VICTORIA’S TAFE cuts never would have got past a cabinet-controlled state government, former premier Steve Bracks told an intimate gathering in Williamstown last week.
“Williamstown’s own” was interviewed about his memoir, A Premier’s State, by his “trusted lieutenant” and former adviser and minister Tim Pallas.
Mr Bracks, who became the Williamstown MP in 1994 and was Labor leader and state premier from 1999-2007, agreed with Mr Pallas he didn’t let political advisers or bureaucrats distract from the collegiate excellence he tried to instil in his cabinet.
“That’s correct and I suspect that hasn’t been followed by our successors in the current government,” he said.
“If you look at the [$300 million] TAFE [funding] cuts . . . interesting because that would never ever have got through an active cabinet, if you’re scrutinising.
“I suspect what’s happened with this government is that they said they wanted to cut . . . Treasury always will give you a whole range of areas which you can cut and they’ve just said to them, ‘oh well’, without qualitatively deciding what they stand for or what they’re about. Now we never did that because you’ve got to have a filter on what you stand for and what’s your priority. Government is about priorities; it’s about setting priorities.
“And budgets are simple; they’re your statement about what your priorities are.
“And if you don’t have those priorities, somebody else is going to decide them for you.
“I can see that this government is a department-led government. That is because the department’s so frustrated that [the government’s] not making the decisions that they’re making them for them, I guess.”
Mr Bracks said former Liberal premier Jeff Kennett even had a “black cabinet” where he would meet with department heads separately.
Mr Bracks said his government ensured that elected officials ran the government through the “supremacy of cabinet and collegiate decision-making.”
