Patrick Carlyon: Victoria’s broke and they ain’t gonna fix it either

It’s hard to recall a flatter time in Victoria’s recent history with the state now buried in debt thanks to successive shortsighted governments, who have taken us all for a spin.

My dearest granddaughter,

I trust that you are happy and healthy and that the beloved Tigers are faring better than they did in 2024.

You don’t exist yet, not anytime soon, anyway. But perhaps you will read this one day.

For it has occurred to me that you may be wondering why your home state is derided in that Not Quite Right way that South Australia once used to be.

And why your state government taxes seem so much higher than those of your interstate cousins.

And why the hospitals don’t work as well as your grandparents claim that they once did.

There are simple answers to these and many more questions.

In 2024, you see, Victoria ran out of money.

Think never-ending home renos – lots of big rooms, all parquetry and marble, built by (and apparently for the benefit of) dodgy builders, as project-managed by Jay Gatsby in a North Face jacket. Then apply such thinking to a decade of Victoria state budgets.

It seems that Victorian projects were doomed to take longer and cost more than projects elsewhere. Picture: David Crosling

Gen Xers (look them up), like me at the time, began to recount a 1980s hit by Talking Heads, called Road To Nowhere:

We’re on a ride to nowhere

Come on inside

Takin’ that ride to nowhere

We’ll take that ride

Victoria, you see, was taken for a spin by its state government representatives. Collectively, they were an unimpressive lot, often marked by a two-bit zeal at odds with everyday realities.

They projected short-sightedness in the absence of glasses. They wilted under scrutiny, like mushrooms sizzling in sunlight after they had sprung, unnoticed, in the shade.

They parroted the prevailing wisdom of the day – or at least the hackneyed political mantra – which went that building big stuff pleased voters, no matter the cost.

It seems that Victorian projects were doomed to take longer and cost more than projects elsewhere.

Many millions were blown, siphoned according to the whims of an extortionist union. Picture: AFP

Everyone had “to be fed”, went the line, everyone being unionists under processes overseen by oddly incurious state ministers.

Many millions were blown, siphoned according to the whims of an extortionist union which liked to explain that it was they – and not the government – who ran these big projects. Sadly, the state government didn’t notice, or didn’t want to notice. Its ministers were tied up in hard hat photo-ops at the time.

The union would close down a project for a day or longer if this or that contractor did not yield to their demands. They got their companies to do the work, companies which charged far more.

Under their reign, lollipop people would get paid almost three times more than nurses or police officers.

It was the best kind of racket, much like The Mob, where reprisals or at least the threat of them would follow any attempt to derail the gravy train.

In fairness, Setka never bothered to hide that he was a bully. Picture: Roy VanDerVegt

A ringleader was John Setka, convicted many times for many things including harassing an ex-wife. In fairness, Setka never bothered to hide that he was a bully.

Indeed, the racket was hidden in plain sight, a study in brown paper bags and menace.

The racket, as studiously ignored by the state government, was also an up yours to every other Victorian who funded its untold excesses.

The leader of the day, Jacinta Allan, nevertheless clung to the biggest reno of them all – the Suburban Rail Loop, which would connect random suburbs because, well, no one can really explain why.

She projected horror when the racket was exposed, in a political performance as unconvincing as Joe Biden, who at least had the excuse of senility.

State debt was forecast to reach $188bn by 2027/28.

Tricksy new taxes, grounded in an ideology that nobbles anyone who tries and succeeds, multiplied.

Still, the taxes couldn’t pay the costs of the kind of health care we took for granted in the golden ages of our youth. They couldn’t pay the untold millions of dollars required to satisfy the racketeers.

Jacinta Allan clung to the biggest reno of them all – the Suburban Rail Loop. Picture: Con Chronis

I was prompted to write this letter because I drove to the snow the other day, a journey complicated by the certainty that I never have and never will like going to the snow.

Crisscrossing the state for its delights used to be fun. But now it involved crisscrossing all the holes in the road which the state could not afford to fix. The state government blamed rain for the potholes, apparently unaware that water falls from the sky from time to time.

On arriving at my destination, I found a town clad in protest signage. People here didn’t want hospitals amalgamated, which might mean that healthcare once a few minutes down the road would be an hour or more away.

Potholes are not a singular measure of a place’s vibrancy. Nor are health reforms. But it was hard to recall a flatter time in this state’s recent history. Victoria felt violated, as if pillaged for its parts.

To borrow from another Talking Heads banger, the reason that your home state is buried in debt is because successive state governments of this era were Burning Down The House.

Go Tiges.

Love, your slightly grumpy gandfather

Patrick Carlyon is a Herald Sun columnist