The Mocker: Jacinta Allan naive to expect Dan Andrews-like fealty from Victorians as pro-Palestine rallies take over Labor event

Former premier Daniel Andrews and Premier Jacinta Allan.

It puzzles me why Jacinta Allan was so miffed over pro-Palestinian protesters gatecrashing Victorian Labor’s state conference in Melbourne last weekend. If anything, her surprise was naive.

I get this was her first state conference as Premier and that she was expecting to be feted. Perhaps Allan thought she too, like her predecessor Daniel Andrews, would inspire a new generation of deluded acolytes to swear fealty to the new leader, no matter how many catastrophes they had suffered under Labor. This is Victoria after all.

But this gush-fest suddenly turned into bedlam when dozens of violent intruders forced a lockdown. MPs, delegates and officials were locked in a conference room for their own safety, while protesters tried to smash their way inside. Ministers Lily D’Ambrosio and Harriet Shing found themselves surrounded and jostled by demonstrators, who slapped pro-Palestine stickers on their clothing.

Taking to X later, Allan said she was “disgusted” at the actions of protesters, accusing them of bullying as well as “violence, homophobia and anti-Semitism”. Their actions, she claimed, were unacceptable.

“As Premier, my priority is a cohesive society where all Victorians feel safe and respected,” she said. “That’s what I’m fighting for.”

A most admirable aspiration, Jacinta Allan, but you completely miss the point. Your own faction, Socialist Left, pushed motions at the conference that made fleeting mention of Hamas’s atrocities but called for an end to Israel’s “perpetual military occupation and human rights violations”. As for the actions of the protesters, they are hardly an aberration in Victoria. Rather, they are an example of how civil society deteriorates under long-term socialist governments that not only are contemptuous of individual rights but also act as if they are immune to the law.

Andrews has passed the debt baton on to his successor Allan.

This year will see Labor notch up a decade of government in Victoria, but its legacy will live on for generations. Net debt is expected to reach $188bn by 2027-28. The interest on that alone amounts to $26m per day and will take up nearly nine per cent of operating revenue. The state’s credit rating, already slashed from AAA to AA in 2020, will likely be reduced to AA- if that figure reaches 10 per cent.

Net debt as a share of gross state product will reach 25.1 per cent in 2026. That statistic is alarming, particularly for older Victorians. To put that in perspective, as the Fin Review noted, that figure at its peak during the disastrous Cain/Kirner governments was 16 per cent.

The announcement this month that the Allan government would provide families with school-aged children with a $400 payment, totalling $278m, was merely the latest chapter of Labor’s fairytale book ‘The State as Provider’. Free TAFE for Victorians. Free university fees for nurses and teachers. Free car registration for apprentices. Free school uniforms. Free tampons and sanitary pads. Free healthy breakfasts, lunches and holiday food packs for kids. Free preschool. Free IVF. Everything is free!

Remember when Labor said in 2016 that the North East Link would cost $10bn? The estimate now stands at $26.1bn. The West Gate Tunnel project has blown out by $5.1bn. As for the Suburban Rail Loop, that has jumped from $50bn to a whopping $216bn.

When Labor assumed government in 2014 the cost of public service wages stood at $18.7bn. That figure is forecast to reach $42bn by 2027-28, thanks in no small part to the number of government employees rising by 60 per cent over the last 15 years and at double the pace of population growth.

In short, Victoria is well on its way to becoming Venezuela. The only good news is the animals in Melbourne Zoo are not on the menu, at least for now.

So considering all that, what is Allan’s priority? Well, as she announced at the conference while choking back tears, her government will convene a “Worker Protection Consultation Group” to consider new penalties and offences for assaulting and abusing retail workers.

My first reaction upon hearing this was disbelief. I was under the impression there were no retail workers left in Victoria, given what the Andrews government did to business during the pandemic. As for assaulting retail workers (or anyone for that matter), that is already a crime. And while verbally abusing that category of employee is shameful behaviour, particularly when committed by adults against teenagers, where is the justification for criminalising it?

Answer: symbolism. It is a characteristic of dysfunctional and incompetent governments to introduce unnecessary laws, particularly to maintain the illusion that its members are doing something useful. Also foremost in the minds of politicians who propose them is to distract from the government’s failings. In telling you they want to protect retail workers, Allan and Co. want you to forget they are useless at protecting that group and the wider public despite existing laws.

Consider a few cases in point. Retail theft in Victoria last year increased by a massive 38.7 per cent. Last year the state recorded 23,523 criminal offences, up 8.4 per cent from 2022. Crimes committed by children aged 10 to 13 increased by 22.5 per cent in that period, whereas that committed by teenagers aged between 14 and 17 jumped by almost 30 per cent. How did the government respond? It plans to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 by 2027, despite Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton’s strong objections.

As for the state’s observance of its legal obligations, that is a sick joke. Remember when the Andrews government proudly declared in 2019 that it had legislated for industrial manslaughter laws? This month WorkCover dropped 58 health and safety-related charges against Victoria’s Department of Health over the botched hotel quarantine program which resulted in the deaths of over 800 people. As Opposition Leader John Pesutto lamented: “no-one is going to be held accountable for one of the worst disasters in Victoria’s recent history”.

And what did the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission do to uphold rights during the pandemic? Try not to laugh, but it congratulated the Andrews government for providing a “Statement of Compatibility” when parliament passed the COVID-19 Omnibus (Emergency Measures) Act in April 2020, saying it “had given careful consideration to balancing human rights with necessary limitations”.

What followed in Victoria during the next two years was the most shameful and extensive abuse of authority by government and its officials that this country has ever seen. The ministers who presided over that have, for the most part, never been held accountable. And forget any insight into ministerial decision-making during that time. Like Andrews’ before her, Allan’s government is notorious for blocking freedom of information requests. Remember that next time the Premier declares she has dedicated her life to ensuring that Victorians “feel safe and respected”.

Aggravating this malaise is the government’s hellbent determination to be a beacon for progressivism. Like many who identify with this movement, its members believe this is best achieved by attacking conservative institutions and traditions. Whether it was by appointing a radical Marxist and LGBTI activist to implement the so-called Safe Schools program, or by scrapping Melbourne’s Australia Day parade, or by mandating Indigenous so-called truth-telling within the education curriculum, it is done to further a militant and undemocratic agenda.

Yet that is almost insignificant compared to the government’s obsessive desire to negotiate a treaty with Indigenous activists. Just this week Treaty and First Peoples Minister Natalie Hutchins refused to rule out handing over compulsorily acquired private property to Indigenous groups and establishing Indigenous seats in the Victorian parliament as part of a treaty. That is just one example of Allan’s “cohesive society”.

But as the Premier and her ilk belatedly discovered last weekend, the combination of power and peak wokeness leads to the downfall of the incumbent. Labor’s opportunism, together with its fostering of identify politics and its contempt for observing the law, has both served as an example to and emboldened the next generation of activists, in this case anti-Semitists operating under the banner of anti-Zionism. Good luck with placating them, as a hapless Allan attempted to do, by insisting that foreign policy is the domain of the federal government.

Incidentally, last weekend’s disturbances required multiple police having to attend for the duration of the conference. The cost of that no doubt runs into the tens of thousands. Surely Allan will see to it that her party, and not the taxpayer, picks up the tab. After all, she was a senior member of a government that billed right-wing speakers for police attendance when leftist activists caused havoc at their events, and it is only proper that Labor cough up. Right, Jacinta Allan? Hello, Premier?