Leaderless in Victoria

April 19, 2011 in Rants & Raves
Tags: democracy, environment, Melbourne, Nationals, politics, public policy, public transport, state government, Ted Baillieu, transparency, Victoria, Victorian Liberals, voters

Ted Baillieu might be Premier but it’s hard to say what he’s been up to.

It’s been well over 100 days since Mr Baillieu won government in Victoria for the Liberal-Nationals coalition (they apparently have a small ‘c’ coalition).

There doesn’t seem to have been much done by the new government.

There’s no real idea of what’s going on.  There is the usual machinations of parliament and the passage of procedural stuff.  It’s not the most exciting place to be. It appears that the newly-elected government had no policies to begin except their media announcements.

Sure we were repeatedly assured they had policies but where are they? What is the government doing?  Where is Ted Baillieu?

We haven’t seen much activity from our new Premier. There have been a few puff pieces but that’s just not cutting the mustard any more.

I for one was not expecting our Premier to be so far in the background as to be pretty much invisible.  He has been heard speaking things here and there and giving the odd press conference.

However, there is not much in the way of how he is going to govern or what the priorities are going to be. So far his government has attempted to wind back solid gains on repairing of the sensitive environments in the high lands. The public transport system in metropolitan Melbourne is falling apart and more unreliable. And the government has managed to do back flips on commitments to teachers and emergency services.

At this stage Victoria appears [to be] in the hands of a direction-less Premier with no apparent control over his Ministers.

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