Why not you

The circumstances changed. Allan out, Carroll in. So what.

Victoria has a different Premier. Jacinta Allan is out, Ben Carroll in. The circus rolled through Melbourne this week and left the usual mess behind.

Allan’s resignation speech will confound for years, as a masterclass in how not to leave the scene of the crime.

Allan claimed she would have won the leadership ballot—of course. She didn’t have the numbers—who cares, I’ll say it anyway. Like a country saying they would have won the World Cup if only they’d qualified. In this space, and most others, delusional thinking isn’t the outlier anymore—it’s the norm.

And the gender card?

Allan dressed herself as a victim of sexism—and there’s a genuine question underneath that’s worthy of recognition. But, when a woman in power fails, how much of the vitriol is performance, and how much is it something else? It’s worth asking. The truth is, Allan was gifted the premiership without facing an election, achieved next to nothing in over three years, and has left Victoria with the highest debt, rising unemployment, and record crime. The gender card, deployed here, does a disservice to every woman who genuinely needs it.

The All Blacks have a tradition worth noting. After every game, senior or not, players sweep the sheds. No job too small, no ego too large. Leave the place better than you found it. Allan didn’t sweep the sheds. She left them burning and complained about the smoke.

And Ben Carroll—a practising Catholic.

Six weeks ago he told us—also pulling his daughter into it for good measure—that he would never challenge Allan. He did. An explanation? “The circumstances changed.” Three words that have become the universal excuse for breaking your word—we presume he will seek confession.

What is truth anymore? In politics, it’s whatever the circumstances require.

And finally—who really cares? Politicians are becoming more irrelevant by the day. The gap between what they promise and what they deliver has never been wider. The circus keeps rolling. The mess remains.

Why me?

Why not you.

Nick

Photo by Brian Wertheim on Unsplash