Daniel Andrews: so popular, even John Howard’s praising him

The result of the Victorian election has been analysed to within an inch of its life. Federal factors, state factors, good leadership, leadership in a vacuum. One thing we can conclude with certainty is that Dan Andrews is the most successful political leader in Australia at present.

He is a formidable politician. We know this because his opponents now acknowledge it.

Andrews has gone from socialist ne’er-do-well, painted as a cartoon villain in so many op-eds last week to being extolled by John Howard during an interview with Leigh Sales on 7.30 on Tuesday night.

“Can I give credit where it is due, I think Daniel Andrews was a very good campaigner. I think he is an extremely good communicator. He explains things clearly, simply and well …” Howard said.

High praise.

The previous titleholder was Annastacia Palaszczuk who went from minority government in Queensland in 2015 on the back of a 12 per cent swing, to forming majority government in Queensland in 2017 with a four-seat net gain.

Dan Andrews’ triumph in Victoria with votes still being counted points to a nine-seat net gain and swing towards Labor on primary vote of 4.6 per cent with the Liberals (-5.9 per cent), Greens (-1.6 per cent) and Nationals (-0.2) all down.

Elsewhere in the states there are new governments in power who are yet to return to the people to have their appeal and their records tested. In New South Wales, the thumping majority won by Barry O’Farrell in 2011 was cut back in 2015 under Mike Baird by 15 seats. Gladys Berejiklian faces a tough fight to hang on in the 2019 state election on March 23 next year and will almost certainly lose seats.

Federally, no government has been returned with an increased majority since the Coalition under John Howard in 2004.

This makes Dan Andrews the undisputed king of electoral politics in Australia. While there have been calumnies (notably the ‘Red Shirts’ scandal with allegations of electoral fraud) and missteps along the way, his first-term agenda has been substantially carried out. The plan for a second term, how to get there and why was effectively communicated.

In the campaign, Andrews assiduously avoided attack politics. He chose to rise above it for the practical reason that the majority of voters are turned off by the schoolyard name calling and petty derision commonplace in politics elsewhere.

Basic stuff, really, for any political party seeking to find its way into government and stay there.

Maybe we need not look much further at the reasons for Andrews’ success. But I want to tell a story that I thought was best left until after the Victorian election lest it be thought I was trying to sway voters. We are beyond that now and the dust has settled.

I’ve had dealings with the Andrews government, not as a journalist but as an advocate on behalf of Denis Ryan. Many will know the story. Denis was a detective with Victoria Police based in Mildura who sought to prosecute an outrageously prolific paedophile priest only to find corrupt forces within VicPol turn against him. That was in 1972. He lost the job he loved and was left battered and bruised by the encounter.

Denis Ryan’s story was told by me in 2013 in the book Unholy Trinity. The assertions of police corruption and wilful ignorance within the Catholic Church were proven in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse in 2015.

The Andrews government had no legal liability to compensate Ryan. The statute of limitations had long since lapsed. I could only appeal to their sense of decency. I had meetings with ministers and almost endless streams of correspondence with various apparatchiks, chiefs of staff, media advisers. Former ministers in Labor governments were recruited to lobby current ministers.

Denis waited.

It was only when Premier Andrews stepped in that the wheels started turning. His intervention accelerated the matter to the point where the 87-year-old hero to so many in Victoria and across the nation received his compensation within a matter of days. After 46 years of waiting for justice, it was all done and dusted in less than two weeks.

The undisclosed amount was not a lotto win for Ryan. It was enough to buy him digs in a retirement home in Mildura and see his needs taken care of for the remainder of his life. He can enjoy a holiday now. That’s the strength of it and despite being owed millions, that is all Denis wanted.

I often said to Labor ministers, “If you want to have a good day in politics go and stand next to Denis Ryan. Shake his hand and see him right.”

I thought they might be swayed by the thought of a good news story. An election was looming. A government could always do with a good news day.

Remarkably,  Andrews did not seek to make a virtue out of it. Neither Andrews nor any of his ministers went up to Mildura to stand on a flat bed truck and hand Denis an oversized presentation cheque in front of a gaggle of media, in an attempt to squeeze a vote out of it here and there. Instead it was done quietly. Without a fuss.

The payment did not have to be made and without the intervention of Andrews, the request for compensation may well be gathering dust on someone’s desk deep in the bowels of a minister’s office in Spring Street. Dan Andrews chose to compensate Ryan without any hullabaloo, any rough politicking. He just did it.

From someone who has been an observer of government for a long time, seen them come and go — some good, some less so — it was impressive.

Some might say the Andrews government did what any government should do and they’d be right, but the fact remains there were eight state governments in Victoria from both sides of the divide that should have acted but did not.

Ryan was made a Member of the Order of Australia on Australia Day this year for his services to “child protection investigations”. He was named Mildura’s Citizen of the Year, the award bestowed upon him on the same day.

After he received his compensation, another award came his way. Denis was to be made a Freeman of the City of Mildura.

He personally invited Premier Andrews to attend the ceremony. Andrews replied in writing days later.

Dear Mr Ryan,

I am sorry I cannot be there in person to see the conferment of your latest title, ‘Freeman of the Rural City of Mildura’.

But I cannot think of a more deserving recipient.

While others chose to hide the truth or avert their gaze, you instead shone a bright light on one of our darkest chapters.

Your courage of conviction, and your relentless pursuit of justice, have changed our nation for good.

On behalf of the Victorian government and the Victorian people, thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Dan Andrews

Politicians come and go. And Dan Andrews one day will certainly go. The how and the why is a long way from being determined. As Paul Keating said of a life in politics, “Everyone goes out feet first, the only difference is whether the pall bearers are crying or not.”

There is perhaps another truism. In politics as in life, decency goes a long way.

This article was first published in The Australian on 28 November 2018.