Meanwhile, in Victoria: Daniel Andrews under strain; Euthanasia test

It looks like the beginning of the end for Daniel Andrews; Ports fight heats up; Euthanasia test for Labor.

Victorians are witnessing what is starting to look like the beginning of the end of Daniel Andrews.

Andrews has delivered the Coalition a straightforward path to the 2018 election built on Labor’s strategic incompetence.

Under Labor Party rules, the government is pretty much stuck with the Premier until the poll because of the need for rank and file and caucus approval to dump him.

But it is hard to see the Premier being able to extricate himself after pushing to blow up the Country Fire Authority and hand greater powers to the United Firefighters’ Union, a body as radical as any union in Victoria.

Taking on the CFA remains one of the strangest tactics in Spring Street for probably 100 years.

While Andrews has time to rebuild his leadership credibility, his errors on the CFA have been so profound it is hard to see him being forgiven by voters.

Just as Andrews is in the hurt locker, so is Jane Garrett.

Garrett has been increasingly isolated in the government for her overt stand on the dispute.

While Garrett seems to be on the side of the angels, there are many senior people in the party furious with the way she has fuelled the crisis.

Powerbrokers including Stephen Conroy and Kim Carr attempted last weekend to get a resolution, as did Andrews.

But despite their efforts it has blown up in the party’s face.

In order for Garrett to retain a long-term political career, she needs to move seats from her inner city Greens enclave of Brunswick.

The factions will not allow that to happen.

Suggestions she is a leader in waiting are overcooked.

Any numbers she might like to have had have all but disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Which is a shame for the government because she has been one of its most effective operators

and probably its most committed MP in the fight against the Greens.

Andrews’ best option now is a full bore retreat.

He should deprive the UFU of their demands, appease the CFA board and the authority’s CEO and cop the egg on his face.

If he pushes through, he may well kill his leadership and his government.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews is under pressure. Chris Eastman

Euthanasia is a huge test for Labor

Victoria is poised to become the first state to legalise doctor-assisted suicide.

At least these are the expectations being raised by the parliamentary inquiry into the issue which reported this week.

Euthanasia is one of the great polarising issues and Andrews looks like he is on the side of so-called mercy killings.

Just as much of the Left wing of the Labor Party backs assisted suicide.

Yet if Andrews supports the move he will rapidly find himself with another serious political bushfire.

There are plenty of sensible arguments to be made against state-sanctioned suicide and plenty of reasons for governments to keep away from killing people.

Those opposing the move include disabled groups, the large numbers of Victorians who survived the horrors of World War 11 and the Catholic Church.

Add this list of opponents to the CFA volunteers and the millions who back them and the millions who oppose wasting more than $1 billion on the East West Link and Labor might as well hand back the keys to government.

The battle for Melbourne ports heats up

The Greens’ candidate for the affluent Labor-held seat of Melbourne Ports has been accused of bigotry after pulling out of a debate because one of the hosts was the Jewish body Zionism Victoria.

The Greens’ Stephanie Hodgins-May had initially agreed to participate in the only candidates’ debate in the waterside seat this week, which has a large Jewish population and includes southern suburbs of South Melbourne, St Kilda and Port Melbourne.

She pulled out of the event this week when she found out it was linked with the pro-Israel lobby group, despite fellow Greens Victorian Adam Bandt scheduled to address a forum next week that is held by a Palestinian advocacy group.

Zionism Victoria is the umbrella body that represents Australian Jews on Israel issues.

Ms Hodgins-May told the Australian Jewish News she was “not comfortable” participating in a forum co-hosted by an organisation that isn’t an “independent newspaper”.

She added that it was “not right” to speak at an event “co-organised by a politically active organisation”.

Labor’s Member for Melbourne Ports, Michael Danby, demanded that Ms Hodgins-May be disendorsed, noting that nearly a third of the electorate is of Jewish heritage.

“This is shameful. The Greens Party mask is finally off. The Greens boycott of the Jewish community shows their deep and intractable antagonism towards the Australian Jewish community,” Mr Danby said

“Refusing to address this public forum on the bigoted grounds that she has is an insult to the local community.”

Mr Danby, who has held the seat since 1998, noted that more than 70 per cent of Jewish residents in the seat have family in Israel.

Ms Hodgins-May has accused Mr Danby of making “desperate and hysterical comments”, adding she had striven to engage with the Jewish community.

“I accepted an invitation from Australian Jewish News to participate in a forum that I understood to be independently hosted by their newspaper,” she said.

“They later informed me that it was co-hosted by another organisation with political views including, as I learned, labelling the United Nations as a nuisance and sham of an organisation.

“As a lawyer who has worked at the United Nations and holds their work in high regard, I chose to withdraw from this forum.”