Peta Credlin:
Joining me now, my panel, News24 contributor, Karalee Katsambanis and deputy director at the IPA, Dan Wild. Well, Karalee, you’re a Victorian. I know you followed this closely. Dan, you too. You were here during the Andrews years. You’ve managed to escape, but I’ll get a question into both of you. I’ll start though, please, Dan, with you on the Royal Commission announced, of course, this week by the new premier. I fear it’ll end up a farce like that hotel quarantine inquiry, and this is the sort of so-called answers we’ll get. Have a listen.
Daniel Andrews:
I can’t specifically recall what-
Brett Sutton:
I can’t recall. I presume I did.
Graham Ashton:
I don’t recall the conversation.
Lisa Neville:
And I have some memory, but not full memory.
Martin Pakula:
I don’t recall specifically.
Chris Eccles:
Not to my recollection.
Andrew Crisp:
I have no recollection of that.
Daniel Andrews:
I can’t specifically recall.
Peta Credlin:
Dan, you know how the game works? They’re calling it now because they want to put a Labour friendly in the chair and Labour wants to write the terms of reference.
Daniel Wild:
Well, that’s right. It’s a political con job designed to help Ben Carroll make good on his word that he’s not Daniel Andrews and he’s not just into Allen. Well, of course he’s not either of those two individuals, but he was a very senior member of those governments which were very bad governments. And I wonder whether he would have to front such a Royal Commission. That’s unclear, but you’re right. It’s all about politics. It’s not about getting to the bottom of it.
And we’ve already seen this in action with the Antisemitism Royal Commission, which is also unfortunately a political con job where we’re not going to get the truth of the causes of what happened there, nor are we going to get any indication of how to improve it. And in fact, Labour is going to use that Antisemitism Royal Commission to featherbed anti-hate speech laws. I mean, Tony Burke is already paving the way to do that. So as you know, Labour does this better than anyone else. They put their people in. They write the terms of reference. They’re probably going to get a heads-up about what the questions will be. So sadly, Victorians are not going to be any clearer on just the extent of the corruption under a Ben Carroll premiership.
Peta Credlin:
All right. Almost $40 billion, and some of this money coming from other states out of the national budget, of course, has been spent on this suburban rail loop. The railway line, I say, that goes to nowhere that no one wants. It’s supposed to cost all up something like $200 billion. When asked the prime minister, he dodged a question on this. Have a listen.
Journalist:
Would you be glad to see it go?
Anthony Albanese:
Look, I spoke with Ben Carroll yesterday and I welcome his election as premier. I look forward to working with him. We’ll work constructively with the Victorian government to make sure that the interests of Victorians are-
Peta Credlin:
Well, he’s dancing around that one, Karalee, and so too is the new premier, but it’s got to go.
Karalee Katsambanis:
Of course it has to go. I mean, he says he’ll work constructively in the interests of all Victorians. Victorians, the debt is scheduled to be, as you said, $200 billion by the end of the decade. To put it into context, our interest repayments are $24 million a day as they stand, that works out to $1 million an hour. That’s just on the interest to be repaid. 24 million a day, $1 million an hour. It is absolutely ridiculous. The money is not there. This was a plan conjured up by Dan Andrews back in 2018 ahead of a state election. Before COVID, before the goalposts have completely changed. Victoria is a broken state. We need help with the crime, the health, nurses, doctors, teachers. And it is really insulting to say, “We’ll work with the interests of all Victorians.” It is not in the interest of any Victorian to pursue this 17 kilometre stretch of suburban rail loop when we’ve got businesses smash the highest taxes in the state and crime at record highs. It’s absolutely ridiculous.
Peta Credlin:
He also danced around the Dan Andrews statue. This is the new premier, but Jess Wilson, the opposition leader, well, she couldn’t have been clearer. Have a listen.
Journalist 2:
You said yesterday you were not Daniel Andrews, is your government still going to deliver a statue of him outside of Treasury Place?
Ben Carroll:
I have nothing to say on that, and that is not a priority of mine.
Journalist 2:
Do you want to see the statue there?
Ben Carroll:
It’s not a priority of mine.
Jess Wilson:
Ben Carroll was very tricky today, even refusing to acknowledge it. But absolutely, if we come to government, we will not allow that statue to proceed.
Peta Credlin:
You know the Victorian game well, Dan. Now that Labor’s changed the premier, she’s got to get 16 seats. The coalition have got a bit of a mountain to climb. They’re absolutely in front. Let’s be clear. They are in front, but it’s a big ask. Can they do it? Can they survive the change of premier?
Daniel Wild:
I think they probably will. I mean, Labour had no choice but to change its leader and change premier. Now, if you look what happened in Queensland when Steven Miles replaced Palache, you’d have to say that kind of worked in the sense that they saved a bunch of seats. I think they would’ve lost a lot more had they not made the change. And arguably Labour ran a better campaign in the campaign period than the LMP. So Stephen Miles did inject a lot of energy. I just don’t see it with Ben Carroll. I mean, to me, people say he’s a good guy and he’s not like the others. Maybe that’s true, but I don’t see it. He’s implicated in of all of the terrible decisions that were made, including COVID. I mean, let’s not forget all of the COVID decisions that he was a part of. Plus he just comes across as very wooden, doesn’t he? Very uninspiring. “That’s not a priority of mine.” I don’t know. I don’t see it happening. Labour had no choice, but yeah, he’ll save a few seats, but I don’t think he’d do much more than that.
Peta Credlin:
Let’s go to this story about the Smart Energy Council. And you remember when we dug into that bogus costing of the Liberal Party’s nuclear policy at their last election, it all ended back at this charity called Smart Energy Council. Well, we learned today that they donate to the Labour Party. Yes, they do. They’ve got charitable status, but they’re also getting a lot of government taxpayer money, nearly half a million dollars to run out a whole lot of green energy PR. They’ve put money into a solar study in Bangladesh and a Chinese clean energy summit. Well, given we’ve got pensioners in this country who can’t pay their power bills, what the heck’s going on here, Karalee? It looks crooked to me.
Karalee Katsambanis:
Yeah, well, it sure does. I mean, there are other groups that were wanting to be awarded tenders, but why on earth are they doing some kind of a solar energy study in Bangladesh and one in China when we’ve got energy crisis here and we need to know how to do our affordable energy. Well, we do know how to do our affordable energy here because we need to start drilling for oil and having gas exploration again. But it just shows they’ve been awarded seven contracts by the labour government. And so it’s a bit of, “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” And it just seems to me to be money for activists. This is not solving any problems for Australians. And as I said, in Bangladesh and also in China, they don’t need these studies. It’s silly.
Peta Credlin:
And a waste of money. I’ll leave it there. Thank you, Karalee. Thank you, Dan.
This transcript with Daniel Wild talking on Credlin News24 from 30 July 2026 has been edited for clarity.
