Scandals that have rocked the Andrews’ Government
The Victorian government, under Premier Daniel Andrews, has had more scandals than most — at least eight significant blots since 2014. But Andrews refuses to bow to the age-old rituals of stepping down from the leadership. So how long can it last?
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Stephen Russell had little choice. When word spread that he had provided a character reference for a man convicted of grooming a Year 9 student, the St Kevin’s College principal had to go.
Nor did NAB chief executive Andrew Thorburn and chairman Ken Henry — a former treasury secretary — who both fell on their swords amid banking royal commission revelations of misconduct by staff.
Those men bowed to the age-old rituals of scandal-ridden leadership. As the pressure mounts, a leader must choose. They brace for the fallout, and seek to swerve opinion away from the tipping point. Or they fail and capitulate.
Politics works the same way. A leader is typically weakened when subordinates do dodgy things. Trust gets lost, and the public usually punishes them at the polls.
This state government, under Premier Daniel Andrews, has had more scandals than most — at least eight significant blots since 2014. They go to questions of character as well as fitness for public office.
Yet Andrews, it seems, is nowhere near his tipping point.
This week, three of his cabinet ministers stood down after branch-stacking allegations were raised on Channel 9. Their names, for now, are asterisked by questions of propriety and transparency in public office.
The party is in disarray. Its foot soldiers have lost their clan leaders. Byzantine bastardries have been exposed. Footage of backroom dealings conjures images of Mafia dons ordering hits from the comfort of taxpayer-funded limousines.
The ALP is riven with internal paybacks that jar for their brutal application. The privilege of governing appears to have got confused with the power of rule.
Yet here’s the thing. Andrews has soared in the polls since 2014. No one is calling for his head despite the poor behaviour of so many of his team members. Let’s call it the Dan Paradox.
This week, in events that led to the Victorian branch of the ALP being overhauled by the national executive, Andrews is now more powerful — both within and outside the party — than ever.
As an insider says of the wider Victorian ALP: “People are terrified because he’s got federal intervention. He’s basically got total control of the party now, at least temporarily, without any checks and balances at all.”
Early in this government’s first term, shadowy dealings with the United Firefighters Union — who campaigned for the ALP’s election — were exposed in a dossier created by UFU secretary Peter Marshall.
The dossier outlined how ministerial staff were supposed to fix a problem for the union — the potential sacking of a commander accused of accessing pornography and racist material on a work computer.
Andrews later put his career on the line for the UFU, siding with it during an industrial war sparked by then-emergency services minister Jane Garrett and the MFB and CFA boards’ refusal to sign off on new workplace agreements for firefighters.
Andrews refused to bend to public pressure to stand up to the UFU boss, including when it was alleged he threatened that firefighters would bury an axe in Garrett’s head — a claim Marshall denies.
Not long after the Marshall dossier was sent to the ALP’s caucus, the state leadership hunkered in the fallout of another internal brawl.
Then small business minister Adem Somyurek was accused of mistreating staff. Somyurek denied wrongdoing but he was admonished in a report.
Despite being sacked by Andrews, who described the behaviour as unacceptable, Somyurek was welcomed back to Cabinet after the ALP’s 2018 election victory. Now, he was Andrews’ “good friend”.
The Premier described him as a changed man — until this week, when Somyurek was skewered again for using hateful language about the Minister for Women, Gabrielle Williams, and over allegations of falsely inflating Labor branch numbers to boost his power.
In 2015 it was revealed that before the 2014 election, the ALP campaign team engaged taxpayer-funded staff to doorknock and run phone banks on the party’s behalf.
Later criticised by Ombudsman Deborah Glass, the scheme involved MPs providing their electorate office staff to field organisers who ran a massive red shirts campaign to woo voters.
Andrews was unequivocal when the allegations broke. He assumed his serious, almost severe, bearing that Victorians have grown accustomed to during the recent pandemic.
“I take responsibility … for each and every thing that occurs under my leadership of the Labor Party and under my leadership of the government. Might I say, without being too self-praising, that that’s a relatively novel view. There are not too many political leaders that are prepared to say that, but that’s the way I operate.”
Another major rort, uncovered by the Herald Sun and investigated by the state’s anti-corruption watchdog, involved branch-stacking by the left wing of the Labor Party.
Whistleblowers alleged that invoices were created for large orders of brochures or other material that were never fully printed, and that money paid by parliament to MPs was then used to pay for memberships.
The rort centred on the office of then-deputy president of the Legislative Council, Khalil Eideh, who was a close ally of party heavyweight Kim Carr.
That scheme wasn’t the only time parliament was treated like an ATM by Andrews’ team.
Former Speaker Telmo Languiller billed taxpayers about $40,000 to live by the beach in Queenscliff by claiming a “second residence allowance” meant for country MPs.
His deputy, Melton MP Don Nardella, was shamed into paying back almost $100,000 he had claimed for “living” at an Ocean Grove caravan park.
Another scandal last term centred on two small dogs — Patch and Ted — whom skills and training minister Steve Herbert had ferried to his house by his taxpayer-funded driver.
Yet Andrews survives, perhaps thrives, while numerous ministers he once took personal responsibility for have been dispatched in disgrace.
Call it the paradox. Or is it camouflage? As the ALP insider says: “The Dan that people know is not the Dan the public sees. He has managed to hide his real nature from the public like no other politician I have ever seen.”
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