{"id":830453,"date":"2026-07-29T04:00:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T04:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/830453\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T04:00:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T04:00:16","slug":"victorian-labor-has-wounded-itself-albanese-would-be-wise-to-learn-the-lessons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/830453\/","title":{"rendered":"Victorian Labor has wounded itself. Albanese would be wise to learn the lessons"},"content":{"rendered":"

Opinion<\/p>\n

\"PaulPaul Sakkal<\/a>Chief political correspondent<\/p>\n

July 29, 2026 \u2014 11:59am<\/p>\n

July 29, 2026 \u2014 11:59am<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s worth remembering that the Andrews-Allan government wasn\u2019t always a bad one. In its first term ending in 2018, it could plausibly argue that it was one of the most effective administrations in the country, whatever one thought of its agenda.<\/p>\n

So much so that Labor leaders across the country took notes from Daniel Andrews. Andrews\u2019 online communication style (think: \u201cBecause it\u2019s the right thing to do\u201d), big outlays on infrastructure, and action-man, centralised style of government were all picked up by peers.<\/p>\n

\"PrimePrime Minister Anthony Albanese and new Victorian Premier Ben Carroll.Marija Ercegovac<\/p>\n

Andrews and Allan lucked out with a uniquely dysfunctional opposition. Their opponents\u2019 ineptitude, coupled with hubris and corrosive governing practices, turned Victorian Labor into an outfit that\u2019s now talked about by Labor ministers in Canberra and Sydney as what not to be.<\/p>\n

Premier Ben Carroll took the unusual step of name-checking his predecessors on Tuesday.<\/a> New party leaders are rarely so explicit, blunt or personal when taking the mantle. \u201cI am not Daniel Andrews. I am not Jacinta Allan,\u201d he said, in a sign of how severely public opinion had turned against his predecessors.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"As<\/a><\/p>\n

Victoria\u2019s Labor government has been in power nearly a decade longer than Albanese\u2019s, so its problems are by nature more severe. Albanese\u2019s political judgement and cautious mindset, and the checks and balances that exist at a federal level, should avoid the worst of Victoria\u2019s excesses.<\/p>\n

What, then, are the lessons for a dominant Anthony Albanese in how to avoid the disease that has afflicted Victorian Labor?<\/p>\n

Just like in Spring Street, Albanese\u2019s opponents are in a state of upheaval.<\/p>\n

Albanese\u2019s handling of this year\u2019s budget showed signs that habits from Victoria might have spread north.<\/p>\n

Business groups protested for months about Labor\u2019s tax changes. Treasurer Jim Chalmers was left feeling bruised that his package of productivity reforms<\/a> barely featured in public debate, which was instead dominated by criticism of its capital gains tax changes<\/a> for businesses.<\/p>\n

Labor could hardly be surprised that it wasn\u2019t given the benefit of the doubt, however. It scorned business leaders, economists and the media by failing to consult on any of its key measures. Andrews was an early adopter in freezing out stakeholders that were not part of the Labor family.<\/p>\n

Building Bad: Explore our investigation<\/p>\n

After a series of crab walks in direct response<\/a> to public feedback, Albanese described critics of his budget as \u201cbarely coherent\u201d. The statement carried a strong whiff of Andrews, who often dismissed the concerns of public health figures and economists during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

The prime minister has similarly taken to rubbishing the views of leading public policy experts Chris Richardson and Saul Eslake when they questioned if Labor\u2019s first home buyer deposit<\/a> scheme would push up prices.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Albanese<\/a><\/p>\n

In her resignation statement<\/a>, Allan noted that the \u201cbig business lobby\u201d gave no credit to the productivity gains from billions of dollars spent on new rail and road projects. She has a point. Victorian Labor\u2019s economic management has been widely panned, and for good reason. Unemployment is higher in Victoria than anywhere else. As is debt, though commentators occasionally neglect that other states have severe debt problems of their own.<\/p>\n

In both Melbourne and Canberra, Labor has taken to reflexively attacking commentators, businesses and anyone who doesn\u2019t agree with their approach, casting them as ideological enemies. A style premiers Peter Malinauskas and Chris Minns in South Australia and NSW respectively have consciously avoided.<\/p>\n

That closed-shop culture extends to how Albanese\u2019s internal critics say he runs his caucus<\/a>. One senior Labor source told this masthead last week about an occasion last year when a minister was told after a cabinet meeting that it would be best to sort out a policy argument before cabinet. Open discussion inside the cabinet room was best avoided, the minister was told.<\/p>\n

Albanese\u2019s internal sceptics, who are not plentiful, complain that decisions are increasingly made in small groups.<\/p>\n

In Victoria, Andrews pushed out ministers (Gavin Jennings, Jill Hennessy, Jenny Mikakos, Philip Dalidakis) who acted as counterweights. Jennings in particular was a rare voice who worried about the state\u2019s financial troubles, which eventually spiralled. What was left was a group of ministers who acted as yes-people, led by Allan who was anointed Andrews\u2019 successor and stuck to the formula.<\/p>\n

Albanese\u2019s budget is under serious strain but not as badly stretched as Victoria\u2019s. The state\u2019s approach of offering unions and other Labor-friendly stakeholders whatever was needed to win their support should be avoided at a federal level.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Some in federal Labor were hoping Allan clung onto the leadership. They hoped that she would lose the November election and that the Coalition\u2019s Jess Wilson would govern in minority with the support of One Nation, proving to the nation that the parties were in cahoots.<\/p>\n

Now, the Albanese government is left in a bind on how to deal with a looming royal commission into Big Build corruption, sparked single-handedly by the work of reporter Nick McKenzie<\/a> and the bravery of his sources.<\/p>\n

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\"PaulPaul Sakkal<\/a> is Chief Political Correspondent. He previously covered Victorian politics and won a Walkley award and the 2025 Press Gallery Journalist of the Year. Contact him securely on Signal @paulsakkal.14.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Opinion Paul SakkalChief political correspondent July 29, 2026 \u2014 11:59am July 29, 2026 \u2014 11:59am Save You have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":830454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-830453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=830453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/830454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=830453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=830453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=830453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}