Terry McCrann: Andrews must go, two to replace him
Removing Daniel Andrews as Victorian Premier is about holding to account a leader who has presided over the worst public policy catastrophe in modern Australian history. And it’s crucial we choose the right replacement, writes Terry McCrann.
Terry McCrann
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Daniel Andrews must go as Victorian premier and he must go now. So who should replace him?
I could borrow from his deflection playbook, and write something like that it’s up to others to decide or I’ll have to get the options programmed through the supercomputer.
But deflection aside there are two obvious and capable successors – deputy premier James Merlino and treasurer Tim Pallas.
The first point to understand about both the departure of Andrews and who should replace him is that this is not a normal political event – with all, in this case, the Victorian Labor Party members jostling to decide who can lead them to success at the next election.
This is not a Julia Gillard stalking an inept Kevin Rudd moment; or a Rudd returning the ‘compliment’ a few years later; a Malcolm Turnbull stalking any and everyone who is leader, including Tony Abbott; Abbott and a mini-bus load of contenders subsequently returning that ‘compliment’.
This is about fundamental governance. This is about holding to account a government leader who has presided over the worst public policy catastrophe in modern Australian history; and selecting an effective replacement.
And by preside, I mean all and every bone of the controlling strings have led to Andrews’s desk and only to Andrews’s desk – and on to the uncharted recesses of his mind.
Again, is there a person in Victoria who is in any doubt that all the decisions were and are made by Andrews and Andrews to all serious intents alone. He might take advice; more accurately he channels the advice to order. But he decides. And the insider eight nod in unison.
This is not the case of a premier whom I am asking to take theoretical form responsibility for dreadful decisions and actions made or overseen by his subordinate ministers. But for those decisions and actions of himself.
As I argued yesterday, if the word accountability is to have any meaning in our political and governance life, this is the most strident example.
That accountability is also, though, importantly, a two-way street.
By failing to hold errant ministers to account for the quarantine disaster, Andrews scooped into his own hands total responsibility. Now accountability is on the other foot, so to speak.
If the key ministers, the broader cabinet and indeed the parliamentary party overall, now do not insist that he depart, they collectively absorb and forever share the governance failure that has wreaked massive havoc across Victoria.
This is about the premier’s accountability. It is about breaking the almost zombie-like shuffle to even more catastrophe from Sunday’s so-called ‘road-map’.
It is about selecting a new broom, a new capable broom, to reassess the path Victoria is on and to chart a fresh course that can deliver hope to 6.5 million Victorians and win the confidence not just of the shattered, shuttered and battered business community but the broader community.
It is not about selecting the best political leader. There is time enough for that well before the next election.
This is about competent management that breaks the spell of Andrews’s self-delusional paranoia. The treasurer fits that description. He has been a steady hand on the state’s finances. He has always been fair and honest with business.
Deputy-premier Merlino is similar. Here I can genuinely say; it’s not up to me, but for the Labor Party to decide.
It’s not really about who can lead the party; it is about who must lead the state – out of the Andrews miasma.
Originally published as Terry McCrann: Andrews must go, two to replace him