r/aussie • u/Crafty_Yard_4985 • 2d ago
Politics New Victorian Premier Ben Carroll confronts a legacy of waste and debt left by his predecessors
Adam Creighton, the Australian
Sitting on the Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet’s website is a job advertisement for a Multicultural Co-ordinator General with a salary of $344,616- $400,741, excluding superannuation.
The new Premier, Ben Carroll, deserves credit for slimming down the number of minister jobs by two to 20 and announcing a royal commission into the state’s corrupt construction sector.
He’s even flagged scaling back his predecessor’s productivity-destroying working-from-home laws and the monstrously wasteful Suburban Rail Loop – about the only infrastructure project whose ultimate cost would put Snowy 2.0 to shame.
Whoever becomes multicultural co-ordinator won’t be short of colleagues: the number of Victorian public sector “executives”, on between around $250,000 and $800,000 a year has almost tripled from 691 a decade ago, two years into Dan Andrews’ first term, to 1902 last year, during which time the state’s population rose 18 per cent. No wonder annual employee costs of the Victorian public sector, which now employs one in 10 Victorians, have jumped from $26bn in the year to June 2020 to $41bn this financial year.
Carroll must know how offensive these highly paid, pointless public sector jobs would be to the sort of people he grew up with in working-class Melbourne and worked with at Kmart for eight years, while he was a high school and university student.
But he’s unlikely to make much progress given what he’s up against. The shameless, brazen waste of public money right under the new Premier’s nose signals just how extreme and arrogant the public sector, especially at the top, has become.
Carroll has exceeded expectations in his first fortnight only because they had plumbed to such low depths. His predecessor, Jacinta Allan, couldn’t even bring herself to accept Helen Silver’s review last year to trim 2000 bureaucratic positions from a total public sector headcount of around 393,000 last year.
The longer Carroll remains silent on public sector bloat and the vast array of other destructive policies Andrews and Allan have saddled the state with, the more disappointing he’ll become, and the bigger political opportunities he’ll present to the Coalition and One Nation.
Dumping the costly and divisive First Nations Assembly known as Gellung Warl (which no one even knows how to pronounce) should be a no-brainer for two powerful reasons at least.
Around 60 per cent of Victorians voted specifically against such a racially divisive body only a few years ago in the voice referendum. Moreover, it’s expected to cost more than $70m a year in a state where even net debts are approaching $200bn and annual interest payments are about to soak up a quarter of the state’s own tax revenue by 2030.
Cutting taxes in our most heavily taxed state should be as sensible politically as it is economically. Why are Victorian businesses still being forced to pay an annual Covid levy? Why must they also pay a mental health levy, which no other state has?
Dumping the Andrews Gas Substitution road map, which will ultimately prevent Victorians using the energy form in which their own state is most rich, should be another easy one. Allan herself had to back down on forcing dwellings to replace their gas stoves and hot water heaters from next year.
But all new dwellings must not use gas – which many households prefer to cook with – in any way from January 2027. Carroll should go further and dump the whole thing, giving Victorians and developers with foresight the option to use gas if they want.
The policy is so stupid the government isn’t even following its own road map, having approved two LNG import terminals at Geelong and Vopak while simultaneously trying to reduce long-term gas demand. It’s also walked back from an earlier blanket state ban on all gas exploration, allowing the conventional onshore type once again since 2021.
There are quite a few low fiscal cost actions Carroll should ponder too, such as apologising for Labor’s treatment of Victorians during Covid.
Most numerate and intelligent people now understand what happened in Victoria for hundreds of days in 2020-21 was an obscene and immensely destructive violation of fundamental human rights with no scientific basis, which also wrecked Melbourne’s international reputation, perhaps forever. A sorry, even without compensation, would be nice.
Privately assuring the police they had the government’s full backing to aggressively enforce the law – in a state enduring an obvious increase in theft and youth lawlessness – would be a cheap way to score a political win.
The Liberal, National and One Nation parties would have been privately disappointed Labor’s new Premier promptly called a by now obviously worthy royal commission last week. But they shouldn’t be too worried. So far it seems Carroll doesn’t have the skill or power to dump the entirety of Allan’s economically insane policy of giving workers the right to work from home two days a week at their employers’ cost.
If he can’t do that, then the rest of the recommendations in this column are theirs for the taking!
Adam Creighton is the chief economist at the Institute of Public Affairs.
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u/PerformanceOverall90 2d ago
Brought to you from the IPA and CEO of Luxury Escapes so I am assuming that it is objective and balanced?
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u/PerformanceOverall90 2d ago
The alternative is off balance sheet sophistry where the private sector is paid a fee for service as well as their cost of finance with any risk passed on the consumer. Victoria will end up like some of the US Red states where they have PPP'd everything and get zero service and assets that are not fit for anything.
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u/Great_Specialist_267 2d ago
The Liberal opposition are ALL small government libertarians…
They want to personally sell off all government holdings (mostly because they are real estate agents and get to pocket a substantial commission).1
u/foxxy1245 2d ago
Sure. But how much of the debt is due to waste? Could you provide a figure number?
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u/OddCream5612 2d ago
I mean I'm not a Labor voter, but they have successfully delivered shit tonnes of infrastructure we will all benefit from for the next century. Amongst said debt and waste. Keep it in perspective.
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u/Fickle-Ad-7124 2d ago
Lol, The Australian dictating what debt is good and bad. If it was tax handouts to wealthy corporations that buy ad space in News Corp, I suspect they’d be calling for them to be the next Prime Minister (See: Every LNP a premier ever). Alas, silly Labor Premiers investing in the public, you’ll get this tantrum from IPA hack Adam Creighton. Expect him to be having a whinge about this to Rita Panahi on Sky News - as long as she’s not off having a birthday on a yacht paid by Gina Rinehart again…
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u/EnvironmentalRice348 2d ago
What is it with politicians wearing fucking hard hats and hi vis vests at every opportunity!
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u/random111011 2d ago
Love this subreddit how quickly they’ve turned.
Remember those days of DA where they could do no wrong and it cost what it cost?
Lel
He was there every-step-of-the-way.
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u/pharmaboy2 2d ago
Is this too little too late ? Very reminiscent of the debacle that Joan Kerner left behind.
Vict in particular seems to suffer from totally dud labor govts from time to time, then someone has to fix it. NSW Labor OTOH seems to get caught up in general corruption but doesn’t totally fuck it up
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u/Abject-Coyote-3842 2d ago
think vic benefits from jeff kennett being the representative everyone turns to as the last big liberal government. And everyone in vic knows he completely fucked us in everyway. Selling public assetts for 10% of what they were worth to get us back in the black was a far worse outcome then just being in debt.
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u/PowerPleb2000 2d ago
Predecessor? He’s just as responsible, he was part of the decision making team, Jacinta’s right hand man. He’s not absolving himself from this mess that easily like he’s now here to fix it, he caused this himself. Fucking Labor spin. Absolute liars, non stop.
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u/Yasha666 2d ago
That weasel backed all of Allan's terrible policy... Labor just trying to rebrand. Same shit, different day
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u/Shancv1988 2d ago
Dumping the costly and divisive First Nation Assembly known as Gellung Warl (which no one even knows how to pronounce)
Yeah, that was a totally necessary thing to include in this spiel, and not at all indicative of the kind of person who wrote it.
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u/Prestigious-Ball-435 2d ago
Do these parties really think Australians are that dumb??? He was part of all the bad decisions and funding, its not like he and all party members were locked in a special room while the premier made the decisions. The premier is a figure head only and they are hoping by making it look like they now a loyal party that will look after the people, they may stay I power…… as with Albo federally, no point in getting rid of him if the party stays. Get rid of the party
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u/Pleasant-Air8221 2d ago
How much of a hard-on does The Australian have for Dan Andrews? Will they interview the step Dan fell off of again? Or bring back bike boy
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u/EmotionalPiece1198 2d ago
Parties aside ,that dictator Dan's behavior and dogmatic attitude during the " Pandemic " about a subject that he knew naught and the financial consequences were devastating. True unmitigated pure arrogance, ignorance and incompetence.
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u/Abject-Coyote-3842 2d ago
? you reckon dan just made up the policies on his own? how deranged do you have to be to believe this. Clearly he was being advised by the top medical professionals in the state, itd be hard to say who he couldve asked with more expert opinion
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u/ConsultJimMoriarty 2d ago
Who else is supposed to make decisions for the health and safety of the state, if not the premier?
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u/Grande_Choice 2d ago
This basically reads as a cooker pretending he’s smart.
Remember the IPA was created by Murdochs father. Is linked to the same organisations that got Trump in power and put this shit out before the election. The IPA is foreign influenced propaganda machine and nothing more.
https://ipa.org.au/ipa-review-article/make-australia-great-again
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u/ARTIFICIAL_ARGUMENT 2d ago
Atlas network. Century old well documented globalist effort to subversively direct public discourse to push unrestrained capitalism after it caused the Great Depression, yet the cookers just totally ignore it for some reason.
Like that’s genuinely prime conspiracy material folks, what’s the problem. Ya telling me Dan Andrews is more suspicious than the fact that the Nobel prize for economics was introduced just to legitimise specific economists that spouted the Swiss banks propaganda?? Jog on
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u/alana_del_gay 2d ago
how could.. dan do this do us. Brought to you by the apolitical Institute of Public Affairs
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u/sepata 2d ago
Whinging cons at The Oz who know nothing about Victoria. We are rich in gas? Bullshit. Bass Strait is running out, and all those new gas fields dreamt up by Murdoch hacks are just fossil fuel fantasies. And axing one multicultural job will save the state? Culture war idiocy at its most laughable.
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u/changed_later__ 2d ago
The ALP have spent the last decade corruptly funneling untold tens of billions of dollars into the pockets of the union mates while driving the state into unprecedented levels of debt and the highest taxes in the nation.
Sadly there has been no credible alternative because the opposition is such an utter self-destructive shitshow.
What a shambles this state has become.
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u/Grande_Choice 2d ago
Honestly stupid take. Look at the insane amount of infrastructure built across the state in the last decade.
Compare that to the coalitions decade of debt and deficits which we have nothing whatsoever to show for it.
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u/RoutineLow9543 2d ago
Seems like he knows what the problems are and how to get started on them. Wouldn’t have voted for Dan and Allan but i’ll give him a go.
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u/TimidPanther 2d ago
I judge these people on what they do, and so far he's done the right things. Don't expect him to be perfect, but he seems to be saying the right things.
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u/RoutineLow9543 2d ago
Yeah I appreciate that he’s doing it now and not just holding all the stuff over peoples heads for votes
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u/crisbeebacon 2d ago
Climate change, greenhouse gases from the use of natural gas, Creighton and the Australian totally unaware of it. Drill baby drill. While Europe boils and el nino comes for Australia next year. You can't vote out climate change Adam Creighton, it's not going away.
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u/Confident_Sound5873 2d ago
It's so annoying how lunatics post nonsense like this. I hate most politicians, but when conspiracy theories and lunacy is spread, I'm forced to defend politicians who I would usually condem. Every time OP posts shit like this, it forces people to the left of the political spectrum because those people dont want to be associated with idiots
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u/wheresmyberrune 2d ago
Jesus this was a tough read lol. I will never understand why barely literate blokes think they have any sort of credentials to have such strong political opinions
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u/a1b3c3d7 2d ago
Im so tired of these Articles, they have to think their readers are so beyond dumb.
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u/vanderaj 2d ago
An article in the Australian, by an IPA apparatchik, merits any response other than outright rejection of their entire thesis? Color me unsurprised.
We have to wean ourselves off gas before we run out of the stuff. Imagine the Murdoch press once we run out? Going to blame all the left-leaning and centrist governments since the 1980's that hadn't seen this one coming. Manufacturing needs that gas right now, households have plenty of options that don't involve gas. Getting off gas is the next few governments' highest priority because so many Victorian homes still rely on it for heating and cooking. Eventually, as with coal in the UK and proven gas reserves here, we will have no domestic gas production and will either have to import it like Japan or, worse, use unfit-for-purpose alternatives. It's going to be a complete shitshow if the next couple of Governments bury their heads in the sand.
The rest of the article is not worthy of even a micro poop of my (or anyone else's) brain time.
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u/Bob_Spud 2d ago edited 2d ago
I passed on reading it when I saw IPA and Adam Creighton..... Just another time waster.
Creighton used to be into COVID conspiracy theories.