Melbourne is miserable – and SA could cash in | David Penberthy

Everything is up for debate in politics but there’s little argument to be had over the fact this place is being far better run, writes David Penberthy.

In politics as in life all things are relative. It is a matter of debate whether the Malinauskas Government has been a good government for South Australia.

Less debatable is whether it is a vastly superior government to the one running Victoria, or rather running Victoria into the ground, as that poor state struggles to emerge from the budgetary aftermath of its unparalleled Covid lockdown.

There are many nice things about living in SA. One of them is the tone of our politics.

In Victoria, politics over the past four years has had the capacity to split families and end friendships.

That standing army of “I stand with Dan” acolytes slugged it out with enraged parents who simply wanted to take their kids to the local park, and business owners being denied the right to operate despite being able to observe social distancing.

The division of the state between the so-called “cookers” who opposed every aspect of the lockdown, versus the Andrews acolytes who accepted if not loved every part of it, generated a toxic political environment without equal anywhere in Australia and in few parts of the world.

Anti-lockdown protesters gather at Flinders Street Station, Melbourne, following the announcement of the lockdown in February, 2021. Picture: Diego Fedele/Getty Images.

The lockdown might be over but its effects in Victoria are still being felt, more so than in any other state.

The after-affects have been made worse under a Left Faction-dominated state government, where the baton has been passed from the retiring Andrews to his factional ally in Jacinta Allen, with the same negative attitudes to business and ambivalence about high levels of debt and taxation still holding sway.

For hardworking Victorians this manifests itself in economic misery.

Without wanting to sound too craven, for us here in South Australia who want to see our state get ahead and prosper, it manifests itself in economic opportunity.

The state budget brought down by Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas this week is a case study in how not to run a state. John Cain, who led Victoria through economic hardship after the Pyramid building society collapse in the early 1990s, could look at this week’s Budget and consider himself a paragon of fiscal rectitude.

This latest budget has at its centrepiece a bill of almost $600 million to (not) host the Commonwealth Games, expensive and hotly-debated infrastructure projects such as the $14 billion Metro Tunnel and the $34 billion Suburban Rail Loop, and a daily interest bill of almost $26 million to service the state’s burgeoning debt which is set to reach $190 billion by 2027. Just paying the interest on that debt is now off the charts. By 2027 it will stand at $9.5 billion, up from $2.1 billion just a decade ago. That’s an extraordinary increase.

Daniel Andrews backed away from hosting the Commonwealth Games, blaming a blown budget. Picture: Ian Currie.

Due to budgetary pressures the Victorian Government has had to delay promised spending on mental health and new community hospital projects, even though it went knocking on the door of business last year with a raft of tax increases to pay for the cost of Covid.

That of itself says all you need to know about the anti-business sentiments of this Government – having hit business harder than any other government in Australia through a marathon lockdown, they then had the audacity to demand that they pay for it again through increased taxes.

In contrast the Malinauskas Government has now delivered two budgets and hasn’t increased any state taxes, other than pre-existing fees and charges in line with CPI, as every government does. It is repeatedly on the record as ruling out any new taxes or increases to existing ones. It is my expectation they will honour that promise again in next month’s state budget.

When you couple the anti-business environment to our east with other “progressive” policies embraced in Victoria, you can see why there’s a real chance for SA to start cashing in.

The best recent example of this was the decision of Lonsdale-based airconditioning manufacturers Seeley International to shut down a large part of their Victorian operations and move hundreds of jobs back to SA, fuelled by Victoria’s hostility to the use of natural gas. The absurdity of course is that banning gas, as they have in new homes in Victoria, means households and business must instead use power generated in part by brown coal.

However dumb the policy might be, it’s handed us a win in SA as old jobs come back here and new ones are created.

Melbourne’s economic misery translates into economic opportunity for SA, writes David Penberthy. Picture: Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images

In a political sense, what we are seeing between SA and Victoria is two Labor traditions at play – the centrist Hawke-Keating approach in SA, versus something over the border that looks like the love child of Dr Jim Cairns and Jeremy Corbyn.

The upside for SA could be jobs and investment, especially with an increasingly mobile workforce, thousands of whom now work from home and might prefer a city without a two-hour peak hour and punishingly expensive homes.

If we can get the message out that life doesn’t have to be that way, there’s a potential bonanza for SA, which is already enjoying a serious lifestyle-related rethink in Victoria thanks to the AFL Gather Round.

Don’t take my word for it.

The recent column by Steve Price, the expat South Aussie and longstanding Melbourne resident, was a pitiable cry for help from deep inside War-torn Dan-stan. If he wasn’t a Richmond supporter you’d almost feel sorry for him.

Steve should know that we would welcome him back tomorrow with open arms. Just like Seeley did to hundreds of manufacturing workers.

Just like we could to many other workers if our government can stay true to its promise of keeping taxes down, and governing in a centrist fashion, both for the average person as well as the private sector which generates all the jobs.

Originally published as Melbourne is miserable – and SA could cash in | David Penberthy