t wait to get rid of.

Jacinta Allan might well be a very pleasant woman and she is clearly a clever political operator to have survived the factional bloodhouse of the Victorian branch of the ALP but you have to ask what qualifications does she have to not only run the multi-billion dollar economy of Victoria but to fix Andrews’ mess and get us out of crippling debt. It’s all well and good to be good at factional politics but Victoria needs so much more than that.

The new Premier just turned fifty, is two times married, and has two children. Her husband Yorick Piper is an ex-CFMEU official and Labor Ministerial adviser. Jacinta Allan’s dad was President of the Trades Hall Council in Bendigo.

Premier Allan joined the ALP at the age of 19 and worked as a political staffer before being elected to Parliament at age 25, becoming the youngest female Minister in Victorian Government history.

An impressive CV – or is it?

For 31 years she has either been a political staffer or a Labor politician with no real- world work experience outside of politics let alone any idea of how to run a business or take a personal risk financing one. She has been on the public payroll all her adult life!

Dan Andrews was the same a career politician with no idea about running a business let alone sticking to a budget.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan had a variety of ministerial jobs before she became premier, but with varied success. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

Premier Allan has had a variety of Ministerial jobs with varied success. She has been Education, Employment, Youth Affairs, Industry and Trade and Public Transport Minister.

More recently – and this is where you start having doubts – the new Premier was responsible for two infrastructure projects - the Suburban Rail Loop and the Metro Tunnel. The Metro Tunnel was reported back in June to be $364 million over Budget and the financial position is likely to get worse.

On the Suburban Loop the Financial Review reported back in 2022 it was expected to cost four times original estimates and could blow out to $200 billion.

It gets worse ten days ago an Upper House inquiry into the shock dumping of the Commonwealth Games was told the then minister in charge – Allan – was told the cost of the games was blowing out badly four months before they were dumped. She was in charge and according to the State Opposition continued to claim she was unaware the costs had soared.

Worse the new Premier refuses to front the inquiry to tell taxpayers what she knew and when.

Premier Allan has obviously learnt a lot from her predecessor Daniel Andrews and that’s bad news for all of us. She does however deserve the chance to prove her critics wrong and change the tone and direction left by him.

To give her a chance, here is a small wishlist she might like to run her eye over.

- Scrap any new drug injecting room for the CBD and close down the Richmond facility.

- Sack the Melbourne City Council and appoint an administrator to take control of the CBD.

- Abandon the state-based Indigenous treaty process based on last Saturday’s referendum result.

- Tell Canberra that Melbourne is full, and any new migrants should be settled somewhere else.

- Repeal Dan Andrews’ greedy property tax increases and get the rental market back on track.

- Suspend the Suburban Rail Loop project and divert funds to an airport rail link.

- Establish a Royal Commission into Labor’s handling of the Covid crisis.

- Amalgamate bloated money wasting local government councils.

- Re-engage with mainstream media to inform voters and be held responsible for decisions.

- Finally fix the outdated public transport ticketing system.

Jacinta, all the best and good luck.

As a postscript, how refreshing to see New Zealand last weekend elect a new PM that has business experience and intends running his country more like a c corporation. The new PM is a bloke called Christopher Luxon a 53- year-old only in the Parliament for three years and not a career politician but a businessman who ran multi-national company Unilever and was CEO of Air New Zealand.

Why can’t we find someone like that?

DISLIKES

- A $240 fine and one demerit point for doing 44kmh in a 40km zone – hardly road safety.

- The AFL continuing to pour money into the AFLW despite crowds being worse than ever.

- Road authorities still refusing to ban heavy vehicles from the right-hand lanes of multi- lane freeways and toll roads.

A $240 fine and a demerit point for travelling 44kmh in a 40kmh zone? Hardly road safety.

- Historical bullying claims against State politicians to be excluded from a new parliamentary integrity commission.

LIKES

- Automatic passport readers accepting Australian documents at EU and UK airports.

- Cost of living in places like Italy where you are not paying through the nose for alcohol and coffee.

- Australian sensibility in rejecting a badly argued and flawed Voice referendum.

- Watching celebrities and multi-national corporate CEO’s squirm at the Voice result.

Originally published as Steve Price: is our new Premier Jacinta Allan qualified to run the state and erase debt?