Rita Panahi: Dan’s decade in charge of toxic state Labor
It is entirely possible that Teflon Dan will again escape unscathed but the Victorian Government is in disgrace with three ministers stepping down as the public gets a glimpse of Labor’s ugly underbelly, writes Rita Panahi.
Rita Panahi
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A fish rots from the head down. After 10 years of leading Victorian Labor, Premier Daniel Andrews must take responsibility for the culture of corruption and cover-up that has taken hold under his reign.
The Victorian government is in disgrace with three ministers stepping down as the public gets a glimpse of Labor’s ugly underbelly.
In less than 48 hours we have seen Consumer Affairs Minister Marlene Kairouz, Local Government and Small Business Minister Adem Somyurek and Assistant Treasurer Robin Scott resign amid a branch-stacking scandal.
If the government believes the problem is gone with the ministers then they are sadly mistaken.
Andrews’ remarkable Teflon qualities may save him again, as they did after the Red Shirts saga, but no one can be in any doubt about Labor’s systemic issues with branch-stacking, misuse of taxpayer dollars and disregard for rank and file members.
But the premier claimed on Tuesday that he personally knew nothing about widespread branch-stacking and did not expect any other members of his parliamentary team or their staff to be implicated.
At best the premier is dangerously ignorant of what is occurring under his watch.
At worst he has cultivated a culture of deceit, double-dealing and disregard for public money.
Andrews became Labor leader in 2010 and the buck in this sordid saga stops with him no matter how hard he tries to obfuscate. Are we to believe that the premier, and indeed the rest of the cabinet, were in the dark about Somyurek’s activities? The only thing surprising about the saga is that some of it was caught on camera after former allies turned on the powerbroker.
Andrews welcomed Somyurek back to the frontbench in 2018 with the words: “To my good friend, Adem Somyurek, I’m very pleased to welcome Adem back to the Cabinet and he’s going to do a fantastic job.”
At the time the premier was adamant that Somyurek deserved to win back the coveted spot despite being demoted three years earlier for allegedly bullying a female staffer, Dimity Paul.
“I think he is a better man than he has ever been, and that is a significant thing. If I wasn’t confident of that, then he wouldn’t be back,” Andrews said.
Interestingly, Paul’s husband, Raff Ciccone, ended up winning the federal senate spot Somyurek was encouraged to fill last year when Jacinta Collins stepped down. There is no suggestion that Paul or Ciccone were involved in any wrongdoing.
On Tuesday, the premier refused to answer questions about the guilt or innocence of his axed minister.
“I don’t think any of us want a situation where Victoria Police and IBAC are in any way inhibited by anything any of us say or do,” he said.
Rich words coming from the leader of a government whose MPs refused to co-operate with the police probe into the Red Shirts scheme, despite assurances they would.
What we saw exposed on 60 Minutes on Sunday was a variation on the rorts-for-votes scheme that came to light in the lead-up to the 2018 state election.
The Ombudsman report made it clear that Labor had systematically misappropriated taxpayer funds which they had used to gain an unfair political advantage.
Labor, again using taxpayer dollars, went to the Supreme Court, then the Court of Appeal and the High Court to stop the Ombudsman’s inquiry. It’s no surprise the state government on Tuesday refused Opposition leader Michael O’Brien’s move to refer the latest saga to the Ombudsman.
The reality is that the Red Shirts scandal cost Labor nothing at the polling booth. They romped it in at the 2018 election with an increased majority. Perhaps the public has such a low opinion of politicians that they don’t punish them when they’re caught engaging in dodgy antics. After all, what else do you expect from a profession held in lower regard than second-hand car salesmen and journalists.
It is entirely possible that Teflon Dan will again escape unscathed after this latest scandal.
But this crisis comes at a time when the state is dealing with a pandemic that has disproportionately devastated the Victorian economy, thanks largely to some of the government’s illogical restrictions.
Australian Bureau of Statistics analysis of payroll data, released last month, showed that 976,000 Australians lost their jobs in a one-month period, with Victoria recording the biggest losses in the country with an 8.6 per cent decline compared to 7.4 per cent in NSW, 6.5 per cent in Queensland and 6.6 per cent in Western Australia.
Andrews is also overseeing what is increasingly looking like the greatest infrastructure scandal in Victorian history with the $6.8 billon West Gate Tunnel project, awarded without a tender process to Transurban, in utter disarray.
But for these controversies to damage Labor the electorate needs a clear alternative and thus far the Victorian opposition has been too weak and timid to lay a glove on the Andrews Government.
IN SHORT
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The BLM movement not only pushes a divisive brand of race politics but is proudly neo-Marxist.
Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist