Andrews’ never-apologise shtick won’t help debt-saddled Labor

Is Daniel Andrews over the whole premier of Victoria thing? Increasingly it seems that way.

Take his almost celebratory tone as he announced the decision not to host the 2026 Commonwealth Games last month: “I have made a lot of difficult calls, a lot of very difficult decisions in this job. This is not one of them. Frankly, $6 billion to $7 billion for a 12-day sporting event – we are not doing that.”

Premier Daniel Andrews is becoming known for his scornful phrasing, defiance in the face of criticism and difficulty with admitting error.Credit: Luis Ascui

Fair enough. But his scornful phrasing was surely appropriate only if he was cancelling a decision by someone else. Hosting the Games and running them out of the state’s regional centres was his idea.

Yet when the idea was exposed as an expensive, unworkable dud 15 months after it was announced, there was not a hint of contrition or humility. He could not be bothered with any of that.

In recent days, he has repeated the bulldozer routine around the member for Ringwood, Will Fowles. After an assault allegation was made against Fowles, Andrews demanded and received his resignation from the caucus.

Fowles denies the allegation and has expressed the hope that if he clears his name, he can return to Labor’s parliamentary ranks. Andrews on Tuesday was having none of that, declaring that “resignations are not in my experience temporary”.

Well, readmission to the caucus would be a decision for the caucus, not the leader. And does the premier want to go so hard as to push Fowles out of the parliament, causing a byelection in Ringwood that Labor could easily lose? A loss would not change the balance of power in the lower house, but it would transform the state’s political atmospherics.

Andrews’ default to defiance in the face of criticism and his difficulty with admitting error is a habit he developed from his earliest moments as Labor leader. From the start in 2010, the News Corp mastheads have campaigned against him without pause.

These days, he refuses to be interviewed by Neil Mitchell on 3AW and Virginia Trioli on ABC radio. Instead, he has created his own vigorous constituency on social media. Clearly, his strategy has worked, enabling him to win a third term by a large margin even after the government’s catastrophic mishandling of hotel quarantine in 2020.

For the first half of Andrews’ time as premier, the go-to explanation for his consistently high numbers was the poor condition of the Victorian Liberals, thus denying voters a viable alternative government.

Today, the real explanation looks simpler. Most Victorians haven’t cared that much about IBAC reports and stern warnings from the Ombudsman. They have just liked a government that says it will do quite a few things and, in most cases, has set about doing them. And really, this is where the Labor Party’s current problems start.

For the first time in this government’s life, because its debt levels are dangerously high, its program is on retreat. That undermines its biggest political advantage. The Commonwealth Games farce is just the highest-profile example. Public sector jobs are being slashed, the Western Rail Plan is diluted, airport rail is on hold.

Competence and delivery on such things as new schools and level crossing removals have been Labor’s selling point. Over-promising and under-delivering is bad for every government, but absolute poison for this one.

If Andrews and his ministers are alive to these dangers, it doesn’t show.

But Andrews dominates his government in ways that few other premiers have ever managed. He rarely, if ever, hears a dissenting voice inside the cabinet room, the caucus, or the party apparatus. He has even broken new ground by trying to ensure that Jacinta Allan has first dibs on replacing him when he goes, something no other Labor leader has attempted.

All the more reason for him to think hard about what he bequeaths to her and whether his trademark never-apologise, never-explain shtick is suitable in the government’s more constrained political environment.

Perhaps it is time for whatever voices of dissent exist in the party to start speaking up.

Shaun Carney is a regular columnist.

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