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Catching everyone by surprise today is the announcement by Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews that he will resign as Premier tomorrow.

Earlier this year Andrews passed John Cain Junior to become Labor’s longest serving Victorian Premier, and earlier this month he passed Rupert ‘Dick’ Hamer to become Victoria’s fourth longest serving Premier.

I doubt Andrews has been hanging around just to pass Hamer. If he had waited another week he would have passed Sir James McCulloch to become the state’s third longest serving Premier.

There are plenty of media stories analysing Andrews’ time in office, trying to explain the sudden departure and examining who might replace him. I don’t think there is anything I can add to the speculation and the political obituaries.

I’m posting here to direct everyone to my just published background piece on the by-election that must now be held in Andrews’ seat of Mulgrave. He won Mulgrave with a two-party margin of 10.2% last November. The seat should be safe for Labor, but you never know in a suddenly changed political climate.

Since its re-election last November, the Andrews government has been announcing and dealing with bad news, mostly in relation to the budget. The most spectacular backflip was the announcement that the state would no longer host the Commonwealth Games in 2026.

You can find my profile for the Mulgrave by-election here.
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