Behind Jacinta Allan’s departure sits a far larger question, and on this week’s Court of Public Opinion Jeremy Cordeaux went hunting for it: after a decade of Labor rule, who actually answers for Victoria’s condition — and will the promised reckoning be genuine? His fear, on both counts, is nobody and no.
A Decade On The Ledger
Jeremy set out the record as he sees it: ten years of Labor government, and with it debt he put at around $200 billion, the largest in the country. Alongside it he listed carjackings, home invasions, potholes, the highest taxes and the highest unemployment in the nation. Whatever the precise figures, his point was about accumulation — a decade of decisions whose consequences are now visible on the streets and in the budget.
No Convenient Scapegoat
The heart of his case was responsibility. It would suit Labor, he argued, to load the blame onto the departing premier and declare itself renewed. But that isn’t how the party operates. Labor works as a collective — cabinet decisions, group decisions, cabinet solidarity. Every member of that cabinet, Jeremy insisted, should share responsibility for the debt, the corruption, the unemployment and the crime. You don’t get to hold the power and then disown the results.
The Big Build’s Long Shadow
Jeremy tied the reckoning to the “big build” era, of which Allan was the responsible minister, linking it to concerns over CFMEU influence — potentially enormous sums — and to the Commonwealth Games that cost nearly a billion dollars and never happened. These, he stressed, are the concrete items a real investigation would have to examine.
An Inquiry With A Catch
He expects a royal commission into union corruption to follow — but was instantly sceptical about its independence. The government, he pointed out, will pick the commissioner and write the terms of reference. That, in his experience, is where inquiries are quietly shaped: not by refusing to hold them, but by controlling their scope. An investigation designed by the very people it might implicate is one to watch very closely.
Will Anyone Answer?
Then there’s the personal reckoning, which Jeremy expects to be comfortable — a substantial pension, worth more still once the perks are counted, and for life. The contrast he drew was pointed: households squeezed by rising costs on one side, a secure lifelong entitlement for a departing leader on the other. For Jeremy, Victoria is a test of whether accountability still means anything — and he’ll be reading those terms of reference very carefully.
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