Labor jumps to the left
Today’s Herald-Sun feature article by journalist James Campbell sums it up well – Daniel Andrews is making bad decisions driven by left-wing ideology, and Victorians will pay the price.
As the article says: “Many of the Victorians who elected Daniel Andrews last year probably thought they were voting for a return of the Bracks and Brumby governments. They know better now…
“Since coming to office the new Government has — in no particular order — sacked the chair and CEO of WorkSafe, the board of Ambulance Victoria, abolished the Linking Melbourne Authority and, yesterday, dumped every water board in the state.
“It has repealed the previous government’s “move on” laws designed to break pickets at labour disputes and abolished its construction code, which restricted the CFMEU’s ability to operate on building sites.
“It has made a downpayment on large pay increases to the members of the paramedics union, which had campaigned hard for it to be elected, pay increases the size of which we have yet to see.
“In doing so it has junked the idea of having an across-the-board wages policy, running the risk of a public sector wages explosion as other unions line up for a fair suck of the sauce bottle.
“Then there’s the East West Link debacle. Can you imagine Steve Bracks cancelling the largest infrastructure project in the state days after first getting behind the big desk at 1 Treasury Place?
“… when it comes to last week’s decision to scrap a private hospital inside the new Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre. This one is Left-wing ideology pure and simple.
“…The excuses Health Minister Jill Hennessy offered for the decision were a mixture of the feeble and the dishonest…
“The decision was not Hennessy’s, of course, but Dan’s and despite “it’s not about ideology at all”, it is hard to see what else it is about.
“Hang on to your hats, Victoria — we’ve got ourselves a proper honest-to-goodness old-fashioned Kirner-esque Labor Government where the Socialist Left is large and in charge.”
(To read the full article, see http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/labor-does-the-time-warp-again/story-fni0fh8t-1227296180996 )