Puzzleheaded on Reddit stated this week:
I read that as "Jacinda Ardern elected as new Victorian premier" and thought that was quite the development.
Not quite, but close enough, to consider granting Puzzleheaded a cigar. I, too, misread an early story on the new Victorian Premier and made precisely that error. It wasn’t wishful thinking. It is true that someone from a Commonwealth country can become British Prime Minister. Someone (from Canada) did once. Mark Steyn suggested that, after Boris and then Liz Truss left in short order, Tony Abbott should have been drafted as British PM. But it isn’t true that Kiwis can simply ford the Ditch and rise to high office here. Joh Bjelke-Petersen, Alex Greenwich and Barnaby Joyce notwithstanding.
For some reason the Daily Mail considered it a “happy coincidence” that Allan had the same initials as Jacindarella.
I’m not sure why this coincidence is particularly “happy”. I doubt that Jacinta “Commonwealth Games” Allan will ever have her visage adorning a wheat silo in Brunswick as occurred with her much adored-in-Victoria almost-namesake. Until July this year, Allan was Minister for Commonwealth Games Delivery. (Yes, that really was a portfolio title). Domino’s and even Deliveroo have better records on “delivery”.
Deliveroo has departed the scene, of course:
Deliveroo no longer operates in Australia.
Deliveroo has taken the difficult decision to leave Australia. We have been proud to bring so many people amazing meals from Australia’s great restaurants over the years. We want to thank everyone we have worked with. KordaMentha has been formally appointed as administrators for this process.
https://deliveroo.com.au/
The way Victoria is going with its massive and exponentially growing public debt, KordaMentha might well be called in shortly by the new Premier.
As noted by The Daily Mail:
The cancellation [of the Games] will see Victorian taxpayers hand over $380million to the Commonwealth Games Federation in London.
The new Premier might equally appropriately be known as Jacinta “project blowout” Allan, such have been her repeated associations with disaster across a number of portfolios, especially Transport and Infrastructure. She has probably been responsible personally for the creation of more public debt than anyone else in Australia’s history.
As Transport Minister since 2014, she has also been associated with a $3.3billion cost blowout in Labor's signature program to replace railway level crossings with bridges.
But this is only scratching the surface of Victoria’s debt blowout. Even The Age is reporting at least some of the facts, for once:
Jacinta Allan oversaw $20b in cost blowouts, now the debt bill will bite.
… In 2016, the North East Link was to cost $10 billion. Its price tag is now $16.5 billion. The West Gate Tunnel ballooned from $5.5 billion to $10 billion. The Metro Tunnel’s 2015 business case said it would cost $7.5 billion, but it will cost $12 billion. And the Suburban Rail Loop was to cost $50 billion. Its first stage, covering a third of the total plan, is budgeted at $34.5 billion.
They have been spending like drunken sailors down by the Yarra. They make Gough Whitlam look like John Stone.
Back to Jacindarella. The similarities between the political doppelgangers are there. They are both leftie women. They are both political pugilists, especially Allan. They are age adjacent (43 and 50). They both believe in big government. They are both mates of the departing Daniel “rubber bullets” Andrews.
They were both Covidmaniacs, disciples of the Zero Covid lunacy. Back in 2020, we had this:
MEMBER for Bendigo East, Jacinta Allan has been announced a member of the Victorian government's new Crisis Council of Cabinet, responsible for decision-making on matters related to the state's coronavirus emergency.
https://www.bendigoadvertiser.com.au/story/6711246/jacinta-allan-takes-on-new-covid-19-portfolio/
So, the new girl, just like her colleague in New Zealand, was right at the heart of decision-making about a minor virus, decision-making that had devastating consequences for Victorians. Ardern locked down and locked up the island nation, to keep the Covid boogie-man out. Andrews’ Gang of Eight (the CCC) did much the same thing, only with more thuggery and modern weaponry than occurred across the Ditch.
While Andrews will forever be seen (rightly) as the ugly face of the Victorian lockdown, his successor cannot escape the opprobrium that many of us still believe and hope will one day come. Come to think of it, Allan has been associated directly with three of the greatest disasters of the Andrews reign. The Games, the blowouts and Covid. (Yes, I know it is hard to pick out just three disasters from such a long and impressive list).
Allan will be marketed as a fresh face, a little like Ardern was, initially. She will have some of the sparkle that, unaccountably, usually attaches to female leaders (though this might be beginning to fade). As Allan contemplates the $200 billion suburban rail loop – now THAT is a rail loop – and the rest of the ballooning debt, Jacinta might just be wondering what she has let herself in for.
All this is now on HER plate, as Daniel “the thug’ Andrews waltzes off with his “eye watering” $300,000 per year superannuation package and no Covid Nuremberg, thanks to his leftie mate in Canberra who – probably at Andrews’ insistence – managed to keep the States’ Covid decisions out of the white-wash non inquiry.
Good work if you can get it. He should be just able to cope with the cost-of-living crisis that the rest of us are battling, a cost-of-living crisis that was the direct result of the Covid policies that he and his National Cabinet mates inflicted on us all. (Andrews will also get a driver as part of his going away present. Perhaps Andrews’ wife might put the him or her to use on occasions. To avoid pesky cyclists).
With Andrews gone, we now have two Jacintas on the national political stage. One of them is the first female Victorian Premier since … Joan Kirner. The other is a leader, and would never in a million years be thinking that she had anything in common with Jacinda Ardern. Or Joan Kirner.
Paul Collits
28 September 2023
“They have been spending like drunken sailors down by the Yarra. “
Please note, drunken sailors spend their own money. Otherwise all correct!
Thanks geebee. Will do a piece on this