It’s time this mob was sent packing
CAN you believe the disaster unfolding in Spring St, where the Andrews Government is reeling from one disaster to the next?
I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite like it by any government, Labor or Liberal — and they’ve both made some messes.
What’s going on now is something we haven’t seen since John Cain.
Remember how his mob machinegunned itself in the foot with its State Bank/VEDC/Tricontinental financial disaster — all of which fed into the Pyramid collapse — and handed it all to poor old Joan Kirner to explain?
At least they were trying to pick winners. This mob of Andrews’ is addicted to chasing loser deals anywhere and everywhere it can.
If you’re not up on the hopeless blunders by Dazzling Dan and his clowns, you need to know because you’re being affected by them all.
It’s just staggering what’s happening: mismanagement, rorts, political foul-ups and deliberate stage-managed fiascos blowing up in its face. It’s like a Barnum and Bailey circus.
For starters, unemployment in Victoria is the highest in Australia and, for the past 12 consecutive months, it’s been worse than the national average.
We’re also the highest taxed state in the country — with a dozen new taxes introduced by this government. We have the highest number of working days lost to strike. And we have the highest crime rate in the country.
The Government has spent $1.5 billion on extra public servants, blown $1.5 billion on a road it refused to build but, incredibly, now wants to and cost business $1.3 billion with a ridiculous grand final eve public holiday.
There’s been a $300 million blowout in its railway crossing removal program, another $136 million ripped off Victorian with its power tax grab, a $300 million jump in Education and Training Department employee expenses — even a $34 million hike in expenses in Geelong’s own Lisa Neville’s Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning.
It hardly stops there, though. I’m just getting warmed up.
Andrews originally said the Metro tunnel would cost $9 billion — now it’s out to $11 billion and getting fatter.
The West Gate Tunnel was going to cost $500 million, now it’s $6.7 billion.
The level crossing removals were going to cost $5 billion but have blown out to $7.9 billion — and they’re in marginal electorates, making them classic selfinterested pork barrelling.
The North East Link was meant to be $5 billion but that’s out to $16.5 billion. What’s a lazy $11.5 billion when it’s not yours, eh?
All up, its waste and cost blowouts are running at about $24 billion. I reckon if Andrews was in South America he’d be dragged outside and shot.
If that $24 billion was used properly, instead of thrown away, it could have financed, 24 Royal Children’s Hospitals, or 120,000 ambulances, or 889 secondary schools, 2000 primary schools, four East West Links, 120 women’s and children’s hospitals, 1500 large police stations, 40 suburban rail line extensions, 2400 new cardiac cath labs, 1714 trams, 1333 Xtrapolis metro trains or 1091 special development schools.
It might also have been 120,000 Christmas trees like our very own.
Get the idea? They wanted to stop just one Christmas tree in Geelong because they thought it was too expensive but they waste all this. Absolutely unbelievable. This government is extraordinarily stupid. Look at its bizarre attacks on the CFA, its everworsening traffic gridlock, its Cbomb infighting between ministers Jill Hennessy and James Merlino, its FOI refusals on police reports into a traffic accident involving Daniel Andrews’ wife and an injured teenager.
If you missed it in the Christmas rush, Dan Andrews and his cronies tried pushing the 1500page contract for his $6.7 billion West Gate Tunnel on Parliament’s last business day of the year. Purely to dodge proper scrutiny because it stinks to high heaven.
Dan and his mates have been blind as bats to the brutal Sudanese gangs destroying our communities. Sudanese leaders who’ve been attacked with machetes are talking about how bad it all is. And the Turnbull Government is being asked to put Federal Police on the job.
But Andrews and our own Police Minister, Lisa Neville, worked overtime trying to ignore it.
Could you possibly expect anything better from a mob that single-handedly destroyed the Gippsland economy and its communities after jacking up the coal tax on Hazelwood 300 per cent and forcing its closure?
Hundreds and hundreds of working families have lost their livelihoods, and thousands more have been affected by the flow-on effect of retrenchment and chronic unemployment.
But, hey, cop this for a classic exercise in creating bum-covering propaganda to boost its chances of re-election next year.
One hundred extra PR officers are being employed by the Government to talk up the four big transport projects it needs to convince voters it can overcome Melbourne’s woeful road and rail problems.
Victoria is in danger of bankruptcy and there’s still another year of Daniel Andrews doing his level best to destroy the state.
It’s time the Governor dismissed this government before Victoria goes down the gurgler.