A Labor diehard wants them to lose the next election. I can see why

One of the secrets of Labor’s success in Victoria over the past decade – particularly in the early days of the Andrews government – was its unwavering focus on the party’s traditional values.

It invested in building schools and hospitals and creating jobs through massive spending on infrastructure projects designed to reshape the city. In COVID, the government stared down its critics to try to protect the vulnerable and ploughed money into local public health initiatives.

Firefighters backed Daniel Andrews in 2014.Credit: Jason South

There were social policy frolics too, such as legalising voluntary assisted dying and medicinal cannabis. The government decriminalised sex work and opened a safe drug-injecting room.

But the recent budget included cuts and delays to key services, including school and hospital infrastructure. There are ongoing wars with the party’s union base and now a flirtation with privatisation.

It’s reasonable to ask whether the Labor government has strayed from those traditional values.

As one disenchanted voter emailed me recently: “This old leftie thinks it’s time for Victorian Labor to spend some time in opposition. To reflect on what it really stands for. Because, right now, it doesn’t stand for anything that I can support.”

Public ownership was once an article of Labor faith, now it seems privatisation is palatable if it results in improved services. That’s the view of Premier Jacinta Allan, who this week suggested changes such as the partial sell-off of VicRoads can be common sense.

Allan was responding to reports Treasurer Tim Pallas had invited private equity firms to review the services provided by the Registry of Births, Deaths to find out if any money could be made from flogging parts of it off.

Allan insists it’s not a sell-off, but spoke favourably about “joint venture arrangements”. Either way, it’s angered the party’s union supporters who questioned whether any private firm should make a buck out of recording and safeguarding such sensitive data.

Such arrangements might make sense, as Allan suggested, especially if they can also deliver a lucrative return that will help the premier plug the mounting debt black hole she has inherited.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan.Credit: Joe Armao

And it’s that debt – forecast to hit $187.8 billion by June 2028 – that is forcing the Allan government to neglect its values.

Take the March changes to Victoria’s workers’ compensation scheme, when Labor did a deal with the Coalition to pass a bill aimed at making it “sustainable”.

In doing so, the party for workers capped benefits to employees who had suffered stress and burnout and forced ongoing eligibility tests on those whose long-term problems keep them out of the workforce. Trades Hall secretary Luke Hilakari described it as the undoing of “great reforms done by every Labor government from Cain to Bracks”.

Hilakari added: “And for those workers who will not be entitled to any other benefits, many of them will end up in poverty and lose their house.”

It’s far from Labor’s only fight with its union base.

Thousands of nurses and midwives spectacularly rejected a new pay offer last month – a deal that had been stitched up between the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation and the Allan government – as Labor continues to negotiate new pay deals with paramedics, Victorian TAFE teachers and firefighters.

In the early days of this Labor government, its feel-good reform agenda saw it hold landmark royal commissions into mental health and family violence, and Victoria became the first state to start the process of negotiating a treaty with First Nations people.

Fast-forward to 2024 and the government has walked away from its commitment for a second safe injecting room and ditched plans to give children the presumption of bail in favour of electronic monitoring.

Failing to deliver on promised social reforms exposes Labor to attacks from the Greens, who continue to make ground in metropolitan seats.

But it’s the failure to deliver more basic services that could threaten the government’s prospects in 2026.

The May budget saw the rollout of mental health and wellbeing hubs – a key recommendation of the royal commission into the sector – put on the backburner. A promised expansion of kinder services was delayed. So too, rail infrastructure.

As it stands, Victorians fleeing family violence are waiting nearly two years on average to be moved into safe housing. And while the waiting list has seen some improvements, there are still more than 48,000 families on the state’s public housing waiting list.

Internally, Labor MPs are increasingly concerned about the effect this is having on traditional strongholds in the north and west of the city.

Voters in these heartland seats were disproportionately affected by the health and economic impacts of COVID-19 and are now feeling the crunch in the cost-of-living crisis, as they miss out on key services promised by the government.

The prospect that these electorates could start to look for representatives who better reflect their values is looming as the government’s greatest risk.

Annika Smethurst is state political editor.

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