The Andrews government dumped an ambitious cabinet-approved plan to lift the proportion of social housing in Victoria by almost two-thirds, opting instead to respond to the housing crisis with a voluntary, developer-led delivery of so-called affordable housing.
Well when the state is balls deep in debt you’re only left with weak options
Seriously, where’s the money going? Victoria has the second highest GSP of the states, yet has the lowest spend per capita on health, lowest spend per capita on education, lowest proportion of public housing, and 30% worse debt-to-GSP ratio than NSW. The state is relatively small in terms of area, so Victoria doesn’t have the burden of maintaining infrastructure to keep a sparse population connected across a large area like Queensland and WA do.
NSW Labor have had their fair share of corruption scandals (e.g. Obeid, Tripodi and Kelly), yet they managed to get through the ’90s and ’00s without running up the kind of debt Victorian Labor has amassed under Cain and again under the series of Labor governments since 1998. Victorian Labor seems to have a unique talent for pissing away money with little to show for it.