Bronze Age: How do Dan Andrews’ 3000 days as premier measure up?

If it were not for former Liberal premier Jeff Kennett, Monday might be just another day in the political life of Daniel Andrews.

But 25 years ago, Kennett decided to immortalise in bronze any Victorian premier who reached 3000 days in office.

On Monday, when Andrews reaches that mark, no time has been set aside for celebration. His schedule includes several briefings and stakeholder meetings as well as a meeting of cabinet.

Insiders from the Premier’s Private Office told The Age Andrews “couldn’t care less” about the milestone, which only a handful of Victorian premiers have reached.

“The Premier has been genuinely bemused by the sudden obsession with an arbitrary number dreamt up by a former Liberal premier,” one of his advisers said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese - who has been friends with Andrews for 25 years - puts Andrews’ indifference down to the fact that he “always measured the value of public life in progress and achievements, not days and months”.

“I am proud to count Dan as an old friend,” Albanese told The Age. “He is a builder who believes in the powerful difference a government with ambition can make to communities and lives.”

When Kennett hit upon the idea, he had notched up 2263 days in the job, but insisted the move was purely to “assist and promote art” and had little to do with any impending milestone of his own.

Had he won the 1999 election, Kennett would almost certainly have been cast in bronze to stand outside the premier’s office. But it wasn’t to be.

Kennett told The Age this week he had no regrets about accepting the 3000-day threshold - suggested to him by an adviser - for a bronze likeness to be installed at the north-west corner of the Treasury Gardens.

“I was very much keen on there being more statues in Melbourne,” he told The Age. “One of the things I love about statues is that young people can touch them, feel them and climb on them.”

The statue itself is likely to be created by Melbourne artist Peter Corlett, but will be left to the next government to commission and install.

Peter Corlett with his statues of the 3000 club in November 1999.Credit: Viki Yemettas

However arbitrary the number, 3000 days in office is a mark reached by few political leaders and makes Andrews not only one of the state’s longest-serving premiers but one of Australia’s longest-serving political leaders.

Of the 48 premiers to lead Victoria, Andrews is just the fifth to spend 3000 consecutive days at premier. Sir Henry Bolte was premier for 6288 days, Albert Dunstan served for 3834 days, Sir Rupert Hamer for 3209, and John Cain jnr held the job for 3044 days.

Another premier, James McCulloch, served for 3000 days, but it took him four separate stints between 1863 and 1877.

Andrews has been in office longer than Malcolm Fraser, Billy Hughes or Joseph Lyons served as prime ministers. It’s almost double the amount of time Nick Greiner led New South Wales and just shy of Peter Beattie’s record as Queensland premier.

Colleagues - from his own side and the Coalition - suggest such longevity requires a mix of good fortune, vision, self-belief and an absolute control.

It is a sentiment best summed up by a senior Labor figure who has known Andrews for more than two decades: “He isn’t the Second Coming. He has held on well, deserves the credit, but this is a Labor state and there has never been an obvious alternative.”

Andrews has been described as wily like Dunstan, a social reformer like Hamer and with an authoritarian grip on his state and government to match Bolte’s. As was the case with Cain, he has been a moderniser transforming the state, but risks being remembered for plunging Victoria into debt.

Political historian Paul Strangio, who has written several biographies on Victorian political leaders, believes Andrews shares many characteristics with his long-serving predecessors, but has also “fitted the moment”.

The beginning: Daniel Andrews is sworn in as premier by Victorian governor Alex Chernov on December 4, 2014.Credit: Justin McManus

“What Victorians wanted after the inertia and political chaos of the Baillieu and Napthine years was an activist leader that was going to get things done,” he says.

“He has seen the potential of the state and moved.”

Andrews’ time in the top job began on December 4, 2014, when he signed his oath of office at Government House before then governor Alex Chernov.

After the chaos and inertia of the Coalition’s four years in office, the Andrews government set a cracking pace, setting up a royal commission into family violence, removing level crossings and tearing up the East West Link contract, albeit at an enormous cost.

The new Labor government also set about transforming Victoria socially by legislating medicinal cannabis, granting gay couples the right to adopt and banning protesters from harassing people entering abortion clinics.

It has gone on to legalise voluntary euthanasia, decriminalise street-based sex work and become the first Australian jurisdiction to begin negotiating treaties with First Nations groups.

Colleagues, senior Labor figures and academics remain split on whether Andrews’ tenure in the top job is down to his policies, his personality or the lack of credible opposition.

Speaking on background, one senior Labor figure believes it is a combination of factors.

“He is very competent, articulate and sharp ... but he’s capable of gratuitous political violence,” the figure said. “The one thing you can rely on with Daniel is he treats his enemies better than his friends.”

Such wiliness was a hallmark of the shrewd Country Party leader Albert Dunstan, who withdrew from a Coalition government and sided with Labor in a successful no-confidence motion, ultimately becoming leader of a minority government with Labor backing in 1935.

Critics, some of them on the opposition benches but also those sitting around the cabinet table, resent the micromanagement, the disregard for cabinet processes and the unprecedented influence over the public service.

During the pandemic, power was further centralised in the Premier’s Private Office. Westminster’s conventions of government and traditional cabinet processes were slowly eroded.

Strangio believes Andrews is no more authoritarian than Henry Bolte, the Liberal premier who led Victoria for 17 years, citing the latter’s determination to proceed with the hanging of Ronald Ryan - the last person executed in Australia - in the face of fierce protests, as well as his approach to development across the state.

“Andrews is no more controlling or strong than Bolte was,” Strangio says. “I think to get things done, it requires a certain level of activism and control.”

Early in his premiership, Andrews’ grip on power was on display when he intervened in a bitter dispute between the United Firefighters Union (UFU) and the Country Fire Authority (CFA). More recently, his extraordinary intervention following Labor’s branch-stacking scandal saw Andrews ask the ALP’s national secretary Paul Erickson to suspend the voting rights of members while an audit was conducted.

Strangio believes Andrews’ record has parallels with that of Dick Hamer, the urbane Liberal leader credited with modernising Victoria by legislating equal rights for women and decriminalising homosexuality.

“Hamer was a great social reformer in terms of quality of life issues,” Strangio says.

He believes Andrews has shown an ability and willingness to modernise when it comes to social reforms, but describes the state’s strict law-and-order policies as a “black spot” on his record.

In an attempt to redefine his legacy before he leaves office, Andrews has vowed to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 even if state and territory governments fail to reach a consensus. He has also committed to reform the state’s bail laws within the next six months.

Few political operatives or pundits predicted Andrews would lead his state for so long.

First elected to parliament in 2002, Andrews was seen as nerdy, quiet and unlikely to rise beyond his ministry. When premier John Brumby stood down after Labor’s devastating 2010 election loss, Andrews put his hand up to lead. Many of his colleagues admit they thought he would be a stopgap.

A 2003 photo of Labor MPs, with Dan Andrews third from left.Credit: Michael Rayner

Federal Immigration Minister Andrew Giles first met Andrews as a young Labor member in his early 20s and said the future premier displayed a range of qualities that set him apart from others.

“While I had no sense of what he would go on to achieve, what Daniel always had was a seriousness, and he also saw the possibilities of what progressive politics could achieve.”

Giles believes Andrews was perhaps unfairly typecast in those early years, and said the “breadth of his capacity was not fully realised until he took over the party’s leadership”.

It was in those early years, free from the weight of expectation, that Andrews began cultivating relationships with Melbourne’s movers and shakers and key union leaders. As opposition leader he played his politics hard and showed himself to be ruthless in the pursuit of his objectives.

One Victorian MP told The Age that Andrews seems to relish politics and the power he wields.

Several of his colleagues compare him to Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd for his intelligence, but unlike Rudd he lacked an opposition - both within the Coalition but also within Labor, meaning he never had to look over his shoulder.

“Rudd had Gillard, Abbott had Turnbull, but Howard was helped by having Costello, who never had it in him to challenge,” one Labor operative told The Age.

Publicly, he has declared he will serve out this four-year term - which would take him to more than 4000 days as premier - but he is unlikely to make it to Bolte’s 6288 days in office.

“I serve at the pleasure of the Victorian community and my colleagues,” he told The Age ahead of the November election.

His colleagues believe his premiership is likely to come to an end next year, following the completion of the Metro Tunnel project, prompting a discussion about his legacy. How will history remember Daniel Andrews?

Will Daniel Andrews commission a statue of himself? Sculptor Peter Corlett hopes so.Credit: Margaret Gordon

There are fears from some current and past members of his government that all the government’s achievements - social reform, infrastructure projects, election wins - will be overshadowed by the pandemic and the state’s debt, expected to reach a record $166 billion by 2025-26, or a 24.6 per cent share of the economy. That’s more than 50 per cent higher than the next highest state.

It might not come as a surprise that Kennett, as a Liberal, believes the Andrews government’s record will be inextricably linked to its financial woes after years of strict COVID-19 measures.

“I support his recognition as a long-serving premier, that is different from what his legacy will be. Unless things change his legacy will be moribund because of the size of the debt. It will consume our lives.”

Giles rejects comparisons to other long-serving premiers and believes Andrews’ time in office will be defined by “achievement, not longevity”.

“He hasn’t wasted a day,” Giles said. “My crystal ball is no better than anyone else’s but ... I think he will be remembered for his stewardship of the state through the pandemic, the boldness of his social reform and the infrastructure projects he has delivered which have set the state up for the future.”

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