Dan Andrews and Victoria: weird one day, even weirder the next

Victoria under Dan Andrews is a weird joint.

The Commonwealth Games frolic will inevitably cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars for delivering absolutely nothing.

It’s complicated, but the fiasco will - one way or another - add further lead to a budget that is collapsing under record debt.

But it’s not going to stop Dan Andrews digging, throwing fists full of dollars at the silent voters who have led him to three resounding election wins.

No matter how much Labor gets it wrong, the Andrews formula is to promise to spend billions more, even if the evidence is clear that some of the spending is nutty.

The writing was on the wall at the end of 2020 that the pandemic lockdowns - among the world’s longest - would smash the budget.

Thus the pandemic challenge was on two fronts.

First to deal with the health challenge, then the longer term budget crisis that has pushed the state back into the territory of the Cain-Kirner governments of the 1980s and early 1990s.

Net debt is set to soar to $171bn by 2026-27, with some estimates warning the medium term trajectory could see debt climb to as much as $234bn.

Twenty-six hours after announcing his Commonwealth Games backflip, Andrews was in the regional Victorian city of Maryborough, which is a struggle town that no doubt needs a leg up.

It also happens to be in the marginal Labor seat of Ripon, which the government wrenched off the Liberal Party in 2022.

The Commonwealth Games HQ on Brougham St was still occupied on Tuesday afternoon. Picture: Alan Barber

Rather than booking savings from the death of the games, Labor has vowed to spend $2bn in regional areas on housing, tourism and sporting infrastructure.

The spending is not likely to add to debt because, as Andrews said on Monday, the $2.6bn games spending had already been allocated.

But - and it’s a huge but - rather than booking savings, it looks very much like Labor is trying to make the best out of the death of the event by promising 1300 new houses, worker accommodation, more grassroots sporting facilities and tourism-related events for the regions.

It is classic Andrews.

No matter how intense the political bushfire, market the government heavily to the people that have voted for it.

There was a famous Labor election ad in 1999 where it accused the Kennett government of turning off the funding tap to country voters.

Andrews is doing the exact opposite. But it’s not just in Maryborough, it’s all over Victoria.

Despite a woeful budget delivered this year promising a responsible approach to debt, it is in fact full of fat.

Billions of dollars of spending that Labor could have hacked into, on top of modest savings it announced under its tepid debt reduction strategy.

Andrews has not stopped spending billions on its $15bn-$20bn railway crossing removal agenda, which has been a huge bonus politically. It is marching ahead, regardless of the finances.

But it’s a vote winner, even if the benefits are contested.

It’s also marching ahead with the city-wide Suburban Rail Loop, which is a vote catching exercise that could cost as much as $125bn - just for the first two stages. Labor is pushing ahead with this strategy, regardless of the cost.

At some point, taxpayers will have to fork out in a state that has become the biggest taxer in the nation.

Back to the Commonwealth Games.

It was always a blunt political tool to win votes in regional Victoria.

We all knew it.

Just as we all knew that the spending like drunken sailors on new infrastructure in five regional centres was fiscally reckless.

Victoria looks like a Ponzi scheme to re-elect Labor.

The likelihood is that Andrews will quit before the next election, leaving a legacy of Whitlamesque reform but a budget to match the 1970s largesse.

But will the silent voters care?