Steve Price: Premier Dan Andrews has a giant-sized ego and no opposition to stop his re-election

Premier Dan Andrews brought Victoria to its knees but will likely be re-elected, making him maybe the smartest political operator Australia has ever seen.

It’s only now, as an election looms, that Premier Dan Andrews seems to care about Victoria’s health sector crisis. Picture: Ian Currie

Premier Daniel Andrews in full on election mode this week slipped out one announcement that should make every Victorian very afraid.

Premier Andrews has committed to serving his full term in office if he wins the election on Saturday November 26.

How Premier Andrews is expecting another four years under his heel after the trauma of the 2020 and 2021 deadly Covid disaster with its mentally damaging world record breaking lockdowns and the current health crisis is beyond belief.

Victoria and Victorians seem to have fallen into the biggest ever Stockholm syndrome experiment the world has ever seen.

How else can you explain the once great state of Victoria being happy to put up with this bloke until November 2026?

I just don’t get it and there can only be one explanation – no opposition.

Andrews pledge while out campaigning on Thursday this week included this comment: “It’s me, Cath (his wife) and the kids. We’re all in this. We’re running again, because it’s only a Labor government that will do what matters and get things done.”

This was said – I wasn’t there – apparently with a straight face.

Victorian Premier Dan Andrews announces free university for thousands of nurses and midwives. Picture: Ian Currie

Does Daniel Andrews really believe that getting rid of a few level crossings and sending Victoria into more generational debt than any of the other major States combined is “getting things done”?

You’ve got to hand it to this bloke, he has an absolute belief in himself; an arrogant giant- sized ego that must surely be constantly fed by “Cath and the kids.”

How else could you explain a man that has presided over so many community destroying decisions to have the chutzpah to commit to another four years?

Not only has he got the ego to believe he’ll last another term, he has engineered the removal from his Cabinet of the people who really did the work, and more importantly knew what they were doing.

Gone are the storm troopers of James Merlino, Martin Pakula, Martin Foley and Lisa Neville. This would be like Geelong coach Chris Scott saying, after winning the flag this year, “I’m moving Patrick Dangerfield, Tom Hawkins, Isaac Smith and Jeremy Cameron on and doing it on my own”.

As usual, this was about factional politics not the politics of doing the best possible thing for Victorians. How else can you explain the exit of so much political talent unless the likes of Merlino and Pakula especially, had just had enough of their boss?

During the dark days of Covid, when Dan was flat on his back after that still hard to explain back injury, the fill-in James Merlino was a steady hand many voters would have preferred to have in charge full time.

James Merlino was a steady hand many Victorians would have preferred in charge permanently. Picture: Brendan Beckett

If the Dan Andrews reign is a mystery to most Victorians, it’s a complete puzzle to anyone living in the rest of Australia. The one question I get whenever I travel interstate and talk to media colleagues is how come Victorians keep re-electing the Andrews Labor Government?

Just this week, more examples of how the second biggest state in the Commonwealth is falling behind the rest of the nation.

Take health. The Australian Medical Association released its election statement on Thursday and described the state’s public hospitals as “in extremis” after decades of underfunding.

This alone should be a vote changing issue. The peak health body went back to pre Covid days to show Victoria’s health picture compared with other states.

Victoria had 2.3 hospital beds and 14.8 staff per 1000 people, compared with the national average of 2.5 beds and 15.7 staff.

The doctors called for public hospital funding that “at a minimum” matches national per capita funding, more inpatient beds and changes to payroll tax for GPs from the state government.

Typically, the Premier, sniffing the breeze on health, has spent the past few weeks haunting hospital wards from the suburbs to the bush promising hundreds of millions of dollars in extra funding.

Dan Andrews presided over many community destroying decisions. Picture: David Crosling

This money to a system Andrews has had charge of either as Premier or Health Minister for 15 years. He was Health Minister under John Brumby from 2007 to 2010 and Premier since 2014.

The 48th Premier of Victoria has been the boss since 2014, so at the very least he has had the purse strings to health for the last eight years.

If Victoria has, as the medical profession says, a health crisis, then it’s Daniel Andrews fault. So you again ask, how is it possible a leader with that track record could possibly be given another four years at the top?

How can Victorians forgive all skateparks and playgrounds being closed? Picture: Ian Currie

The world’s longest Covid lockdowns, failure of hotel quarantine and unacceptable death rates in aged care, a destructive work from home policy that killed the CBD, infrastructure programs that are late and over budget by billions and an administration unwilling to accept it has ever made any mistakes — and leading in the polls.

Daniel Andrews is a modern Australian political freak. He might just be the smartest political operator the nation has ever seen.

Pity he has been so bad for Victoria.

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