Rats and sinking ships come to mind: no less than four senior ministers, including the deputy premier, have suddenly announced their resignations from the Victorian government. This all just five months out from an election. Dictator Dan’s little rowboat is taking on water and listing even further to the left — and the rodents are bailing out.
Victorian Deputy Premier James Merlino, Health Minister Martin Foley, Sports Minister Martin Pakula and Police Minister Lisa Neville have officially announced their resignations on Friday.
All four of Daniel Andrews’ senior ministers will step down from cabinet, before retiring from parliament at the November state election.
What’s even more significant is that all of them were deeply implicated in Dan’s disastrous Covid policies: policies that unleashed more deaths in the first wave of the disease than the rest of the nation combined. Policies that absolutely no-one in the Andrews government will take responsibility for — because not one of them claims to know or remember anything.
The shock mass resignation means the Premier will go to the November 26 election with an inexperienced front bench, but will have the opportunity to sell a rejuvenated eight-year-old government as he vies for a third term.
The Australian
I guess when the wheels fall off your government and you break out four emergency spares to limp along, and the belts are replaced with rubber bands and used pantyhose, you could call that “rejuvenated”. I doubt anyone else will buy it, though.
Just to rub in how desperately Dan is scraping the bottom of the Vic Labor barrel, take a gander at his new deputy premier. Even Victorians will be scratching their heads, asking, “Jacinta who?”
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has put forward Transport Infrastructure Minister Jacinta Allan to be his new deputy after the resignation of four top colleagues.
The move will break convention of having the party leader and deputy from different party factions as both Mr Andrews and Ms Allan come from Labor’s Left.
The Australian
So, that will be a socialist premier and a socialist deputy. If Victoria leans any further left, Melbourne will be crashing into Adelaide.
But when Victorians finally do click and remember who Jacinta Allan is, that’ll come with a load of baggage of its own. If voters in Melbourne’s working-class eastern fringe are still incandescent over Covid lockdowns, voters on the western fringe have been putting up with years of daily gridlocks on the Westgate Freeway, thanks to a completely bollixed infrastructure program that is tens of billions over budget and years behind schedule.
From a purely personal point of view, the brightest silver lining in this slow-motion trainwreck is the final flushing of the odious Lisa Neville.
Even when I was still stupid enough to be a Labor voter in the 80s, I detested Neville: the most irritating Labor quota-flexing factional hack since Kristina Keneally. So, watching her finally taking a swan dive down the political s-bend is particularly laden with schadenfreude.
If only she’d take her ex, “China Dick” Marles, with her.
I’m certainly starting to look forward to November.
