Matthew Bach: Dan Andrews’ Labor Party blaming its own mess on Jeff Kennett

Labor has been in power for 18 of the last 22 years, but that hasn’t stopped Andrews from blaming Victoria’s current problems on a man who became Premier more than 30 years ago.

My fellow Victorians, we need to get something straight.

Many of you are labouring under the pernicious misapprehension that Daniel Andrews and his government have something to do with the current state of affairs here in Victoria.

That Labor, which has been in power for 18 of the last 22 years, might actually be responsible for something.

You seem to think that Andrews should be held accountable for the numerous Victorians who have died while on hold to triple-0 recently.

Or for the fact that you’re now statistically more likely to be crushed by a falling piano in our state than actually get elective surgery.

Or for endemic ambulance ramping that means people in a health crisis often spend more time in the hospital car park than in the emergency room.

Andrews may have been Premier or health minister for 11 of the last 15 years, but none of this – none – has the foggiest to do with him. Get it?

Others of you seem to think that he’s added to the spiralling cost of living. That Victoria’s record debt and deficit, scores of new taxes and $28bn of waste on major projects since 2014 is down to Mr Andrews.

Nothing, at all, is the fault of the Andrews government, if you ask Dan and his minsters.

That’s not to mention our kids’ lost learning, after 170 days of school closures, and crushed mental health. Andrews might have something to do with that, you say.

But you’re wrong. You’re all wrong. You’re being Jeffed!

Jeff Kennett was Liberal premier of Victoria from 1992-99. And just because he was Premier 30 years ago shouldn’t allow him to shirk responsibility for what’s happening now.

Oh no!

Personally, my recollections of his time in office are a little hazy. After all, I was nine when he was sworn in, and rather more focused on perfecting my finger painting than on politics.

To me, and to most other Victorians under the age of 40, Jeff’s that guy from the Hawthorn footy club with the silly jacket.

To others, he’s the regular (and very sensible) columnist on this page.

But to members of the Victorian Labor Party he is the Dark Lord. Satan. Lucifer. The Morning Star. The reason for everything that’s wrong with Victoria today. Everything.

A simple online search of Victoria’s Parliamentary Debates shows that Labor members of parliament have sought to explain how we’re all still being Jeffed on hundreds of occasions in this term of parliament alone.

Rising energy prices? Jeff’s fault.

As Will Fowles, Member for Burwood and enemy of doors everywhere, has explained, retailers continue to “run amok in this great state due to the privatisation regime of the Kennett government”.

A lack of rolling stock on our rail network? Jeff!

Public Transport Minister Ben Carroll said earlier this year that after the “Kennett government privatised public transport the train orders went to Austria and France”.

The current health crisis is definitely on Jeff. Labor members incessantly talk about Kennett’s hospital amalgamations of more than a quarter of a century ago.

Jeff Kennett was Liberal premier of Victoria from 1992-99, but that hasn’t stopped Labor on blaming him for the state’s current problems. Picture: David Caird

It’s weird though.

While Jeff was apparently privatising everything that wasn’t nailed down to fix the steaming economic mess he inherited from Labor (although I don’t think that was their fault either), he was also doing nothing.

As Jacinta Allan again explains: “For so many years not a lot was done”. Huh!

Right across the board, Jeff’s still Jeffing us. Upper House MP and so-called TAFE ambassador Sonja Terpstra says of Jeff: “the legacy that has been left still provides challenges for governments many years after those things were done.”

If we’re going to go back to the ’90s to find a Liberal to blame for our current woes, why not the ’70s?

Surely we can blame Liberal premier Henry Bolte for something.

After all, if he hadn’t hung three people by mid-morning he was having a bad day. Declining demand for rope, perhaps?

We could go back to the ’50s. Did you know Liberal premier Thomas Hollway’s government (1952) did not invest a single penny in the state’s health system?

Perhaps that’s why, in 2022, an ambulance doesn’t come when you call one.

The fact that his government only lasted 70 hours is no excuse for this appalling stinginess: typical Liberal.

Nothing, at all, is the fault of the Andrews government.

On radio last week the Transport Infrastructure Minister, the aforementioned Jacinta Allan, was asked if she would admit making mistakes, or even apologise to Victorians.

Given Labor’s wasted over $28bn of your money on major project blowouts, the ABC’s Raf Epstein seemed to think an apology was warranted.

Silly Raf! The minister told him to stop “splitting hairs”. Of course it’s not her fault she’s racked up a Big Bill of $4500 for every Victorian man, woman and child – all on the state’s credit card as interest rates rise.

I dare say Jeff crawled out of his political grave to cock this up too.

Bloody Kennett.

Matthew Bach is the Liberal Member for Eastern Metropolitan Region