Back in the early 90s, a near-decade of Labor government beggared the Victorian economy. It fell to the Kennett Liberal government to fix it, by slashing spending, and, in an extremely unpopular move, imposing a specific “Cain-Kirner Debt Tax”.
In a twist on the socialist Labor motto, it was Labor who did the spending, Liberals who did the taxing.
Fast-forward three decades, and the best that can be said about Daniel Andrews is that he’s gone back to the true Labor mode: spending and taxing.
In a move that should — but probably won’t — bring Victorians crashing back to reality, Dictator Dan is imposing a raft of special taxes to try and pay his own debt. Except that he’s nowhere near to paying it.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has punished property investors, private schools, big business and public sector workers in a big-taxing budget that fails to stop his state’s debt spiralling to $171.4bn by 2026.
You almost have to feel sorry for Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas: the man’s not a complete fiscal idiot. But he works for one. And he has to at least try to fix his boss’ debt millstone. Good luck with that.
Business groups and ratings agencies on Tuesday warned that Victorian Labor’s new decade-long tax regime – unveiled as part of measures to pay back $31.5bn of Covid debt – could result in an exodus of investment from Victoria.
Unions criticised public sector funding cuts and the end of the state’s native logging industry, community groups said they feared property taxes would be passed on to renters, and the opposition condemned the absence of any plan to pay back borrowings unrelated to the pandemic.
Andrews is not just bleeding Victorians dry, he’s lying to their faces.
The Premier on Tuesday continued to blame Covid for his state’s financial woes, selling the budget as a one-in-100-year event that “tested all of us”.
“The government borrowed to save lives and save jobs,” Mr Andrews said.
The Australian
That’s not even remotely true, though. On any front. Covid debt is barely a third of the state’s record debt — nearly four times (adjusted for inflation) as high as under Cain/Kirner. Nor did Andrews do much to “save lives”: the state was far and away the worst Covid performer in Australia.
But while you can bet “Cucktorians” will swallow Andrews’ latest farrago of bullshit and call it ice-cream, hard-headed ratings agencies aren’t so easily bamboozled.
At some point the rating agencies are going to be forced to do their job and impose a larger reduction in infrastructure spending as well as require the state to develop proper infrastructure management systems, including renewables and the use of Victoria’s world-class onshore low-cost gas reserves.
And, for all Andrews’ blatherskiting about a “Big Build”, Victorians are being lumped with second-rate knock-offs, because the cream of the talent won’t touch Victoria with a ten-foot pole.
One of [Andrews’ first] policies was to cancel the fixed contract to build the East-West freeway link. The community and the media focused on the $1bn-plus break fees and the loss of commonwealth money. In hindsight, they were minor issues.
Victoria had assembled over some years (including the years when the ALP’s Steve Bracks and John Brumby were premiers) the best infrastructure designing and building team in the nation and one of the best in the world.
When they saw their signature project machine-gunned with no regard to the cost, most decided to abandon Victoria and within months had been snapped up by international and other Australian state governments who recognised their talents.
The Australian
Andrews may be able to hoodwink the gullible rubes gawping at ten-second soundbites on the telly, but neither ratings agencies, investors or big infrastructure companies are so easily gulled.