James Campbell: Broken Liberal Party doesn’t faze Daniel Andrews
While the failings of the Andrews government ought to be bringing the Liberal Party together, some seem determined to settle scores through the media in a way that can only help the ALP. It seems the Libs will never be strong enough to dent the power structures in this state, writes James Campbell.
James Campbell
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A bag of post that had been forwarded on from the office arrived this week.
Like everyone else, journalists don’t get much mail these days as people are more likely to email or leave a comment online.
So it was a surprise to tip out the bag and find more than a dozen people had taken the time over the past few weeks to sit down and write letters. One or two were abusive but the majority of the writers were bewildered and wanted an answer to a simple question: how has he got away with it?
The “he” is Daniel Andrews of course, and the “it” — well, you can take your pick: For some it’s the destruction of the CFA, others still can’t believe this government got away with flushing a billion and half down the toilet to not build the East West Link.
How is it possible some wonder that the government managed to skate through the Red Shirts scandal or the ongoing fiasco that is the West Gate Tunnel project? Why are people not up in arms about the explosion in public sector pay –—along with the numbers of people on the public payroll — when as we have seen in this pandemic the performance of our state government has been so much worse than their counterparts in other states?
Come to think of it, why has Victoria’s response to the pandemic been so much worse? Why was DHHS’s contact tracing regime not fit for purpose? How come Victoria Police could say to the government “we’re not doing hotel quarantine,” knowing it would meekly agree?
In short, how did we come to be in this mess? To which I would answer, why are you surprised? What did you expect?
In 2020 the Australian Labor Party is simply a machine for shovelling money to public sector workers. Nothing more, nothing less.
Daniel Andrews’s genius was to realise that the modern inner city left wing voter doesn’t really care what they get for this money: as long as he was hated by the people they hate, he’s OK with them.
His other great insight was to comprehend how utterly broken Victorian Liberal Party has become. The last two Labor premiers of Victoria, Steve Bracks and John Brumby, had been traumatised by the party’s near death experience in 1992 and knew what could happen if Labor didn’t govern well.
Nothing he has said or done in the five years he has been Premier would make one think Daniel Andrews believes that can happen again. And why would he? Since 1979 the Liberal Party in Victoria has only managed to win three elections — Kennett’s two wins in ’92 and ’96 — and Ted Baillieu’s surprise win 2010.
In Labor mythology, Baillieu’s one-seat win was an accident, the product of a poor campaign. And the ease with which the Labor establishment saw off the Baillieu-Napthine government shows the myth has more than a grain of truth to it.
That experience showed that in the 11 years they were out of office the Victorian Liberals had lost the knack of governing. It wasn’t just the dud ministers, though there were a few of those, or the second-rate people they employed as staffers, it was the fact that most of the public servants who had thrived under Bracks and Brumby were left undisturbed, not because ministers were under any misapprehension that they were loyal to them, but because in many cases there was simply nobody competent to replace them with.
Sensing weakness, the public sector unions made as much trouble as possible with school strikes and a pay campaign that saw ambulances covered in anti-government slogans, while on election day in 2014 voters were greeted at polling booths by UFU members handing out in fake firefighters uniforms.
The only rational conclusion an observer of those years could draw was that while the Liberals might win the odd election they will never be strong enough or around long enough to really dent the power structures in this state so you would be mad to get on the wrong side of the ALP.
Unfortunately the consequences of living in a one party state are before us. And sadly, if anything the Liberal Party seems to be getting worse rather than better.
The manifest failings of the Andrews Government ought to be bringing them together. Instead elements of the party seem to be determined to settle scores through the media in a way that can only help the ALP.
It goes without saying the leaking and counter-leaking that has been going on this week is the sign of a party that is in a very bad way, which is why some people are starting to openly muse about attempting some sort of federal intervention on the ALP model.
It is a superficially attractive proposition but when you look at it more deeply it becomes clear the people pushing the idea like it because they think it will be a way for them to reassert control they think has been wrongly taken for them.
Federal intervention might end the current shenanigans but won’t fix what’s really wrong with the Victorian Liberal Party. It won’t help it to build its presence in the west and north of Melbourne, where it holds zero seats.
Running things from Canberra won’t suddenly produce an exciting crop of people prepared to put their hands up for seats either, though to be fair it might be able to move on some of the people in state parliament who need moving on.
Nor will it encourage real members to join in sufficient numbers so that it becomes impervious to attempts by crooks and charlatans using single-issue fanatics to stack it for their own ends.
Indeed disenfranchising the membership by federal intervention would be likely to drive normal people away.
James Campbell is a Herald Sun columnist