In just 30 or so days – voters in Victoria have a single task – dumping the most dodgy, ‘clapped out’ government in the state’s history.
The 12-year ‘Labor experiment’ has failed spectacularly.
Voters are turning against ‘big’ government in which taxation has punished the enterprising while distributing to the unproductive on an industrial scale. This trend is visible at both the federal and state levels in Australia.
Australians feel worse off under Labor – because they are worse off. Voters will take a chance on the untried leader of the Coalition, Jess Wilson, who offers the promise of smaller government and a major boost to the quality of vital but massively degraded public services.
Wilson has promised government spending will be for the restoration of services for all Victorians – not the preferred cohort of Labor sympathisers. Leftist ideological fripperies favoured by those ignorant of the productive economy will be wiped out.
The arteries of pot-holed roads in and out of Melbourne stand as symbols of a failed state in which Labor has served its own interests while ignoring those of the vast majority of taxpayers.
Frontline services are visibly collapsing in all primary ‘service’ areas of government, while Labor has funded a raft of ideologically driven agendas such as The First People’s Assembly of Victoria.
The ‘People’s Assembly’ is billed as the state’s elected ‘representative body’ for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Victoria. Few know precisely what it does, how it works, or what it costs taxpayers every year.
None of this matters to its founders. Labor will point to it as one of its enduring legacies of office. The cost, of course, is irrelevant to them.
The stunning collapse of Victoria’s budgetary architecture is of little concern to people without the ability to understand what running out of taxpayers’ money actually means.
The obscene level of debt facing the state (approaching $200 billion and the highest of all Australian states) is reason enough to repudiate the idiocy of a government that continues to borrow without the remotest regard for repayment. Every hour, one million dollars falls due in interest repayments on state debt.
Never before has a public administration so comprehensively made the case for rejection than the Andrews, Allan, Carroll governments.
Premier Ben Carroll, and his hapless predecessors, are building train lines to nowhere but have failed to build the only one that matters – the much promised, but not delivered, line to Melbourne Airport.
Ours is the only capital city in Australia without an airport rail link despite repeated commitments to build one.
This is one of multiple humiliations for a city which wants to be taken seriously. Hospital waiting lists, ambulance ramping, school outcomes declining rapidly, and hopelessly inadequate mental health services, a dramatic rise in homelessness, among a sea of failings, are all part of Labor’s miserable legacy.
After 12 years of entrenched Labor social engineering – outcomes in health, education, law and order, energy, and infrastructure are worse off.
Victorians are in fear of gang violence, youth crime, car fires, home invasions, underworld reprisals, and what seem to be routine machete attacks.
Efforts by Jacinta Allan’s failed administration to set up a business advisory council collapsed because her Ministers proved incapable of grasping the advice it was being given. It was merely ‘window dressing’ in any event. The ‘dressing of windows’ is an art form in which Labor specialises.
The most corrosive government in our history has worked to serve the interests of unions while ignoring the interests and wishes of Victorians for responsible and trusted government.
Voter mood has changed – but still Labor ploughs on borrowing, squandering and wrecking on an unprecedented scale.
So worn down is the electorate, it barely has the will to protest. But teachers, fire fighters, and farmers have all valiantly hit the streets to express exasperation. More protests can be expected in the weeks remaining before polling day.
There are signals in Spring Street that Labor mandarins are preparing for a voter backlash on November 28.
Sources reveal that senior public servants are anxiously looking at ‘next jobs’ in the likelihood ‘their government’ is booted from office.
The more alert among them – many closely aligned with senior figures in the parliamentary arm of Labor – are looking to leverage relationships outside government as part of their exit plans from December onwards.
Some will seek to append themselves to their federal comrades while others will jump ship to Labor lobbying and consulting firms.
And so voters are starting to focus on the alternative to Labor – as well they might. A frequent question is whether Jess Wilson is up to the task of governing Victoria? The answer is important.
The early signs are that Wilson and her team are better prepared for office than any previous Coalition team in the last 15 years.
While Wilson is young and relatively inexperienced – she has shown herself to be a good listener ready to heed the advice of many outside the parliamentary bubble. She hails from a political family. Her father, Ron, served as a Victorian Member of Parliament (Member for Bennettswood 1999-2002). Many voters have already determined that any party would be preferable to the Labor rabble that has done so much damage over the twelve years it’s occupied the government benches.
As has been much observed, this election is perhaps the most crucial in Victoria’s history. The task of repairing the state’s financial base is immense and urgent. The task cannot wait any longer.
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