Why is Dan Andrews so popular? Allow us to introduce Victoria’s opposition

This week the Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission (IBAC) investigation released a report that found former Victorian Labor minister Theo Theophanous “improperly” lobbied government ministers and public officials to support a developer’s failed proposal for a $31 billion precinct in Melbourne’s outer south-west, while he was also on the board of the Victorian Planning Authority.

IBAC found that Theophanous’ daughter Kat’s ultimately successful campaign for Northcote benefited from donations from her father’s unregistered client. The company, the Australian Education City (AEC), made a $10,000 donation to her state election campaign in 2018 and provided other in-kind donations.

The commission found no evidence to suggest she knew of the relationship between her father and the developer. Theophanous denies the allegations and a government spokeswoman insists the report “made no adverse findings against any current or past government ministers or MPs”.

Still, it is yet another scandal for the pile.

The Andrews government in Victoria is relentlessly afflicted with scandal, one given to letting down its progressive voter base. And yet, coming to the end of a term during which it imposed one of the strictest lockdowns in the world, it still came out of November’s state election with an increased majority.

How is this possible? Allow us to introduce the Victorian opposition.

We’ve long catalogued its beautiful dysfunction, its leadership oscillations between someone no one had heard of and someone who people had heard of for almost exclusively bad reasons, its public disunity, and its interesting preoccupations and interesting people touted as future leadership material.

The past two weeks have raked all this to surface again — first through the public airing of a scathing report by party president Greg Mirabella, which argued former opposition leader Matthew Guy was so unpopular and the Liberals’ election campaign so negative that Victorians had no “reason or moral permission” to vote for them. Guy publicly shot back that Mirabella was “factional and juvenile” and that he should resign.

And then finally this week we got the maiden speech of Moira Deeming, a pulsing, radiating sign of everything wrong with the party; parliamentary referred pain.

In the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, Deeming announced what she was motivated by: winding back equality “taken to extremes”, picking up armfuls of culture war pointers — climate change, history and curriculum battles, COVID-19 restrictions, sex workers and abortion — and jamming them together like ill-fitting puzzle pieces:

The final straw which compelled me to challenge the government head-on was discovering that school policies and curriculums had been radically altered. Instead of being inspired by history’s heroes, students were being chastised and even told to stand up in class and apologise for historical crimes they had neither committed nor condoned. They were told that the physical world is on the brink of doom.

You may recall the party bravely expelled anti-abortion warrior Bernie Finn in the lead-up to the last state election, after Finn put out a series of posts “praying” for abortion to be banned in Australia following the US Supreme Court’s overturning of the Roe v Wade precedent. As an immediate demonstration of the party having learnt its lesson, it selected Deeming to take his place.

And it’s not as though the sentiments of the speech will shock anyone in the party.

The former Melton City councillor had attempted to gain preselection in the seat of Gorton in the last federal election, but was deemed “too extreme” for the liking of then prime minister Scott Morrison — yep, Morrison, who bet the house on Katherine Deves, found Deeming’s views a bit alienating.

She had used her time as a councillor to move motions regarding single-sex bathrooms, and may have breached COVID restrictions to attend a “pro-life warriors” meeting with a leading anti-marriage equality voice during the 2017 plebiscite, Karina Okotel.

Elsewhere in today’s Crikey, we delve into the newly revealed emails of her time on council. Her appointment caused the former occupant of the electorate she’s running for, Andrew Elsbury, to quit the party altogether.

Victorian voters may want to get used to the idea that Dan Andrews may end up qualifying for a second statue.