Dead Ted

THE AMERICAN comedian Joe E. Ross is remembered these days, if he is remembered at all, for playing Patrolman Gunther Toody in Car 54 Where Are You?, but his greater claim to fame should be the manner in which he departed this vale of tears. Onstage in 1982 and performing one of his routines, the show was going badly when he exclaimed “I’m dying”, clutched at his chest and dropped to the floor. The audience tittered, thinking it was all part of the show, until a minute or so had passed and someone wondered aloud if  Ross might not be playing it for laughs. Discussion ensued and, eventually, someone with medical expertise climbed onto the stage, checked his vital signs and reported that the night’s star attraction was at that moment finishing his act for St Peter.

Down here in Victoria, where we have a state government that is conservative by label but certainly not by action or inclination, those who voted two years ago for Ted Baillieu’s Liberals are experiencing our very own Joe E. Ross moment. The polls say that our gentlemanly premier would be doomed to defeat if forced to face the voters, and there is no reason to dispute those damning numbers. This is the question for all Victorians who fear the return to Labor’s cronyism, its spendthrift incompetence and government by spin, not to mention a judiciary stacked with ambulance chasers and union hacks’ restored access to the public purse: Who will be the first to approach Baillieu’s political corpse, pronounce it beyond revival and clear the stage for the next, and hopefully more adept, leader of the Coalition?

Now it is true that there is a dearth of likely contenders, as long years in opposition winnowed the ranks of those with the gift, and perhaps the principles, to lead. Consider, for example, that Baillieu’s predecessor was current Melbourne Mayor Robert Doyle, who is doing all in his power to make every motorists’ journey into the CBD a nightmare of bike lanes, humungous tram stops, nonsensical malls and bylaws officers writing tickets for looking sideways while driving. With such talent formerly at the top is it any wonder the spear-carriers of the parliamentary Liberal Party are, to put it mildly, a collection of pension-accumulators and case studies in narcolepsy. Present them with a cudgel and opportunity to pulverise Labor and what do they do? Shift their weight to an alternate buttock, yawn loudly and drift peacefully back to sleep.

If you think that an unfair appraisal, consider as one example the mess Team Ted has made of its promise to introduce an independent aniti-corruption watchdog. It is now a year overdue and the opportunity for the Liberals to do well by doing good has passed. How so? Well, if the body had been brought into being with greater dispatch it might have turned its immediate attention to many of the deals and favours Bracks and Brumby bestowed on their mates. Land re-zonings, sweetheart contracts, chronic back-scratching, union goldbricking – when Baillieu took office, every Victorian Liberal knew those examples of corruption were out there and just waiting to be dragged into the light of day. Instead, two years of dithering have insulated those erstwhile targets from investigation. If Ted were to move now – take an inquisitor’s interest, for example, in the huge wages paid to workers at the desalination plant, which is itself another matter screaming to be investigated – such an inquiry would appear no better than the use of a taxpayer-funded agency for the most venal political ends. This government has blown so many opportunities to lock in a second term one can only marvel that its recent conclave in Ballarat did not consider a motion to rename the coalition as the Passive Party.

That said, and politics being the magnet it is for the ambitious, there must someone in the party who believes the Great Bunyip has placed a field-marshall’s baton in his or her knapsack, an ambitious sort who can recognise opportunity and is prepared to take it. If so, that person should be working the phones this very minute.

The return of Labor to government is a prospect to be dreaded only a little more than the survival of the present reincumbent in the Premier’s office.

For God’s sake, whoever you are, make a bloody move before Premier Andrews consigns you once again to those pokey little offices in Spring Street’s basement reserved for the opposition.  

    

Lumbered With A Lumbarless Premier

WE HAVE many fine hospitals in Victoria, some doing first-rate research. Unfortunately not one of them is working to perfect the backbone transplant.

Our battle-shy Premier, Big Ted Baillieu, certainly needs one, as he has just passed up the opportunity for his party to contest the seat of Niddrie, recently vacated by former Attorney General Rob Hulls, a man who left more rubbish on the bench than any litterer who ever fouled the Flagstaff Gardens. Hulls held the seat by 6.9% at the last election -- a margin any popular Premier with even a modest record of achievement might have seen his candidate make up. Instead, it will be a competition between Labor and the Greens, with Team Ted sitting on its hands and denying electors a proper choice.

Ted really should think about stepping down. He has a one-seat majority and, unless he acquires a spine, a one-term future. Mind you, the good thing about a lack of backbone is that knives slide home without obstruction. Somewhere in the Liberal Party there must be someone looking at the polls and thinking about hauling out the whetstone, if only out of a sense of self-preservation.

It's Time To Talk About Ted

THE BILLABONG and those who visit seldom represent what might be termed a balanced microcosm of our society. With the exception of the Rufous Bird’s little brother, who is in his forties and should know better, very few Greens are invited to dally by the barbecue. Labor supporters tend to be somewhat more numerous, but for those guests excuses can be made, most being old friends whose fealty to the politics of their youth has remained immune to all the evidence of incompetence and corruption which has accumulated  since the glory days, when we all tramped together up Bourke Street and venerated Dr Jim.  A couple of those faded red veterans were present last night, when a leg of lamb spiked with garlic, secret herbs and diced pancetta emerged from the smoker, the joint’s crisp, smothered-mustard crust making it look like a NASA project that re-entered the atmosphere at the wrong angle. The bone was stripped, the corkscrew given quite a workout and amity ruled the night, good fellowship reaching its apogee at about the same time dessert hit the garden table by the fish pond. We should all eat fruit and often, as doctors and dieticians advise, but a good preliminary soaking in lots of banana liqueur does much to boost the take-up rate. That was certainly the case last night.

And so the evening proceeded, guests alternating their attention between Lleyton Hewitt’s slow march to victory and talk of another ultra-fit specimen’s rather less successful efforts to take a few sets in what is proving a rather more demanding arena, that large building in Spring Street across the road from the Imperial Hotel.

“He’s not as bad as he could be,” observed one guest. “I thought we were going to get another Kennett, but Ted hasn’t been so bad, really.” The Ted of whom he spoke is our Victorian premier, the alleged conservative Baillieu, who should be a little concerned the person who finds him so tolerable has voted the straight Labor ticket at every election since 1969. For those present who helped put the Liberals into power it was a chilling moment. To the clink of coffee cups and the scrape of the big spoon’s second servings of that delightful fruit salad, a shared vision of a one-term government crystalised in just those few words. Perhaps more worrying for a premier who would like to be re-elected in 2014, there was not one word of support from guests who represent what should be his party’s natural constituency. Indeed, the criticism from the right was bitter, vehement and voluble.

One disenchanted sort mentioned Deputy Premier Peter Ryan’s pre-election pledge to take a long, hard look at this state’s ravenous revenue cameras, which extract something like $500 million every year from drivers who are, in most cases, no more than a few kilometres per hour over the limit, usually within a typical speedo’s margin of error. Well Ryan did take a look and reported back that John Brumby’s shakedown artists were correct all along: If motorists are to behave, they must be gouged at every turn (and intersection, traffic light, country road and suburban street).

His view was endorsed by another guest, who owns a small trucking outfit and had hoped his drivers would encounter fewer time- and money-wasting random inspections. As he noted, fuel and overheads have all gone up, and so has the amount of cash being stripped from his bottom line by fines, which have seen a marked increase under Victoria’s allegedly pro-business government. One of his trucks had just spent two unproductive days off the road, he claimed, after a random inspection revealed the fuel gauge was broken. He may have been exaggerating, as he also mentioned several other deficiencies that needed to be fixed, but he was not stretching the truth about this government’s apparent indifference to an entrepreneur’s need to turn a profit.

A veteran Liberal Party member voiced similar disenchantment, disgusted by what he described as the influence on our premier of a small, tight circle of backroom operatives. Big Ted, he reckons, is naturally shy, and has established about himself a cordon sanitaire of human filters and courtiers, whose primary passion is for internecine power plays and plots. He mentioned rumoured efforts by one of those operatives to secure pre-selection in a blue ribbon seat, and how the incumbent had been denied resources and staff as part of that campaign. As the purported target is on the front bench, his performance as a minister – and the entire Baillieu government by extension – has been seriously hamstrung.

That was not the late evening’s most jaw-dropping gripe, which came from a Liberal-voting lady whose immense discretion has allowed her to survive and prosper in the hostile environs of our little state’s lockstep leftoid “arts community”. Her faith in Baillieu was shattered, she said, when she learned of the guests at his table as last year’s Premier’s Literary Awards were doled out.

“You will be astonished to see who Ted hangs out with,” she said, going on to mention a few names that struck all present as so improbable the list could not possibly be true. To establish if she had taken just a bit too much of the fruit salad, Young Master Bunyip was sent to fetch the Billabong’s latest laptop, which he did with reasonable efficiency, given the large and lumpy cigarette he had just been sharing with a knot of Labor voters and self-evident libertarians (who, as the old joke goes, are conservatives with bongs). Google worked its magic and apologies to Madam Artsy were soon being offered. Ted’s taste in companions proved every bit as bad as she had claimed.

On Baillieu's table were former premier John Cain and his wife Nancye, as well as Private Media publisher and Wheeler Centre chairman Eric Beecher. Also in attendance were Gay Alcorn, editor of The Sunday Age and authors Kate Holden and Sophie Cunningham. Meanwhile a white-suited Casey Bennetto, creator of Keating! The Musical, garnered laughs for his MC work, which included a series of musical tributes to the awards.

Beecher! Alcorn! Holden! And, of all people, former Meanjin editrix and piñata whacker Cunningham! By God but how that crew must have laughed behind Ted’s back. Not since Franklin Delano Roosevelt shipped all those planes and trucks and war goods to Stalin have so many resources been gifted to ideological enemies. Take a look at Ted’s literary short list, especially the winners, if you think that analogy is a stretch. Like Stalin they will have been overjoyed to find themselves on the receiving end of such largesse, all the while counting off the days until they can cheer their detested benefactor’s downfall.

 Come the next election....

There are no two ways about it. Ted Baillieu, lovely bloke that he is, does not belong behind the premier’s desk. If he is to remain there – and that would be due solely to conservatives’ lack of gumption in declining to forcefully remind him of both their restiveness and the voting public’s unfilled expectations – only one thing might be said in his favour.

Come 2014 and the return of Labor, Victoria’s stability will not be rocked in the least. Liberal or Labor, the electorate will not notice a damn bit of difference.

From Williams Creek To Ted's Swamp

BENEATH Elizabeth Street in Melbourne there is a paved-over, almost forgotten creek that caused problems for builders and property owners almost from the day John Batman decided the undulating plain on the north side of the Yarra was a fine spot for his village. Within a very few years, the stream -- known then as Williams Creek -- was irreparably fouled by those who set up house along its banks, and the population explosion that followed the discovery of gold made the situation a good deal worse. By the middle decades of the nineteenth century, as cathedrals and flash hotels sprouted on the high ground, the stream had backed up to form a vast and reeking lagoon of poo that covered much of what is now the Bourke Street Mall. If you take the kiddies to see the Myer Christmas windows this year, do tell them about the pissed diggers who fell off the duckboards and perished en route from Young & Jackson’s to the tent city that began behind St Francis church on Lonsdale Street. Children being children, they will find a greater delight in mental images of grownups drowning in doo-doo than anything on display behind the glass.

Times have certainly changed. Elizabeth Street floods these days only during the worst storms, and neither typhoid nor cholera figure prominently in public health statistics. But hidden currents? Well, they still work mischief in Melbourne, and the best place to observe their toxic influence is Spring Street – a very hazardous locale, as the Phage’s front-page scoop this morning makes  clear. “Lib MP in Sir Ken Leak”, the headline says, announcing a story that goes on to report how parliamentary secretary for police, Member for Benambra Bill Tilley, slipped an email from Sir Ken Jones, once widely tipped to become the state’s next police commissioner, to a friendly reporter at the Sunday Herald Sun. This was a big deal at the time, not least because ex-Commissioner Simon “Call Me Christine II” Overland believed Sir Ken did the leaking and sooled the Office of Police Integrity’s buggers onto his rival’s private phone. And just for good measure, the OPI also bugged various other coalition politicians, including cabinet members, as well as their wives, children and sundry political bit players. It will be remembered as the Baillieu government’s first scandal, and as this morning’s headline makes clear, for the Opposition it is the gift that will keep on giving.

What the headline does not mention is the anguish gnawing at those who wish Big Ted well. After more than a decade of spin, sordid deals and profligate spending under the former Bracks/Brumby regime, Victoria could use a bit of good government. Trouble is, members of this one appear bent on putting their energies into various internal feuds and petty jealousies, the Tilley leak being the latest and most public symptom.

The Police Association, for example, was a muted but muscular supporter of a change in government, and given its sympathies there should have been few obstacles to the successful and rapid conclusion of a new labor contract. Instead, Victorians are now hearing radio ads describing the policeman’s unhappy lot and lambasting the government for not honouring members’ selfless service with an adequate raise.

One also hears whispers of restiveness on the government benches, where the perception is that Baillieu favourites – which is to say those not linked to Michael Kroger -- are rewarded with staff and budgets while others struggle to cope with their portfolio’s workloads. Again and again, the name of Baillieu’s chief of staff, Michael Kapel, comes up, the common charge being that he has assumed the role of grand vizier, limiting government members’ access to the premier and approving or scuttling staff appointments on the basis of who is, and who is not, a pal of Big Ted and his mentor, former federal member for Kooyong Petro Georgio.

This is, of course, the meat and potatoes of all politics, be it in State Parliament or your local footy club.  But it is also an indulgence a government with a tiny, one-seat majority can ill afford. Suppose, for example, a local member is obliged to resign. The byelection goes the wrong way and -- whack! -- Labor’s incompetents are back in power. The polls demonstrating the Baillieu team’s popularity are actually compounding this danger, providing a sense of false security.

Getting the police on side should be a piece of cake for a law-and-order government, yet it has not happened. Winkling out Labor's holdover allies from the upper reaches of the public service, where the evidence suggests they are working strenuously to white ant Baillieu, needs to be another priority. Yet what do we see? Palace politics borne on leaks, internecine agendas, quiet gripes and, just beneath the surface, treacherous fissures that could swallow the coalition whole.

In the 19^th century, Melbourne’s city fathers instituted a series of sweeping public-health reforms – the introduction of nightmen being the most useful -- to regulate the growing city’s growing volume of effluent. And they made it a priority to cover Elizabeth Street's creek and clean out that noisome Bourke Street swamp. If this government is not to throw itself out of office like so much night soil, perhaps it should look to history and clean up its act. Then it can begin to restore the fortunes of all Victorians, not just those members of the government who do not like Michael Kroger.   

Wanted: Less Ted, More Teddy Boy

ALL who know him generally agree that Victoria’s Premier Ted Baillieu is a lovely fellow, a thorough and courteous gentleman. It may not seem that way during Question Time in the Legislative Assembly, but blame parliamentary convention for confrontation’s trumping of civil conversation. Off the floor, even Liberal Party critics most often preface their remarks about Victoria’s leader with observations about decency and the pleasure of his company. At least they do at the Billabong when the port is flowing, gnawed bones have been cleared away and the post-dessert fare is running to gossip and, it must be said, quite a bit of grumbling about this man who is liked so very much.

Some of the harsher words – and they are so far only relatively harsh – dwell on the premier’s disconcerting lassitude. His government replaced a crew whose incompetence was exceeded only by its genius for making the odious appear admirable. There was no catastrophe, no failure to execute or breach of the public trust the party of Bracks and Brumby could not run through the mill of its PR operatives and have transformed into a triumph. It was an approach that bore fruit time and again – aided, it must be said, by a tame media’s willingness to be conned. Perfect example: The near-unanimous prediction that Brumby’s rum lot would be returned at last year’s election. That was Labor’s party line, and reporters gobbled it along with hook and sinker. The key battlegrounds, they parroted, would be places like Bendigo, where Labor’s intense efforts to prop up incumbent Jacinta Allan left Baillieu’s candidate with little chance of success. Meanwhile, in electorates along the Frankston train line, an entirely unnoticed revolt was brewing. Bendigo stayed in Labor’s hands, but the Frankston line’s concerns about crime, traffic congestion and transit snafus put Baillieu over the top. True, his was only a one-seat majority, but it was enough to form a government. 

Since then, not much in the way of reform or repeal, despite Victoria being such a target-rich environment. Yes, some fixes are tough and difficult and cannot be implemented as soon as one might wish. Deep-sixing the anti-vilification laws, for instance, needs to be done, and perhaps one day we will actually see it happen. You can be entirely supportive of jolly ethnic types and their odd little ways and still rate free speech, even ugly and distressing speech, as being at least as valid as some misogynist cleric’s right to praise purdah. The to-do list is long, and after a dozen years of spin and cronyism, there is not a stall in Spring Street’s stable that would not benefit from a good mucking out.

Optimism says we will see the big fixes happen, eventually. But what of the smaller targets, the poisoned and low-hanging fruit that might be easily and quickly plucked? Why did it take so long to see off Christine Overland (or is it Simon Nixon?) as police commissioner? Why has there been no purge of the green loons who have infiltrated the Department of Sustainability and Environment? Why are Labor hacks promoted to the bench (or appointed to usurp the courts at VCAT) being allowed to preside untroubled by a quiet word that their conduct and decisions will be subjected to a very critical scrutiny? Where is the fresh draft of conservative judges and magistrates to redress a decade’s imbalance?

If those matters are too prickly to tackle with dispatch, surely the same cannot be said of the sitting ducks, like Film Victoria? For God’s sake, why is Baillieu continuing to allow those in charge to underwrite with public funds anti-Catholic bigotry, gratuitous obscenity and, via an alliance with SBS, the vile assertion that Imperial Japan’s  aggression was prompted by Australia’s white racism?

Not so long ago Film Victoria threw a lavish party for its departing chief. There was much adverse comment, even from artsy sorts, who no doubt believe the cash might have been better spent on their own, worthy little projects. A man with just a slightly thicker streak of nastiness might have seized the moment and acted -- especially if that man had also taken it upon himself to handle the Arts portfoilio.

Baillieu did nothing and let the opportunity slip. He needs to change that, not least because so many other branches of his public service remain infested with Labor-appointed white ants. If he persists in doing little or nothing, the cracks in his party’s unity of purpose will become fissures, especially with the press forever ready to hail Labor’s re-birth as a credible replacement. Public servants will leak to those same reporters, and members of a divided cabinet will blame each other for the bad publicity. According to some whispers this is already happening.

Big Ted, a lovely man, was elected to govern. He should do so before it is too late.

Baillieu Biffo?

WHILE all sensible Victorians were delighted last year to see the hindquarters of John Brumby, there has nevertheless been quite a bit of muttering in certain circles about the man who replaced him, Ted Baillieu. Not doing much and not doing it fast enough, that has been the complaint about Victoria’s new premier, who seems determined never to be mistaken for Jeff Kennett or any other exponent of the bold stroke. The voters want a sedate, make-no-waves government, critics are assured, one disinclined to spinning, stunts or sudden moves. Be patient, the line goes, we’re going to do this with small steps.

Some steps are little larger than others, however – and one of them is a very big leap indeed: the apparent defunding of Environment Victoria, an NGO that has been on the public teat through four decades of advocacy, lobbying and political activism. The Victorian National Parks Association, another mob of perpetually agitated greenards, is also being starved. And if what the Professor hears is true, the only thing stopping the immediate cessation of all funding to each organization is the tangled mass of grants and ongoing project payments, which Spring Street accountants are said to be still trying to sort out. Meanwhile, the bleating has started:

For over 40 years we’ve received funding from successive state governments to train and educate community leaders to engage in government environmental planning and decisions. And we receive funds to help the most disadvantaged Victorians, including newly arrived refugees, save water and energy. Our campaigns are not funded by the state nor are our core expenses such as rent and administration. So if we lose state funds, it’s our environment and the most disadvantaged amongst us who will bear the brunt!

Notice the dishonesty? Environment Victoria would have us believe that money is not fungible, that government funds earmarked for one matter do not free up cash for  organising rallies, hiring more propagandists, letter-writing campaigns and such.

They are going to scream green murder as the pipeline shuts down, so Big Ted’s backbone will be tested when the group’s PR unit begins a parade of tree-loving boat people for the newsroom stenographers at the Phage and ABC. For a premier who has eschewed confrontation, it could be an uncomfortable time. If so, he can draw strength from this piece by Michael Connor of Quadrant, who wonders why conservative parties habitually fund their sworn enemies. Connor is writing of the arts crowd, not greenards, but his broader point stands.

Let us hope that Baillieu discovers a formerly unrecognised talent for putting the boot in. There are plenty of other, publicly funded front groups in need of a good stomping.