There was a moment on Tuesday when – after being asked if he had spoken with his party’s Victorian leader – New South Wales Liberal premier, Dominic Perrottet, grinned.
“I’m not sitting here at a Labor party fundraiser,” Perrottet chuckled at a Melbourne cancer research centre, flanked by the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, with Liberal opposition leader Matthew Guy noticeably absent.
“I’m sitting here with a premier who wants to get things done and look after his people. We’ve built up that relationship, we’ve been working very closely together and that’s important.”
A year ago, in the depths of an extended Covid-19 lockdown in both Victoria and NSW, it would have been hard to believe the premiers of Australia’s two most populous states would ever share a microphone stand to make a joint announcement.
It would be even harder to believe one would back the other against members of their own political party.
At the time, Gladys Berejiklian was NSW premier and her relationship with Andrews had soured over her resistance to impose a lockdown as Covid-19 spread through Sydney’s east, into its western suburbs and then on to Melbourne, via removalists.
Since then the unlikely duo – Andrews from Labor’s socialist left faction and Perrottet from the Liberals’ right – have worked together to progressively ease Covid-19 restrictions, announced ambitious reforms to early education and forced the federal government to provide them with more hospital funding.
On Tuesday, they again joined forces to announce they would each establish 25 urgent care clinics. They blamed a decline in GP bulk billing for exacerbating record demand, though Perrottet insisted they weren’t trying to “pass the buck and shift the blame to the federal government”.
He described the latest announcement as part of a “new era of state governments collaborating together across party political lines”.
“This isn’t about politics, it is about our people,” Perrottet said.
Andrews shared the sentiment: “Wherever we get partnership opportunities, I think we’ve proven to you all that we’re happy to seize them and it’s not about the team you barrack for, it’s about the people that you serve.”
The lovefest continued when Perrottet disputed Guy’s claim that the issues facing Victoria’s health system were caused by “mismanagement and neglect” by Andrews and were unique to the state.
“They’re not … every state health system around the country and around the world is under pressure.”
At his own press conference, Guy refused to be drawn on the partnership or its effect on his campaign.
“It takes a Liberal premier to tell Daniel Andrews how to fix the health system in Victoria. In 90 days we might have a Liberal premier of our own and we can get on with fixing it down here,” Guy said.
Yet Tuesday’s joint press conference is undeniably a blow to Guy, who has been campaigning heavily on the issues in the state’s health system.
But Andrews already has the unions representing health workers on side. And now he has Perrottet.
Guy is left with the federal Liberal leader, Peter Dutton, who is considered so unpopular in the state, Trades Hall will be using his image on campaign material in key seats.
There’s no doubt Perrottet’s endorsement of Andrews will get a run too.
