Radio host Neil Mitchell revisits feud with Premier Daniel Andrews

Melbourne radio host Neil Mitchell has opened up on the reason he thinks Premier Daniel Andrews doesn’t like him.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has not appeared on one of the state’s highest rating breakfast talkback programs since 2017.

We now know a bit more about why.

Those familiar with Melbourne’s AM radio scene know Neil Mitchell — a member of the Melbourne Press Club’s Hall of Fame and the host of 3AW’s flagship program.

He is a divisive figure best known for voicing strong opinions and asking hard questions.

Speaking on fellow 3AW broadcaster Tony Jones’s What Makes You Tick? segment this week, Mitchell spoke about his strained relationship with the Premier — and his wife Cath, who has blocked Mitchell on Twitter.

“What was it that caused Daniel Andrews to (blacklist) you?” Jones asked.

“I think repeated critical analysis, and a couple of interviews,’’ Mitchell began before Jones interjected declaring “it must’ve been more than than”.

3AW broadcaster Neil Mitchell. Picture: Sky News

Mitchell continued: “The last interview was pretty aggressive, it was about Skyrail, he was conducting a survey into Skyrail and before they built it they were doing a study. And I said, ‘are you going to build it?’ and he said ‘yes’ and I said ‘why are you doing a bloody study?’ and he got quite grumpy about that.”

Mitchell said there was a story the Premier did not want Mitchell to broadcast.

“I did run the story, which I won’t repeat because he might still want to sue. But I did run the story and I rang him to tell him I was going to do it.”

Mitchell said he also phoned the Premier to tell him that he should not have taken the election campaign bus to his father’s farm — the place where his dad was fighting a battle with cancer.

“I did broadcast this, when he went up to his father’s farm during the election campaign and his father was dying and he took the bus up there to take film of his dad selling off the farm,” he said.

“I thought it was wrong and I rang him to tell him that.”

He said he believed the Premier did not like him because he “went after” Andrews’ wife over a car crash involving a teen cyclist at Blairgowrie in 2013.

“He has told ministers, people I know, that (the feud with Mitchell is) because I went after his wife after the car crash,” Mitchell said.

Premier Daniel Andrews: Picture NCA NewsWire / Ian Currie

“And that’s just garbage. It didn’t happen. In fact I sent the tape to a number of ministers and they said you didn’t do anything wrong.”

Mitchell said the pair crossed paths in 2018 at an AFL match.

“He did shake (my hand) but he did look the other way — it was a night final and Melbourne won,’’ he said.

“It was at the official lunch and full of people and he squeezed past my table. I put out my hand but there was no conversation. I think he said ‘hello’. That doesn’t worry me.”

Mitchell has a theory about what is really keeping the Premier away from 3AW.

“I’m not worth the risk, that’s what it is,” he told Jones. “It’s that simple. Political judgement.”

Andrews was re-elected on Saturday and will become Victoria’s longest-serving Labor Premier.