The highs and lows of Daniel Andrews’ premiership

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Daniel Andrews, one of Victoria’s longest-standing premiers and the country’s most recognisable politicians, leaves many legacies as he steps down from the job after nine years.

Here are some of the moments – the highs and the lows – that defined his leadership since his Labor government swept to power in 2014.

Daniel Andrews won an historic third term in 2022 that extended Labor’s majority to 56 of 88 seats.Credit: Marija Ercegovac

East West Link

In one of his first acts as premier, Andrews spent $1.1 billion cutting up the contract for the 18-kilometre East West Link toll road as promised in opposition. Both sides of the political aisle copped a spray from the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office for the imprudent use of tax dollars. The former Coalition government withheld $4 billion worth of infrastructure funding earmarked for it, and the canned project dogged state politics for the first two terms of Andrews’ government.

Metro Tunnel

The Metro rail tunnel was abandoned by the former Liberal government in its 2014 budget in favour of the East West Link, setting up an election campaign portrayed as a choice between the road and rail projects. Once elected, Andrews proceeded with the Metro Tunnel to add two nine-kilometre rail tunnels under the CBD with five new underground stations. The $12.58 billion rail project went over budget but is scheduled to open on time by 2025.

West gate tunnel

This project, to widen the West Gate Freeway and build a new tunnel under Yarraville, has been plagued by cost overruns and delays after toxic soil was unearthed in 2019. Work is due to finish in 2025 – two years later than planned – at almost double the cost.

Level crossing removals

Labor’s signature level crossing removal project helped catapult Andrews into government in 2014, with an initial promise of overhauling 50 level crossings. A total of 110 have now been earmarked for removal to ease traffic congestion and improve safety following pedestrian deaths where roads intersect with rail tracks.

A level crossing being removed in suburban Melbourne.Credit: Jason South

The CFA scandal

Jane Garrett quit the ministry in 2016 over concerns she held that a proposed workplace deal for paid Country Fire Authority firefighters would undermine volunteerism and breach equal opportunity laws. The government went on to sack the entire board of the authority, which shared Garrett’s concerns. The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission has been examining interactions Andrews and a public servant had with the United Firefighters Union, which benefited from the fire services reform bill.

The car crash

As opposition leader in 2013, Andrews was a passenger in a taxpayer-funded 4WD driven by his wife Catherine that collided with 15-year-old cyclist Ryan Meuleman, who spent 11 days in hospital with serious injuries. Attending police failed to breathalyse anyone and did not press charges against Catherine Andrews. The police were cleared of wrongdoing, including in an investigation by the corruption watchdog. Andrews was forced to confront the Blairgowrie crash almost a decade later when Meuleman spoke to the Herald Sun during the 2022 election campaign.

A photo posted by Andrews with his wife Catherine out for a walk before returning to work from injury in July 2021.

The broken back

Andrews took three months off during COVID-19 in 2021 when he slipped on stairs during a family holiday in Sorrento. The premier broke ribs and his vertebrae, wore a brace for months, and needed a machine to assist his breathing for two days in intensive care. James Merlino took over as acting premier for the period, which was overcome with salacious rumours about the premier’s fall.

Commonwealth Games cancellation

Andrews scrapped the 2026 Commonwealth Games in five regional centres just 15 months after announcing the event at a cost of $2.6 billion. In July 2023, he said the projected cost had escalated to $7 billion. The cancellation was probed by a Senate inquiry, by the Victorian parliament’s upper house, and by the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office.

COVID-19

Victoria had Australia’s longest lockdowns and the most COVID-19 deaths during the first two years of the pandemic, which was in part traced back to the state’s use of security guards to manage hotel quarantine. Former health minister Jenny Mikakos resigned from cabinet when Andrews said he held her ultimately responsible as minister. The premier became one of the country’s most divisive figures during the pandemic, facing the media at live-streamed press conference for 100 straight days while angry “freedom” protesters gathered outside parliament. Andrews refused to apologise for other contentious COVID-19 decisions criticised by the Victorian Ombudsman such as the hard lockdown of nine public housing towers and the sudden closure of state borders.

Intervention of state division

Labor’s national executive took over the state branch after former minister Adem Somyurek’s industrial-scale branch stacking was exposed by The Age and 60 Minutes. Somyurek was booted from the ministry, and Marlene Kairouz, Robin Scott, and Luke Donnellan were all forced to resign from cabinet over the saga. Andrews was not personally implicated, although those involved were part of his government’s ministry. Voting rights were only returned to state members after almost three years. In its subsequent Operation Watts investigation, the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission found a “catalogue of unethical and inappropriate behaviour” within state Labor.

Red shirts scandal

Labor Party campaigners were arrested in early morning raids in the months before the 2018 election, a police decision the state Ombudsman later said was a mistake in her second probe into the “red shirts” rort. The scandal refers to a scheme used in the 2014 election campaign, in which casual electorate officers spent most of their working hours campaigning in marginal seats in a misuse of parliament’s budget. After Ombudsman Deborah Glass in March 2018 said 21 MPs had breached parliament rules, Labor repaid more than $387,000.

Voluntary assisted dying

Victoria was the first state to allow voluntary assisted dying in Australia in a momentous and emotional vote. Both houses debated for more than 24 hours. The bill passage in 2017 gave Victorians with a terminal illness, with less than six months to live, the right to voluntarily access assisted dying once the law came into effect in 2019.

Inside the North Richmond safe injecting room.Credit: Eddie Jim

Safe injecting room

North Richmond became home to Victoria’s first safe injecting room in a trial from 2018, saving dozens of lives, but beginning a long-running spat over its location next door to a primary school. The Andrews government announced it would open a second safe injecting room in Melbourne’s CBD in 2020 but hesitated for years on its location to avoid another fallout with residents and businesses.

Medicinal cannabis

Victoria became the first Australian state to legalise the use of medicinal cannabis, which came into effect in 2017. Following the election of two Legalise Cannabis upper house MPs in 2022, the government progressed work to consider whether patients with a prescription could drive when they are no longer impaired.

Other significant social reforms

Victoria was also the first state to pass treaty legislation and established the democratically elected First Peoples’ Assembly to negotiate the process with the state. The truth-telling Yoorrook Justice Commission was also set up to hear from Aboriginal people and report on systemic injustices and multiple government ministers, along with the Police Chief Commissioner, apologised to Aboriginal people for past injustices.

Induction of the newly elected First People’s Assembly of Victoria in July 2023.Credit: Justin McManus

Under Andrews, the government has also embarked on sick pay for casual workers, banned gay conversion therapy, created a criminal offence for workplace manslaughter and deliberately underpaying workers, and installed protest exclusion zones around abortion clinics. The government delivered a housing statement late in 2023.

Third term win

Andrews won an historic third term in 2022 that extended Labor’s majority to 56 of 88 seats, breaching the high-watermark of the 2018 “Danslide”. (In mid-2023, Labor went back to 55 lower house seats after Ringwood MP Will Fowles was forced to leave the parliamentary party.)

Labor’s thumping success was despite a drop in the party’s primary vote and genuine fears within Labor of a voter backlash after the intensity of COVID-19. In February 2023, Andrews became the fifth premier to reach 3000 days leading the state, meaning he will qualify for a bronze statue at Treasury Place.

State of the budget

Victoria was already in debt to fund its infrastructure pipeline before COVID-19 propelled spending and hollowed out the state budget. Treasury, in the 2023-24 state budget, predicted net debt would grow to $171.4 billion by 2026-27. By then, Treasurer Tim Pallas hopes to have been in operating surplus for one year thanks to “temporary” levies, which will last 10 years, that extended land tax for property investors and payroll tax for high-fee private schools.

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