Audio excerpt –Dan Andrews:

“Good morning everyone right together, thank you very much…”

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ANGE:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ange McCormack. This is 7am.

Dan Andrews was a Premier like no other. Labor’s longest-serving Victorian leader, a politician who provoked outrage, conspiracies, and adoration beyond his state’s borders.

Around Australia, Andrews became a symbol for lockdowns, but within Victoria he had an unusual ability to write his own narrative, and win elections.

Today, associate editor of The Saturday Paper, Martin Mckenzie Murray on the duality of Dan, and what made him into a controversial, but extremely popular leader.

It’s Thursday, September 28th.

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ANGE:

Marty, depending on who you ask. Daniel Andrews is a saint, a progressive leader who carried Victoria through COVID or he's the devil you know, dictator Dan. Why has Dan Andrews polarised the public's attention in the way that he has?

MARTIN:

I think there's several reasons for that. You've touched upon one major one, which is COVID, which will form a significant part of his legacy. But prior to that, Andrews had made a decision, a calculation which turned out to be successful, to ignore much of the state's media, its largest tabloid, many of its most popular radio stations. For some, that was a heroic rejection of people that were already skeptical of him. For others, it was haughty, arrogant, contemptuous of the accountability.

Audio excerpt – Unknown:

“It shows how secretive this sinister premier really is. A dark and oppressive cloud over Victoria.”

MARTIN:

There's also his personality as well, which it won't surprise you to learn that he might be different privately, but publicly he was quite blunt, filled with his own certitude. He never apologised. He seemed the embodiment of never retract, never apologise, Get it done and let them howl.

Audio excerpt –Dan Andrews:

“I’m not here to apologise for not spending seven billion dollars to deliver…”

MARTIN:

I get the feeling that Andrews had made a calculation pretty early on or even before becoming Premier, which was that it would not be necessary. In fact, it might be self-harming to his agenda to crow about progressive policy reform that he needed to give himself a licence. And that came through other virtues, principally building necessary infrastructure, being seen to be doing what he had promised to do, exuding a certain pragmatism in order not to frighten people off. And I think that succeeded. You know, if that was a calculation of his, I think it was successful.

ANGE:

And you explored the idea of writing a biography of Dan Andrews. What did you learn about him while doing that and what were the challenges of understanding him? Because he does have this duality about him.

MARTIN:

Yeah, I should say fairly quickly abandoned. So I started with those that had once been close, but were now on the outer or perhaps had left politics altogether. In other words, those perhaps with the loosest tongues, but even those people that I assumed would have the loosest tongues refused to speak. And I was warned by several people that a thoughtful, forensic, detailed book would be impossible because Dan Andrews had it all locked up. And this is a recurring kind of quality of the Premier will freeze people out, will render them ineffectual, even long-standing confidants.

ANGE:

So let's talk about the COVID era, because I think the polarisation of Dan Andrews was really magnified during that time. Can you talk to me about how that love hate relationship from the Victorian public came to the fore during COVID?

MARTIN:

They were very, very weird and dark times. There was enormous fear and uncertainty and a lot of the policy responses were kind of desperate improvisations. So I think that's the sort of sympathetic preamble, but that sympathy isn’t infinitely elastic. And Dan Andrews led a state, particularly a city in Melbourne, of one of the world's longest lockdowns. I think collectively it was 262. It was enervating, it was exhausting. It was deranged for some, understandably, and now for some, I think in this weird mental humidity of lockdown and this extraordinary time, people became either parasocially fixated with Dan, seeing him as a saviour.

ANGE:

And there's all those songs and sort of memes about him, all of that.

MARTIN:

Yeah, it accelerated an unusual attachment.

Audio excerpt – Dan Andrews:

“You won’t be able to go to the pub, because the pub is shut.”

Audio excerpt – Dan Andrews:

“What what’s the issue, Rachel?”

Audio excerpt – Dan Andrews:

“That doesn’t mean you can have all your mates around at your home and get on the beers.”

Audio excerpt – Dan Andrews:

“I will no doubt drink a beer tonight, I may get a high up on the shelf.”

MARTIN:

There were also 120 consecutive press conferences, so he became an incredibly visible and central thing of this. There were several mistakes, and The Herald Sun here began running headlines with Dictator Dan.

Audio excerpt – Unknown:

“You're the architect of this behaviour, Kim Jong Dan.”

Audio excerpt – Unknown:

“Daniel Andrews is a thug who will sacrifice anyone to get his way.”

Audio excerpt – Unknown:

“He is such a phoney bloke. And of course a dedicated socialist.”

MARTIN:

There were some incredibly volatile feral sentiments expressed in street protests.

Audio excerpt – The crowd:

“we will not comply, we are just people too”

MARTIN:

Nooses were being displayed at the foot of Parliament House. Police were investigating several threats against the life of the Premier. And so there was this polarisation there, and I think that was formed in the crucible of an extraordinarily long, collectively lockdown. And I think probably for the majority, whilst there was that kind of very visible duality, those that saw Dan Andrews as a saviour, a saint, and those who saw him as a deviant dictator, probably the majority of Victorians saw something a lot milder, which was a diligent man who was making difficult decisions. He might be defensively arrogant. The decisions were no one enjoyed them, but probably on the whole were justified. So that was that kind of, I think, a quieter majority of Victorians that had perhaps less passionate views.

ANGE:

Yeah, and, and he was really successful, he won three elections in a row. I'm wondering what led to that success? Like who was Dan Andrews, the person and the politician before he was Dan Andrews, the Premier.

MARTIN:

So Andrews is known nothing but politics. He had a reputation early on as being almost fanatically committed and disciplined, ferociously intelligent, and also involved in the in the deep in the apparatchik world. So he he he held jobs in both political office but also in party headquarters. Former colleagues of his had told me that he was a political freak. This was a man besotted by politics that could wed that enchantment with a great discipline and great intelligence. But despite all of that externally, I think none of this was visible. That burning flame was visible to the public. This has become a kind of recurring cliche in the political obituaries now for Dan Andrews, is that he was underestimated and dismissed as this charmless geek. And then in 2010, at just the age of 38, he became leader of the opposition. Four years later, at the age of 42, which I think is quite remarkable. He becomes premier.

Audio excerpt – Dan Andrews:

“The people of Victoria have today given to us the greatest of gifts. Ladies and gentlemen, we will not let them down.”

ANGE:

After the break – what state does Dan Andrews leave Victoria in?

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ANGE:

Marty, in his farewell press conference, Andrews said he'd led the most progressive branch of the Labor Party in the country. I'm wondering if that's true, though. Has Labor in Victoria been more progressive than anywhere else?

MARTIN:

In terms of social policy, the progressive achievements there are quite considerable and probably not repeatable elsewhere given the ideological vibe of Victoria. But certainly I think whilst it was being seen as this pragmatist who was building staff, beginning with the removal of all level rail crossings, I think that gave him not a mandate but perhaps a licence to commit to quite considerable social reform. So some of those achievements and it is a fairly long list. He began a treaty process with First Australians. He sought to redress somewhat the imbalance of rights between tenants and landlords. There was an inject safe injecting room that was the institution of protest exclusion zones around abortion clinics. He started a Royal Commission into family violence. Victoria became the first state very significantly to pass assisted dying legislation. Free kindergarten will begin next year. It's a long list on this stuff.

ANGE:

And there is light and shade to Dan Andrews, as we've been talking a lot about. His supporters would point to some of these achievements as his legacy. But he wasn't perfect. What did he do while Premier that wasn't seen as favourably?

MARTIN:

There's a few things I mentioned earlier the centralisation of power that increased quite spectacularly. Relatedly, the politicisation of the public service that increased under his watch. The Ombudsman of Victoria will be releasing a big report on that imminently. There were several IBAC inquiries, there was the so-called Watts Operation, the report released last week about gross industrialised branch stacking. Cabinet I don't think was functioning as it should. I think a great example of that is the Commonwealth Games fiasco.

Audio excerpt – Dan Andrews:

“The Games will not proceed in Victoria in 2026, we have…”

MARTIN:

I think fans of Dan Andrews dismissed that as a triviality, perhaps thinking that the games themselves are a triviality. Now Andrew said that when they pulled out of it, it was because it was a good idea at the time until it wasn't. And so this again, was some noble pragmatism here, was withdrawing from something that would cost Victoria. But then compensation was paid to the Commonwealth Games Federation of $380 million dollars, which is not insignificant. There was several, you know, and again, perhaps looking at it sympathetically, but several mistakes made during COVID. For instance, the Hotel Quarantine leak, another COVID response that was deeply problematic was the severe ham-fisted lockdown of several public housing towers in inner Melbourne.

Audio excerpt – Broadcast:

“Nine public housing towers have been locked down, residents are locked in their homes for at least five days, and my understanding…”

MARTIN:

This was later deemed by the ombudsman to have breached the human rights of those residents and recommended that the Government apologise. They never did.

ANGE:

And how do you think he was able to weather so much criticism during his premiership and still leave on his own terms? His popularity rating is still very, very high.

MARTIN:

Electorally very, very impressive. Right. So three consecutive elections and each time the number of seats increased successively.

Audio excerpt – Broadcast:

“Good evening, Daniel Andrews will become Victoria's longest serving Labor Premier after crushing the election win that reshape the state’s political landscape…”

MARTIN:

You know, it was a very triumphant night. He's made some very clever, very canny calculations early on that were fulfilled, which was that I don't need much of the media. I have a successful social media strategy. I will speak directly to the people. He wasn't punished electorally for that. He wedded the social progressive reforms that we talked about with an insistence upon his central ideology, his centrism, his pragmatism. That worked very well. And I think through throughout COVID, fundamentally, as divisive as that was and as feral and sometimes frightening as some of the objections and street protests were, and some of the rhetoric in the media could become pretty gross and reckless. Andrews was seen as strong unwavering. The fact that he was blunt and unapologetic, I guess, was for a majority of Victorians, a virtue.

This is a man who had mastered politics, who understood the acquisition of power and its acquittal leaves a very consequential legacy in terms of social reform. Infrastructure legacy is he is impressive, but mixed. There were some dubious projects that, you know, were abandoned and also a man that that shaped the party and the government in his own image increasingly so. And unfortunately, the funkier aspects of his legacy will be tarnished accountability and transparency, because there are several bodies like the state's anti-corruption commission, like the state's ombudsman, who have said repeatedly that this is a government that is fairly contemptuous of accountability.

That will be part of the legacy as well.

ANGE:

Marty, thanks so much for your time.

MARTIN:

Thank you.

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ANGE:

Also in the news today…

Jacinta Allan is the new Premier of Victoria. Allan won the caucus vote unopposed.

Jacinta Allan is the longest-serving female minister in the state; she was also the youngest Parliamentarian to be elected in Victoria’s history, when she won the seat of Bendigo East in 1999, when she was 25.

And

The Hollywood writers’ strike has now ended. Members of the Writers Guild of America voted to lift the strike after 148 day work stoppage.

The WGA tentatively agreed to a deal which includes gains in compensation, and protections around the use of AI in the industry. Meanwhile, a separate strike of film, tv and radio actors is ongoing.

I’m Ange McCormack, this is 7am. We’ll be back again tomorrow.

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