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.
If you can alter your sex, or is it gender, why can’t you alter your age? I want to age a bit and get me some of that pension money, discount meals and train travel and whatever else is going before Shorten pisses it against the wall.
The problem Milton lies not in reducing your age but increasing it – the two would go together.
eg the age when one can drive, drink,vote, get the pension, have sex etc
Come to think of it, when did “make love” become “have sex” – the terminology of the flower children has been lost.
An interesting advancement through time from copulation, coupling, “hanky panky” etc etc to “having sex”
It’s all just rooting mate!
Except if you are in the US.
Some bloke in Holland recently tried to legally lower his age from 69 to 49. Got thrown out. Silly old bugger. Mid life crisis
Mid life crisis! K’n hell, what’s the life expectancy in Holland.
Ah well JB. 69 is probably yesterday’s 59. Add Viagra to the mix and God knows what may happen. But agree, that fella was being a little optimistic.
No one ever guesses my age Milt and I like it that way. But if I wanted to knock ten years off the official one the government would object. But if I wanted to call myself Yuka and identify as a 51-year-old Asian woman they would cower in fear.
Well I’m guessing your age. You must have been born before the American Civil War, so I’m guessing about 190 ish.
Ex-PM John Howard in this interview with Leigh Sales a few days ago, Mr. Insider, says, early in the interview, that he believes that the Lib/Nats can win the next Election.
Howard, of course, was written off more than once but can back from the dead, just like Lazarus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ_ROx0X8jI
Few politicians today have Howard’s sheer rat-cunning. IMO the most egregious example was the children overboard hoax. My mother, a lifelong Liberal voter, had been wavering, like many others in the lead-up to the 2001 election, over the hardening conservatism of the party, but was swayed at the last minute by Howard’s cynical ploy.
Although he won that election (and the next khaki one), in my mother’s case the trick backfired, because once she realised she’d been had, she never voted Liberal again, still doesn’t. Seems she was ahead of her time.
My mother finally woke up to herself for the 2016 election but only because she was in a jar in the lounge room. Both my parents turned from Labor during the schism and held the grudge forever. I reverse-followed in their footsteps, given the Coalishun’s behaviour in the late 60’s and nothing they’ve ever done has convinced me to change to them. I do vote independent in the ACT though, given the entitlement and toxicity of Labor’s ‘leadership’, especially Andrew Barr ‘the Developer’s Friend’.
They just need a Tampa?
David Attenborough. This will change things.
From his travels he can see what is happening to the Eco-structures around the world Bella and has a first hand knowledge of the fragility of some of the base elements of the food chain and the parlous state that they are in as well as the accelerating wholesale habitat destruction that is endangering many species.
I doubt very much if he will change the minds of many people but every few helps.
Geez old Malcolm is as busy as all get go in voluntary retirement. He appears to be walking, talking, breaking news. Aren’t there any pubs in Point Piper where he could get a schooner of Old, hit the pokies and chillax?
busy lil fbi
https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-common-thread-behind-four-investigations_2728104.html
Nah, …. we ain’t interested in no shell companies, we wanna git one of those multi billion-dollar laundromats.
Another example barnaby pork barreling costing this nation $$. This guy alone is reason enough for a National ICAC. That is before we even think about Stuart Robert Again.
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/australias-wealth-has-shifted-towards-the-rich-again/
less than a month ago the PM stated NO plans to change our processes. “We have a parliamentary democracy in Australia, it’s not a presidential system. John Howard also had this strong view and it is that we represent our elected members of parliament, they go to parliament and they elect who their leader is to run their parliamentary party. That has been the case since federation began and that is what a representative parliamentary democracy is, not just here or any other part of the world where that’s done. So we don’t have any plans to change our processes but what we have plans to do, is just get on with the job of governing.”
Worst government in Nations history. No question about it. Desperate divisive government. Worst case scenario for Australia.
After 6 years of Shorten, we will all look back on the past 5 years with nostalgia and reflect on good, reliable and fiscally sound government.
Delusional JS .Debt has more than doubled. Debt off the books has more than Tripled. Spending has been above 25.5% of GDP since the coalition took over. Spending under Labor averaged 22.8% of GDP for their 6 years. Overall Taxation was at 21.8% of GDP at the time of the 2013 election. Overall tax is now 24% of GDP supposedly going down to the magical figure of 23.95 of GDP in 2019/20. Theb2013 PEFO said debt would top out at 13% and drop under Labors plans Debt is at 20% and rising under the coalition. There has been increasing tax revenues each year and increased commodity prices not to mention increased Company tax receipts. Yet the budget is STILL in DEFICIT and will be for another 12 months at least. Real income has dropped markedly close to 5%. House prices so overall wealth is dropping. GDP has dropped even with all the coalition pork barreling and loading in Defence spending. Facts do NOT support your bizarro world views.No Surprises. Fair dinkum.
Wait for 6 years Sunshine and then make a judgement.
Labor cannot keep its sticky fingers out of the till.
All you have to do is look critically at the budget mess the Libs inherited 5 years ago – that is how long it has taken to work Labor’s largess out of the system.
But there again “critical thinking” and Dismayed do not go together – hard to cut and paste critical and original thinking.
JS you have proven numerous time you will only agree with that which reconfirms your already held bizarro would bias. The budget the Libs. inherited had the same deficit as at the start of this financial year about $17 billion not the ridiculous number Hockey and Frydenberg tried to portray after they loaded some $30 billion onto it. at thr emnd of 2013 Gross debt was $213 billion. Gross debt is not around $600 billion. Facts continue to highlight your wilful ignorance. the only “critical” thing around here is your that your grey matter has been on life support for some time and it is NOT holding up well. You have no clue. No surprises. Move along your are wasting my time with your rubbish.
Wait six years? Well maybe you should too.
By then, I will probably be sitting in an old folk’s home drooling as I watch TV repeats, JB – well maybe not quite but getting close.
Labor does not have any answers that will clean up the mess we live in.
We need another leader like Hawke who can sit down and get all sides together.
I suspect though, given his problems with booze etc before becoming PM, he would never have made it in the PC world of today – AND that is the unsolvable problem.
GULP! (fiscally sound government!)…U are Barking Mad.
Thought i would get a response 😜
My GOTY (Goose of the Year) 2018 Award goes hands down to Barnaby Joyce, Mr Insider, who for this year has done very little but waste an enormous amount of Taxpayer $$$$$$$$’s in receiving his Taxpayer Funded Salary and very little else to show for him breathing good oxygen on Planet Earth.
He now tells us he has a plan to Fund his upcoming Divorce.
God help Australia Joyce lets hope you get voted out in the upcoming Federal Election you Oxygen Thief you!
https://tinyurl.com/y9yhtxcn
Is his girlfriend still being paid for being on “stress leave” Barnaby should have to pay the $200k salary he drew as Deputy PM when he knew full well he was NOT an Aussie!
Nice piece of clarity by Overington today. She provides a few adjectives for Turnbull but stops short at using what I would bet is the most common one for him down in Canberra (probably everywhere) and it starts with c and is not conservative. Ghost sightings are on the up. I reckon another characteristic that Turnbull shares with Rudd is being friendless.
Starts with “C.” That would be champion!
The Australian (Shanahan needs a lie down) is getting rather tedious with the let’s bagTurnbull routine.
Three years of de-stabilisation from the right wing nut jobs, removal of another PM and the new PM a bloke who’d be beaten by a house brick in an IQ contest. The cricket bats are coming to a polling booth near you, shame that Malcolm didn’t use his newly discovered balls to stand them up while PM.
It may start with “c” but its certainly not Casper.
Gold stars from petty cash, Carl!
gee who would have 20% of Border force feel they have been bullied or harassed. who runs that dept. again oh. No Surprises. Fair Dinkum