REGARDLESS of what you think about Jacinta Allan, Anthony Albanese or any of our political leaders, even our elected local government representatives, you’ve got to respect the office, right?
And putting a package of manure, cryovaced or otherwise, on the premier’s doorstep is definitely overstepping the boundaries of respect and decency in that regard.
That’s not what Foster North farmer and South Gippsland Shire Councillor Scott Rae did.
Yes, he took the package to the steps of State Parliament last week, “as a prop” instead of a poster, in support of the rally against the Emergency Services Levy and a wider dissatisfaction with government over its attitude to farming and rural communities in general.
And according to Cr Rae, he would have been happy enough just to get a bit of publicity for the cause.
He certainly got that, but he also told the Sentinel-Times last week, contrary to media reports he was involved in taking it to the premier’s office – he wasn’t.
It is understood that two Liberal Party MPs placed the box at Ms Allan’s office and that the Premier subsequently expressed her outrage, on behalf of staff, that they felt the safety of the workplace had been compromised.
“It’s not funny, it’s not a joke, it’s not larrikin… it’s violated a workplace,” Ms Allan is reported to have said.
Honestly, the Premier was right to call it out.
And the MPs who ultimately took the package to her office should be rapped over the knuckles for it. Hopefully, the incident also redraws the line in the sand about the right to protest, within the bounds of respect.
But it shouldn’t take away from the fact that there’s something seriously wrong with the affairs of state in Victoria at the moment.
And it must be said that the Opposition hasn’t exactly covered themselves in glory either.
We’re all aware that the State Government’s finances are in a parlous state and that the cost-overruns and waste on major projects in Melbourne is costing us in the regions with a lack of funding for much-needed major projects here including the West Gippsland Hospital, necessary services including Fisheries officers, a proper response to the drought and threats to food production, and the escalation in land-based taxes.
The next debacle that’s looming is the timeline laid out by the Victorian Government to achieve “at least two gigawatts of offshore generation capacity by 2032”, then 4GW by 2035 and 9GW by 2040, along the way closing the Yallourn Power Station in mid-2028 – that’s just three years away!
And when government hits the panic button in Melbourne, you know where the hammer is going to fall.
It’s time the State Government came clean on the success or otherwise of its energy policy and the state of its finances and for the Opposition to start producing some alternative policies, well ahead of next year’s state election.