The curse of anyone committed to transparency and integrity in politics is that partisans will cheer you on in opposition and turn and denounce you once their side is in power. And there are no fairer weather friends of integrity than supporters of Victorian Labor. Champions of accountability and sunlight at a federal level when the Coalition was in power in Canberra, Daniel Andrews fans regarded scrutiny of his government as only motivated by partisanship or ideology and an affront to the high standards of public conduct he and his team always displayed.
Was there partisanship and ideology driving media coverage of Andrews? Obviously. News Corp spent the entirety of Andrews’ premiership playing Weekend At Bernie’s with the rotting corpse of the Victorian Liberal Party, eventually succumbing to invective and vile conspiracy theories as Andrews, to their fury, notched up landslide win after landslide win.
But Victorian Labor also notched up scandal after scandal: red shirts, branch-stacking, the dodgy HWU contract, and the systemic politicisation of the Victorian public service that created a culture of fear and intimidation so intense that even former public servants were scared of talking to investigators because it could wreck their private sector careers.
Why relitigate such issues now months after Andrews has departed? The Victorian ombudsman Deborah Glass, the author of the scathing report into politicisation last December, has issued a final note on her departure from that role after a decade, giving a greater insight into the behaviour of the Andrews government and its supporters.
Glass, appointed in the last days of the Napthine government, has been routinely smeared by critics as anti-Labor, despite not even being in Australia for three decades prior to her appointment.
If I scroll through X, formerly known as Twitter, I learn that I am a political ‘operative’; about my ‘biased and consistent attacks on the Andrews [Labor] government since they cut her funding years ago’; ‘auditioning for [Liberal Party] preselection after she misses getting another contract’; and to add some balance, an ‘Andrews lapdog’. Such commentators have plainly not read my reports and I do not expect them to read this one. They are unlikely to be interested in facts: that my funding was not cut, my term is non-renewable; that I have tabled reports supportive of the government.
Most journalists, too, would be familiar with such sentiments. But Glass’s account of her role in investigating the “redshirts” scandal, in which Victorian Labor systematically misused taxpayer-funded staffing resources for partisan ends, shows how different things might have been. Glass says that the then-unusual reference from the Victorian upper house to investigate the scandal was one she would have preferred to avoid, especially after the Andrews government gave her legal advice that she didn’t have jurisdiction over MPs (even though her predecessor had undertaken a similar investigation).
“I was particularly annoyed that the solicitor-general’s advice had not been provided to me sooner, before I had publicly asserted jurisdiction. Had it been, the whole history of this matter may have been different.” But Glass elected to see what the courts said, and despite the Andrews government appealing the matter to try to block her investigation, ultimately the ombudsman was found to have jurisdiction.
That the Andrews government spent a million dollars bitterly fighting that issue all the way to the High Court in order to prevent an independent investigation of its abuse of public funding was a clear signal about Victorian Labor’s attitude towards taxpayers’ money and its hostility to accountability.
Institutions like the ombudsman, and the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC), along with actual Victorian media outlets like The Age, provided the crucial democratic role of opposition during the Andrews years, given the transformation of the Victorian Liberals into a clutch of religious bigots and conspiracy theorists more interested in shafting moderate colleagues than providing voters with a serious choice at elections.
With Andrews having exited politics a winner and Glass’ term coming to an end, maybe the “I Stand With Dan” crowd might take the opportunity to reflect on what traducing and smearing independent accountability mechanisms says about both them and the party they support (alas, more likely, the usual responses will apply — any criticism of Victorian Labor is heresy, what about the Liberals, why did you never criticise Scott Morrison, what about the Liberals, you’re just looking for a job with the Murdochs, what about the Liberals, I’m cancelling my subscription, what about the Liberals*).
If they don’t have the decency to think again about integrity in politics, at least they might wonder what will happen when — if — the Liberals ever get their act together and Victorian Labor finds itself in opposition — and on the side of transparency and accountability once more, provided by a set of institutions they’ve been denouncing for a decade.
*Each of those responses has been made to most, if not all, of my articles criticising the Andrews government.
I happen to agree wholeheartedly with these sentiments, even though I’ve been a Labor apparatchik. Government is so complex now and hard to follow without great reportage and transparency. We don’t have enough of either to call ourselves a democracy actually.
What an excellent ombudswoman Deborah Glass turned out to be, thank you very much.
The Andrews government had most of the hallmarks of neoliberal corporate ideology,.. a sign of the times. Dan was flawed, capable and likeable at times and so much better than the libs. It was like the newscorpse media kept the libs in a revolving clown stasis, almost as if they were a sideshow for the other neolib party to get on with the job,..of wrecking the public service which Rupert Hamer was a deserving champion of .
Also needs to be historical context i.e. the Lib/Nat opposition in Victoria are occupied with intra-party or civil wars precluding development of policy, preparation for elections and governing; bit like old Labor?
I really miss Jon Faine on 774. He did a great job holding Labor and Libs Victorian governments to account. No-one seems to have come up to his standard since, much as I liked Virginia Trioli.
774 is a very different radio now to what it was 10 years ago. The meteoric fall of Raf Epstein was a standout disappointment.
“I’m canceling my subscription to the Victorian Ombudsman”???
The cheer-squadding around these sorts of issues has been immensely destructive. You wind up with a political class that has a persecution narrative that extends into the actions of independent institutions and independent media, and where that political class has no prospect of any effective opposition over even the medium-term future you wind up with a wholesale dismissal of genuinely independent viewpoints and a belief that you can just stitch up your pre-determined preferred outcome and just weather whatever political storm. The truly sad thing is that belief has proven basically correct.
Being a nation that doesn’t have any state based current affairs shows on the TV, has suffered the wholesale death of regional news media, and relying on the occasional just vaguely serious state politics discussion on talkback radio to constitute the public sphere for state-based political discussion is a large part of how we wound up here.
Politicians work the systems they operate within to maximise partisan benefit. This is not in the slightest bit new. But this largely scrutiny-free media environment is. And this social-media-enabled capacity for people at scale to wholly refute any narrative not consistent with their pre-extant biases is the other major enabling factor.
You then have both major players in the media duopoly running fairly solid partisan editorial – Chip Le Grand was on the warpath from day one to run any counter-lockdowns narrative – combined with an ABC hobbled by false balance narratives, and we don’t see diversity of opinion reflected in the media at large because the duopolgy has a very heavy lean to the center right, and because the ABC is calibrating “balance” by News Corp’s metrics, it ALSO leans in that direction.
So what’s happened is if Twitter is any guide, the center left is variously losing its mind not hearing its legitimate voice reflected anywhere within the mainstream mediascape, and large sectors of it are turning to conspiracy as a default means of processing any narratives that contradict their political posture. What’s the point in a media where zero effective discussion of viewpoints is even possible?
And of course we have no policy anywhere on the table at any level of government to address any of these manifold and totemic issues in our unraveling political culture. Bonza.
Bravo AF. But who’s responsible for starting this whole ‘cheersquadding’ thing? Rupret Mudroch’s News Corporation, that’s who. If we turned our anger onto them, it would go a long way towards stopping the kind of partisanship Bernard finds so deplorable.
The hollowing out of regional and state news media has occurred elsewhere e.g. US, locally too with the ABC withdrawing or stepping back on core issues or themes (vs. car crashes, trauma and human emotion) leaving a huge space.
The vacuum is now filled with centralised or capital city/Sydney FTA tv, radio and print BS, while the remainder is being colonised by SkyNews, YouTube, F’book, X etc. for social media influencers and astroturfing campaigns e.g. The Voice.
Replicates the journey of the Country now National Party (and ABC?) being hollowed out, no longer caters to small farmers and communities but to regional cities, corporate Ag, mining, energy and making up the numbers with the Libs, or wedging the Libs on e.g. climate measures, plus success with Atlas Koch IPA, CIS & Rhinehart Voice No Campaign (replicating Canada).
Too late to finally cop onto Saint Dan’s rainbow-panto duping of Victoria’s gullible soft pap progs, BK. He’s long gone, legacy set, taxpayer loot sprayed at his union sponsors’ slapper mistresses and off-shored property portfolios, all public fiscal responsibility hospital-passed to the usual hapless chick, and long snuggled quietly down into the usual Labor ex officio big fat money-making gig with Neolib Capital Central, noshing down in Fat Richo’s Pork n’ Peking Plumsauce Pleasure Palace with his belt-n-road
m-a-a-a-a-a-t-e-s…ermoverlords…erm…esteemed private sector colleagues who have naught but the ongoing public good in mind. Huzzah, Comrades!Ah, Victorian Wet Lefties: Australia’s eternally-groomable political dopes. Remember how dear old Bill Landeryou handed Sir Peter Abeles the pet ALP PM who went on to so obediently and efficiently destroy the despised trade union movement, forever…
Chortle. G’warn Dan, you go and make yourself a squillion, son. Every other ALP former high office holder is…
The left right labels are now so bastardised they mean zip maaate – I am aghast that despite those do called the “Human Rights lobbyist now having captured by corporate dosh we have womens rights and kids bodies now captured by BIG pharma and health cartel -the thinking is so shallow and reactive its now The Handmaids Tale – And look at the laws against freedom of expression and association will be the transgen horse misappropriation in order to shut up debate -” Be kind ” is the gaslighters mantra – Kabuki – men in women out – And climate and heat deaths and abuses and lazy labels will win whilst humanity festers
All true. We can at least register our dismay and disdain by refusing to acquiesce to it. It’s not trolling to try to salvage at least that much dignity.
Meanwhile back at the ranch….. the Liberal Party?
Easy to criticise an overly long Labor (or any) state leadership, but more problematic is how the LNP has been usurped by their MSM masters especially NewsCorp and IPA etc.; why didn’t the RW MSM see the same issues as this article if they despise Labor or its people so much?
Busy ignoring policies in favour of +/-ve PR of personalities, beliefs, sentiments and shooting messengers, it’s Oz MSM (adopting US) culture, too easy and lazy vs. actual ongoing analysis of policies and issues to inform society and voters.
Integrity is not tradeable. You can’t have one sauce for the goose and one for the gander – drawn and plucked, they’re both gooses.
There was a time when ‘Victoria was the jewel in the Liberal crown’ – with what went on under that cover, aided and abetted by media cover. No doubt they and their hatchet-job media cheerleaders want that Alf Garnet back in their coronet.
Maybe if the media train treated it’s own to a serving of integrity gravy – plus equal lashings to both sides of politics – maybe there wouldn’t be this unseemly rush to defend Andrews from perceived ‘slings and arrows of outrageous misinformation’? And he wouldn’t have been able to get away with what he did.