The Andrews government and the rise of Rentier capitalism in Victoria

Abstract

On 26 November 2022 the Andrews Labor Government was re-elected for a third term in the State of Victoria. The starting point for this paper is its decision during the pandemic to seemingly break with neoliberal political orthodoxy, by boldly and deliberately leveraging the state’s balance sheet to avoid recession, using debt-funded record levels of spending, particularly on infrastructure, as a means of doing so. The paper argues that in decisively embracing a neo-Keynesian budget strategy, the Andrews government did not actually break with the recent neoliberal past. It turbo charged it, with the dramatical increase in debt-funded spending being used to finance a massive expansion of an intricate network of private monopoly contractors operating everything from ports, tollways and public transport, to policy advice, jails and road maintenance. The paper concludes that over the last four decades of policy reform, Victoria has been transformed into a ‘Rentier State’.