{"id":11101,"date":"2023-09-26T18:17:38","date_gmt":"2023-09-26T08:17:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/?p=11101"},"modified":"2024-10-21T20:27:42","modified_gmt":"2024-10-21T10:27:42","slug":"unpacking-dan-andrews-legacy-as-vic-premier-exits-stage-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/unpacking-dan-andrews-legacy-as-vic-premier-exits-stage-right\/","title":{"rendered":"Unpacking Dan Andrews Forest Legacy as Vic Premier Exits Stage Right"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Daniel Andrews has resigned as Premier of Victoria after making his mind up &#8220;in the last few days&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Premier Andrews said he&#8217;s decided to step down as the state&#8217;s leader after &#8220;always working hard to do what&#8217;s right, not simply to do what&#8217;s popular&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He will officially stand down at 5 pm tomorrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The decision was announced at a snap press conference outside Victorian Parliament House.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Premier Andrews said, &#8220;It&#8217;s not an easy job being the premier of this state; that&#8217;s not a complaint, just a fact.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Andrews Labor government was&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/australia-news\/2014\/nov\/29\/labor-wins-historic-victory-in-victorian-election-with-swing-of-more-than-3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">elected into power in 2014<\/a>, with the Premier&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/australia-news\/2022\/nov\/26\/labors-daniel-andrews-to-be-returned-as-premier-in-2022-victoria-state-election-as-coalition-vote-stalls\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">leading his party to a third term in November 2022<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He became&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/australia-news\/2022\/nov\/27\/daniel-andrews-vindicated-in-victorian-election-that-became-a-referendum-on-his-pandemic-response\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Labor&#8217;s longest-serving Premier<\/a>&nbsp;in Victoria earlier this year &#8211; and has been regarded as a divisive figure, loved on the left and disliked on the right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"AXjAcbHrug0\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"IN FULL: Daniel Andrews announces resignation as Victorian Premier | ABC News\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AXjAcbHrug0?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/victoria-bans-state-native-forestry-harvesting-to-end-2024\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Earlier this year,<\/a>&nbsp;the Andrews government announced an early end to native timber harvesting in the state by the close of 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This decision dramatically accelerated the original plan announced by the Andrews government in 2019, which targeted phasing out native timber logging by 2030.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Premier Daniel Andrews noted, &#8220;It&#8217;s not good enough to just cross our fingers and hope for the best. We need a plan to support workers&#8217; families and local jobs.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>According to Environmental Minister Ingrid Scott,&nbsp;<\/em>the transition will see the most significant expansion to public forests in Victorian history \u2013 &#8220;protecting precious biodiversity and endangered species.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The decision was controversial, with federal ALP members claiming the decision was &#8220;handled poorly&#8221;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/did-vic-gov-ignore-scientists-in-native-forest-closure\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">and local reports that the government did &#8220;not follow the science<\/a>, with Phillip Hopkins of the Gippsland Times reporting that the industry was &#8220;closed on flimsy evidence.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the time, Premier Andrews justified the decision to exit native forest management based on a Court of Appeal by the state-operated VicForests against the Supreme Court ruling to halt logging in parts of the state &#8220;after the forestry company failed to survey protected glider species adequately,&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/vicforests-could-be-dismantled-in-major-vic-gov-shake-up\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">VicForests lost the appeal<\/a>, with the Victorian State Government starting the process of dismantling the body.&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/vicforests-could-be-dismantled-in-major-vic-gov-shake-up\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Earlier this month<\/a>, the State Government altered the company&#8217;s status from being a &#8220;State Business Corporation&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead, it will now be a &#8220;Reorganising Body,&#8221; which allows it to move the function and staff around. The move paves the way for the business to be split up and absorbed into government departments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s understood that workers would be supported to find new jobs and that their skills would be needed in areas such as forest management and bushfire risk reduction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Victorian Labor Party are now working to select a new leader to govern &#8211; that decision will be made at a hastily convened caucus meeting tomorrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Premier Andrews is a member of the Socialist Left faction of the Victorian ALP, as is his current deputy and heir apparent, Jacinta Allen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, as revealed exclusively by the Australian Financial Review in May, the ALP-right-aligned Ben Carroll &#8220;has been canvassing support.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Treasurer Tim Pallas &#8211; a member of the right &#8211; is expected to depart before the next election in 2026, opening the door for a wholesale shake-up ahead of the next election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The right-wing of the party is known as Labor Unity and is tied to Deputy Federal Leader Richard Males and, according to anonymous sources, &#8220;will try and organise a challenge.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Herald Sun reported that Ms Allan was already chief of staff to replace long-time Andrew chief, Lisse Ratcliffe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Daniel Andrews has resigned as Premier of Victoria after making his mind up &#8220;in the last few days&#8221;. Premier Andrews said he&#8217;s decided to step down as the state&#8217;s leader after &#8220;always working hard to do what&#8217;s right, not simply to do what&#8217;s popular&#8221;. He will officially stand down at 5 pm tomorrow. The decision [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15947,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[50,56],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[70],"class_list":{"0":"post-11101","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"category-victoria"},"authors":[{"term_id":70,"user_id":2,"is_guest":0,"slug":"jason","display_name":"Jason Ross","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/J-Ross-headshot.jpeg","url2x":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/J-Ross-headshot.jpeg"},"0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11101"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15948,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11101\/revisions\/15948"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11101"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=11101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}