Jeff Kennett brought in the 3,000 days get a statue
policy in the 1990s in Victoria. There have
been four premiers honoured - John Cain, Rupert Hamer,
Henry Bolte, Albert Dunstan.

It now appears that Daniel Andrews is going to be the
fifth to be so honoured with a bronze statue.

There's been a mixed reaction.

What do the forum posters think?

Maybe not one of Jeff's brightest ideas. On a similar basis Adolf Hitler would be certain to get a statue in Germany along with Otto von Bismarck, Helmut Kohl, Angela Merkel, and Konrad Adenauer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chancellors_of_Germany_by_time_in_office.

These arbitrary deadlines are a trap. Andrews is one of the worst people to fill the position of Victorian Premier. The statue idea is up there with Joh Bjelke-Petersen getting an honorary doctorate of laws. Presumably after multiple royal commissions in the future find his government to have been guilty of so many malfeasances (Red Shirts, Lawyer X, Lockdowns, the Hotels debacle) and him of personal malfeasance (doctored report of the accident his wife had which severely injured a boy) there will be calls to rip the statue down.

I'd be waiting 10 years to see what turns up before ordering the wax statue, let alone the mould.

Controversy was never far away from his government
in his 9 years as Victorian premier. His hardline
approach to the COVID pandemic made him a
polarizing figure.

His time in office was marked by political achievements
as well as progressive policies but also by a long list of
controversies that ultimately undermined his popularity.

His 20 months in and out of lockdown drew praise from some
and strong condemnation from others. The premier tried to
explain that "It wasn't a popularity contest. It was a
pandemic and good logical decisions had to be made."

Many will disagree.

Wikipedia lists his achievements as:

The Big Build infrastructure projects, rental law reforms,
voluntary assisted dying, legislation of medical
cannabis, adoption reforms, sex work decriminalisation,
first nations treaties, safe injection rooms, compensation
reforms for victims of institutionalised child sex abuse,
and the introduction of exclusion zones for protests outside
abortion clinics, to name just a few.

There's more at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel-Andrews#:

Love him or loathe him - the controversy will continue with
his statue.

Here's the link again:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Andrews

I think it's good the country still has a sense of humour.

Statues, monuments etc, to colonial criminals and modern day murders like James Cook, Arthur Phillip, and Adolf Hitler are not appropriate.

There's been criticisms in the past of certain statues.
Of honouring slave traders, imperial conquerors, colonial
murderers, war mongers, genecidal exploiters, and so on.

There's been suggestions that they should be taken down.
or at least - have their statues re-inscribed with a
factual history written on them to give people a further
understanding of the time.

I don't have a problem with that being done.

If we only had statues of freedom fighters, human rights
champions, revolutionaries, people like Mandela, Gandhi, to
name just two - then we're not looking at our past through
the lens of history - if we ignore the others we don't
approve of.

Just a thought.

The discussion concerning Daniel Andrews statue can
be broadened to include our relationship with history
and whether we should build statues and monuments in
the first place.

Do statues and monuments - have a role to play in either
honouring people, or reappraising historic wrongs? Or do they
really encourage us to air-brush out difficult and
contentious parts of our history rather than engage with
and try to understand the historical context - which may
help us to understand the present?

Daniel Andrews will be the fifth Victorian Premier to
have a statue made and displayed.

Should he be denied this honour?

He's Victoria's longest serving Labot premier -
leading his party to 3 election wins.

He spent almost nine years as premier and more than
2 decades in politics.

You are always going to get the blinked extremist view on these thing. GY said this in his biased opinion; "Andrews is one of the worst people to fill the position of Victorian Premier". No mention made of Australia's longest and worst PM 'Pig Iron' Bob Menzies. These must be some "memorial" to that long gone admirer of Hitler somewhere in Aussie, even if its only in the Liberal's party room! Its all a load of nonsense in my opinion.

Dear Paul,

As I wrote earlier - Andrew's hardline approach to the
COVID pandemic made him a polarizing figure and
controversy was never far away from his government in his
9 years as Victoria's premier. There was a long list of
controversies that undermined his popularity.

The fact remains though that he does qualify for a statue
according to the policy that Kennett put in place - Andrews
being Labor's longest serving Victoria's premier.

In any case it will be up to Victoria's parliament.

Which I guess is also true in the case of
other countries and their governments regarding who they choose
to honour and the monuments they choose to build.
Germany made its choice. And yet look at the rise of some
of its political parties today.

Hi Foxy,

A good leader is not always going to be a "popular" leader, tough decisions have to be made at times. In a time of crisis the true leader shown exactly that, leadership. FDR is an example in America with his leadership during the Great Depression, as is Churchill with his leadership of Britain during the darkest days of WWII. A little away from politics Mahatma Gandhi, probably the greatest leader in modern times (my opinion) had a certain quality that although not popular with everyone, showed leadership that changed a nation, Gandhi gave inspiration to millions that changed the world in many ways.

In Australia I rated Menzies as our worse ever PM, when leadership was required in a crisis, the tough decisions needed to defend Australia from the Japanese, Menzies proved to be a weak, vacillating leader who had to be replaced.

Perhaps they should erect a statue of Chairman Dan in Glasgow who are going to be hosting the Commonwealth Games using money gifted to them by a true incompetent Victorian Government.

Then again Andrews was able to use the promise of the games to win an election so in the Labor mind wasting half a billion dollars of taxpayer money to get an electoral advantage is money well spent.

Alternatively they could have a statue of Victorian police shooting on peaceful protestors to memorialise Dan's status as the first politician in living memory to order his forces to fire on fellow citizens. A proud heritage.

mhaze,

No matter how much you beg, we're not moving that life size Fuhrer statue of yours, from your front garden next to the new one of Chairman Dan. Although a statue of Chairman Dan standing between the Fuhrer and Comrade Stalin might seem appropriate to a lot of people.

Dear Paul,

We've certainly had a wide mix of various leaders in this
country. Our family has always voted Liberal. They loved
Robert Menzies because of his staunch anti-communism
stance.

I've admired Malcolm Fraser, John Hewson, and Malcolm Turnbull.
Bob Hawke. Then there's Julie Bishop, Penny Wong, and in
Victoria - there was Steve Bracks. To name just a few.

I feel that in this country we've always had stability
as far as our governments are concerned. Voters like it
that way - and choose not to give much support to
extremists or radicals. Voters usually get it right in
the end.

We have much to be thankful for.

I watched "60 Minutes" last night on the attempted
assassination attempts on Trump in the US - where guns
are so easily available. John Howard did the right thing
in implementing stronger gun control laws here. The US
has serious issues to deal with. Our political systems
have kept us safe thus far.

"I watched "60 Minutes" last night "

Perhaps you should have also flicked over to the Spotlight programme which covered the drug gangland wars that have taken so many lives including innocent by-standers.

It seems these gangs have no trouble getting guns despite having them banned in Australia. Truly it is said that if you outlaw guns only outlaws will have guns.

Still there is an upside. At least when fascist-lite leaders like Chairman Dan orders his police to fire on peaceful protestors he can do it in the knowledge that no-one will be able to fire back.

" Our political systems
have kept us safe thus far."

Keeping us free on the other hand, not so much. But too many are prepared to surrender liberty for safety. What they fail to realise from history is that, when you do that, you end up with neither safety nor freedom.