Daniel Andrews’ legacy a basket-case state in a fiscal black hole

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan. Picture: David Caird

Victorian Labor’s fiscal reputation is dead.

As is its ability to deliver major projects anywhere near budget, the latest road disaster costing an eye-watering $2.4bn a kilometre – $16bn higher than forecast.

Even more if you dig back into the historical estimates; this Victorian problem is actually a national problem.

A quarter of the national economy sits in a fiscal basket case and with every budget the cost of the political overreach just gets bigger.

Working hard and aiming high have always been good things. But Labor has gone too hard, for too long, basing its re-election strategy on the so-called Big Build, but that agenda lacks credibility and common sense.

Labor just keeps going back to the publicly funded ATM, driving up state debt that will hit close to $180bn by 2027.

All these awful numbers – taxes will hit $36bn this financial year – point to years and possibly decades of pain for the southern state, with Melbourne still on track to become the nation’s biggest city.

This week Teasurer Tim Pallas took on Canberra over infrastructure funding, perhaps ignoring the contrast between the Albanese government and the Allan government.

The national government does not appear addicted to killing its bottom line.

Meanwhile, Victoria is drowning in mixed messages.

The ill-thought-out Commonwealth Games bid was junked because of billions of dollars in cost blowouts.

But the government still chooses to spend big in the regions as a political anaesthetic for losing the Games that never should have been promised outside the state capital.

The political opportunities for the battered Liberal Party are immense.

If the leadership can link the budget overruns and debt with the cost of living, it would be a powerful narrative as Australia enters 2024 in a highly vulnerable position.

Labor’s narrative of winning votes on the back of a sloppy, expensive and sometimes questionable infrastructure agenda is looking increasingly silly.

So much so, it’s starting to look like Labor should face the mother of all electoral backlashes.

But we’ve said that before.

The difference now is that the political machine known as Dan Andrews has gone.