Pandemic Management bill. Health and well-being Act 2021.

[LP]

A "look over there" argument.

Sometimes it pays not to have a too myopic focus!

[capcom]

Sometimes it pays not to have a too myopic focus!

True, but why have they never brought any project into reality without going way over budget.  And I say that about BOTH parties.  If you ran a household like that, you'd be living in a tent

[Mav]

The Age says the Ombudsman has declared herself satisfied with the safeguards in the Bill after criticising earlier incarnations.

No wonder its critics have been forced to dwell on the past rather than criticise the current Bill. As the old saying goes, "If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made.” It would be ideal if the parliament ran in a collegiate way that enables a well-considered consensus to develop, but that's a fantasy. What we had was the main opposition party, the Liberals, hoping to harvest anti-vaxxer and "my freedom's more important than anybody else's freedom" voters. Did a single Liberal in the LC vote for the Bill? Was that really because each was violently opposed to the Bill in its final form, or were they all following the party line? And then you have Somynurek who appears to want revenge on his way out of parliament. So cross-benchers became crucial. And if they didn't follow the total opposition tactics of the Liberals, well they must have been up to no good, mustn't they? It seems to me the process has worked about as well as could be expected. 

It seems to me that there's really only 1 amendment that would get the fervent critics on board with the Bill: "This Bill does not come into force until Daniel Andrews ceases to be Premier". Good luck with that!

[madbluboy]

The bill is fine, the problem is Dictator  Dan so just vote the lunatic out at the next election.

[Professer E]

The other mob are no better, and that's the problem, no real alternatives.

[Lods]

"Make this state a great state.
A modern up to date state.
Put a one, in the square, for the DLP"  

I'm not really a DLP supporter...but it was the best political jingle ever...one that stuck in the head, and it's still there some 50 years later ;D

[LP]

True, but why have they never brought any project into reality without going way over budget.  And I say that about BOTH parties.  If you ran a household like that, you'd be living in a tent

I suppose, households don't normally have projects that span decades and cost billion$.

The figure we are feed via announcements at the time a project is launch is not the figure they expect on the last day of a multi-decade project, it's the current market value if started and completed on the day of the announcement relative to today's costs. The real figure is typically 2x to 3x that price in dollar terms at the expected completion date's relative costs. It's a bureaucratic thing, nothing really to do with the politicians, although the politicians could talk in terms of dollars at the end date rather than dollars at the start date, but then everything would be judged as way too expensive relative to today's costs.

Even so, across this pandemic affected period events are extraordinary. Nobody would have thought basic building supplies and costs would rise 2x or 3x in a just the space of a year or so. Everything from cement to silicone has risen ridiculous amounts courtesy of our trade war with China. Such variations will be written into contracts, there is little governments can do other than pause projects and even then they probably have to pay penalties for pausing.

[LP]

I've a massive concern about the Vote Dan Out brigade, because it looks to me like Guy isn't a viable alternative. Voting someone out isn't feasible if the replacement is as rubbery whoever that may be. Matthew Guy seems to be rubbery, and that may mean a lot of votes against Dan go to pointless minor party spuds!

It also appears Guy has been caught out buy his own party manipulating gender equality quotas to ensure the new blood isn't really a threat to him. They are electing B-Grade options based on gender quotas, and the prime candidates are being side-lined because they are majority male.

If so Guy is a fool!

Hasn't Guy seen what happens to men when they end up the minority surrounded by feminists, he needs to watch Survivor and watch his back or Sharn Coombes will be stabbing him in it as part of a girl power movement! That in itself isn't a problem, Coombes might be OK, but the problem is a lot of the quota candidates selected based on Guy's administrative directive are just plain ordinary! A state can't afford have them learning on the job from such a low low level, well end up in the crapter before the first term is done!

Our state risks becoming a B-Grade bureaucracy / economy just to ensure the stats work out evenly?

[LP]

I'm not really a DLP supporter...but it was the best political jingle ever...one that stuck in the head, and it's still there some 50 years later ;D

My problem is people often confuse the DLP with the old Australian Democrats ( aka., Don Chipp's party).

I'm also dubious about the modern DLPs true anti-communist manifesto, because they may declare themselves as democratic socialists, but the policies are barely separable from the ancient comrade riddled ALP!

The old AD was hijacked by various political sub-groups, greens, feminists, religious right, and basically disappeared up it's own clacka! Probably their most recent invocation was Cheryl Kernot, who thought you could run the country off the back of a good lie down and a fresh cup of herbal tea! I'm sure she had the word, "Don't Panic" tattooed somewhere in case of an emergency! The sad thing is I thought her main squeeze at the time, Gareth Evans, probably should have been the ALP's head honcho! Anyway, we aren't big on candidates that move to the enemy mid-career, and that pretty much killed off whatever chance the AD had of surviving!

[DJC]

Nth East Link is 6.5 billion over budget, Westgate Tunnel is 3.3 Billion over budget.
That's a lot of hospitals....

Has an infrastructure project ever come in anywhere near budget?