Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Speaker 1: Bunjelung Calcottin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges
Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Speaker 1: Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the
Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Speaker 2: Good morning and welcome to the Daily os. It's theirsday,
Speaker 2: the twenty eighth of September. I'm Zara, I'm Sam. You
Speaker 2: know him for his North Faced jackets and extremely long
Speaker 2: COVID era press conferences, but Daniel Andrews's legacy will be
Speaker 2: as one of Australia's most electorally successful yet somehow also
Speaker 2: divisive premiers that the country has ever seen. In today's
Speaker 2: deep Dive, we're going to look at the premiers nine
Speaker 2: years in power and how Daniel Andrews will be remembered
Speaker 2: and what you need to know about Victoria's incoming Premier,
Speaker 2: Jainter Allen.
Speaker 3: I have been elected indors unanimously by my caucus colleagues
Speaker 3: to replace the fabulous Daniel Andrews.
Speaker 2: But for SAMs more news from PwC That's Right.
Speaker 4: An independent review into PwC Australia has found several shortcomings
Speaker 4: across the firm's operations and culture. The review comes after
Speaker 4: revelations some PwC leaders misused confidential government information to help
Speaker 4: clients avoid tax. It found the professional services firm had
Speaker 4: a disproportionate focus on revenue, a culture that restricted constructive change,
Speaker 4: and a chief executive who had excessive power. PwC says
Speaker 4: it will implement the reviews twenty three recommendations.
Speaker 2: Quantas CEO Vanessa Hudson has defended the cost of the
Speaker 2: National carriers airfares, saying they are standard across the market.
Speaker 2: Hudson addressed a Senate inquiry on the airline industry just
Speaker 2: weeks into the roles she took over from Alan Joyce.
Speaker 2: Senators also heard from Qatar Airways representatives who said they
Speaker 2: were surprised by a previous federal government decision to block
Speaker 2: more catar flights from coming into Australia.
Speaker 4: The Writers Guild of America has voted to end its
Speaker 4: one hundred and forty eight days strike after reaching an
Speaker 4: agreement with major Hollywood studios. The five hundred riders covered
Speaker 4: by the union will now resume work today. However, it's
Speaker 4: still uncertain when the actors' strike will end and.
Speaker 2: The good news pharmacies in New South Wales can issue
Speaker 2: resupplies of the oral contraceptive pill as part of a
Speaker 2: new trial. Eligible patients can now access the pill without
Speaker 2: another GP appointment at over nine hundred participating pharmacies. Its
Speaker 2: hopes the trial will also ease pressures on GP services.
Speaker 2: Daniel Andrews is one of the most electorally successful yet
Speaker 2: polarizing leaders Australia has ever seen, but when he was
Speaker 2: sworn in as Premier in December twenty fourteen, he was
Speaker 2: considered to have defied the odds by defeating a one
Speaker 2: term government as a relatively unknown political figure. Hard to
Speaker 2: believe now, but up until then, the vibe around the
Speaker 2: would be premier was that essentially no one could remember
Speaker 2: if he was Daniel Andrews or Andrew Daniel, a point
Speaker 2: of confusion that the then coalition government in Victoria actually
Speaker 2: used to their advantage. But an effective rebranding from Labor
Speaker 2: to just Dam and an effective election campaign helped him
Speaker 2: to win the twenty fourteen election.
Speaker 4: So this is a premier who's been in power in
Speaker 4: the state for nine years. He's actually the longest serving
Speaker 4: labor premier in Victoria's history. And when he came up
Speaker 4: to the press conference this week to announce his resignation
Speaker 4: to the media pack, it was clear that he wanted
Speaker 4: to point to certain parts of that time in office,
Speaker 4: which he says shaped his legacy. Before we get to
Speaker 4: what other people think his legacy will be. What did
Speaker 4: he say to find his time as leader?
Speaker 2: Well, there are a few key areas that Andrews alluded
Speaker 2: to being really proud of. You're right, he got up
Speaker 2: and there was I think it was quite an unexpected press.
Speaker 4: Conference, kind of came from nowhere.
Speaker 2: I mean came from nowhere. In the timing of it.
Speaker 2: It's grand final weekend in Victoria. It's like quite a
Speaker 2: big time. But everyone that watches politics has known for
Speaker 2: a very long time that he was going to resign sometime.
Speaker 2: I mean, I remember years ago there were already rumblings
Speaker 2: of just intrall and replacing Daniel Andrews.
Speaker 4: So would you say you were expecting it this year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was expecting it last year. But in reflecting
Speaker 2: on his own time in power, it was really interesting
Speaker 2: to see what Andrews himself wanted to really highlight. So
Speaker 2: there are a couple of things. The first was that
Speaker 2: he was proud of his government's social policies.
Speaker 5: To lead the most progressive branch of Australia's oldest political
Speaker 5: party for thirteen years has been an honor.
Speaker 2: So things like Victoria's voluntary assisted dying laws, so their
Speaker 2: euthanasia laws which passed in twenty seventeen. The state also
Speaker 2: held a landmark Royal Commission into family violence, and his
Speaker 2: government also introduced safe injecting rooms as a harm minimization
Speaker 2: strategy for drug users in the state. And so those
Speaker 2: were kind of the social elements that Andrews really wanted
Speaker 2: to highlight over his last nine years.
Speaker 4: And we spoke on the podcast last week about a
Speaker 4: topic that we didn't know at the time was going
Speaker 4: to be what Daniel Andrews described as his last big
Speaker 4: piece of policy reform.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. We spoke about the Victorian government's housing statement,
Speaker 2: which we discussed as part of that Airbnb tax episode.
Speaker 2: So it's an episode called the Beginning of the End
Speaker 2: for Airbnb if you want to go back and listen
Speaker 2: to that. But when it came to what Andrews said
Speaker 2: was his defining moment during his time as premier. He
Speaker 2: didn't actually mention housing or social reform.
Speaker 5: It happened Thursday afternoon when I got on the test
Speaker 5: train at Metro Tunnel with no media and I traveled
Speaker 5: underneath the city at eighty kilometers an hour on a
Speaker 5: train that was made right here in Victoria, through a
Speaker 5: tunnel that's getting very close to being finished, all because
Speaker 5: of the good work of Victorians.
Speaker 2: People say that politicians aren't real people.
Speaker 4: Him and Joe Biden both love a train.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm myself not too fond of a train,
Speaker 2: but there you go. Maybe that's why I'm not a politician.
Speaker 2: But I think that this answer, actually, when you think
Speaker 2: about Daniel Andrews and his government, wasn't actually particularly surprising.
Speaker 2: He's really tried to brand himself as this like infrastructure premiere.
Speaker 2: A lot of the government's announcements over the last nearly
Speaker 2: decade have been around infrastructures, so things like metro tunnels
Speaker 2: to toll roads and railways. He's also known for the
Speaker 2: removal of level crossings, so that's where railways cross over
Speaker 2: roads and it's so funny every time I log onto
Speaker 2: Twitter or x whatever we call it, it's Daniel Andrews
Speaker 2: announcing a different level crossing has been removed and there's
Speaker 2: like this really big reaction to it. So that was
Speaker 2: a really big thing.
Speaker 4: When he's not in the north Face, he's in a fluovest.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, and so he's built a reputation as really
Speaker 2: investing in infrastructure. But I do think that it needs
Speaker 2: to be said that he's also, at the same time
Speaker 2: been associated with the delays and the cost blowouts that
Speaker 2: have begun to characterize some of these projects.
Speaker 4: Let's talk about those costs, because there've been a source
Speaker 4: of some real tension for Daniel Andrews through his time
Speaker 4: as Premierhip. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So Victoria is currently facing over one hundred billion dollars
Speaker 2: in debt, and predictions show that that debt could grow
Speaker 2: from one hundred and thirty five billion dollars next year
Speaker 2: to one hundred and seventy one billion in the twenty
Speaker 2: twenty six to twenty seven financial year. And I mean
Speaker 2: putting that into real life context. We recently on the
Speaker 2: pod also spoke about Victoria pulling out of the Commonwealth
Speaker 2: Games and that decision was based on the fact that
Speaker 2: the forecasted spending on the games actually blew out to
Speaker 2: six or seven billion dollars and that was according to
Speaker 2: the governments. So a lot of the commentary I imagine
Speaker 2: over the next couple of weeks will include this discussion
Speaker 2: about the state of Victoria's economy and the economy that
Speaker 2: the Jainta Allen government will now take on.
Speaker 4: So we've spoken about social policy, we've spoken about the
Speaker 4: infrastructure and then the associated costs that come with all
Speaker 4: of those reforms. But undoubtedly it's Daniel Andrews standing there
Speaker 4: at eleven am in the north face jacket telling us
Speaker 4: about COVID in Victoria that will stick in people's minds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think that Daniel Andrews and COVID
Speaker 2: are almost synonymous at this stage. I think that, you know,
Speaker 2: while every state leader was dealing with the pandemic, the
Speaker 2: experience of Victorians and the experience of the Andrews led
Speaker 2: Victorian government is quite unique. That's for a number of reasons.
Speaker 2: Of course, the fact that Melbourne experienced two hundred and
Speaker 2: sixty three days in lockdown, making it the home of
Speaker 2: one of the longest lockdowns in the world, and Daniel
Speaker 2: Andrews said repeatedly during that time and since that time,
Speaker 2: that he was implementing these measures to save lives. One
Speaker 2: of the ways that this played out was when the
Speaker 2: Andrews government ordered the lockdown of three thousand residents in
Speaker 2: nine public housing towers in Melbourne, and the Victorian Ombudsman
Speaker 2: later found that this decision was a breach of human
Speaker 2: rights laws. So Andrews was clearly quite divisive during the pandemic.
Speaker 2: But I think what I found really interesting was what
Speaker 2: happened after the pandemic, which was that there was this
Speaker 2: very clear narrative on social media in mainstream media about
Speaker 2: how unpopular Daniel Andrews was and how unpopular his decisions
Speaker 2: had been. But then we went to an election shortly
Speaker 2: after in twenty twenty two, and not only did Daniel
Speaker 2: Andrews win back the premiership, he actually did it with
Speaker 2: a slightly larger margin than he had won at the
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen election. And I think for Andrews himself and
Speaker 2: his supporters, they used that election win as evidence that
Speaker 2: he had people's support, including for how Victoria handled COVID.
Speaker 4: So yesterday we heard that Justinta Alan would step up
Speaker 4: to replace Daniel Andrews. What do we know about her?
Speaker 2: So just into Alan has long been con considered the
Speaker 2: replacement for Daniel Andrews. She served as his deputy Premier
Speaker 2: and after he announced his resignation she was the first
Speaker 2: and for a while the only person to put up
Speaker 2: her hand to contest the leadership. Alan will be the
Speaker 2: second woman to become the Premier of Victoria, which she
Speaker 2: acknowledged in a press conference yesterday afternoon.
Speaker 3: I did hope I'd get through this with them becoming emotional.
Speaker 3: I also hope it says two young women, older women,
Speaker 3: women from cross different backgrounds, of all parts of the
Speaker 3: stage that leadership takes on different shapes and sizes.
Speaker 2: She was elected to State Parliament in nineteen ninety nine
Speaker 2: as the member for Bendigo East and she's very much
Speaker 2: been considered a key figure of the successive Andrews governments
Speaker 2: over the last nine years. During the pandemic, Allan was
Speaker 2: appointed to Victoria's COVID nineteen Crisis Council and stepped up
Speaker 2: as Deputy Premier last year following the resignation of James Molina.
Speaker 2: But I mean, I think it's fair to say that
Speaker 2: she has nowhere near the same level of public familiarity
Speaker 2: as Daniel Andrews enjoyed. But then again, neither did Daniel
Speaker 2: Andrews when he became premier.
Speaker 4: Do you think we'd know as much about Daniel Andrews
Speaker 4: on a national scale as we do now if not
Speaker 4: for the pandemic?
Speaker 2: No way, absolutely no. I think that a lot of
Speaker 2: Australians prior to the pandemic would not have been able
Speaker 2: to name their state or territories leader. I say that
Speaker 2: were full confidence.
Speaker 4: And have you seen other state and territory leaders also
Speaker 4: be kind of defined by their role in the pandemic
Speaker 4: as well?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 2: I think it's interesting if you look across the country
Speaker 2: there is now only two COVID era leaders left. Well,
Speaker 2: so there's annisagea Paliche in Queensland and Andrew Barr in
Speaker 2: the Act. Everywhere else there has been either a change
Speaker 2: in leadership or there has been a reshuffle among the
Speaker 2: same party. We saw Mark McGowan, who also had a
Speaker 2: lot of pressure on him during the pandemic, resign recently.
Speaker 2: And I just think that both the profile that came
Speaker 2: with being a leader during that time, but also the
Speaker 2: pressure that we have seen. I think resignations sped up
Speaker 2: in a way that they probably wouldn't have had these
Speaker 2: leaders not gone through the pandemic.
Speaker 4: It certainly has been a while since we've had the
Speaker 4: cadence of a daily press conference from a state or
Speaker 4: territory leader.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I don't necessarily think we'll ever hopefully see
Speaker 2: that again.
Speaker 4: Thanks for listening to that episode of The Daily Oz.
Speaker 4: If you're listening to this from Victoria, we'd love to
Speaker 4: know your thoughts on Daniel Andrews as a leader. You
Speaker 4: can leave a comment if you're listening on Spotify, or
Speaker 4: you can dm us if you're listening on another platform.
Speaker 4: We'll be back again tomorrow morning in your ears. Until then,
Speaker 4: have a great date.