It's been something over a Kennett-revival here in Melbourne over the last few days. This might not seem important to you out-of-towners but in a state where he polarised opinion so violently during his years as Premier it's been highly significant.
Half of the people in this state (myself included) are nostalgic for the days when he ruled us like a king, and the other half miss having somebody to blame for every minor thing that goes wrong in their lives. There were some second-rate comedians on TV years back singing a song to that effect; train running late in the morning? Bloody Jeff. Checkout chick at Safeway giving you lip? Bloody Jeff. Caught your wife in bed with the milkman? I think you can guess who's fault it was. And so it was in the Melbourne press over the last week,
* Traders discover loopholes to force employees to work for peanuts on Easter Sunday = Jeff's fault
* Bracks breaks a promise he made merely months ago that no tolls would be imposed on the Scoresby Freeway = Jeff again
* Commonwealth Games failing miserably, Harry Madden has no idea = Bloody Jeff
* Public Transport leaves a billion dollar hole in the Victorian budget = They might actually have a point there, but let's not have fact get in the way of a good story.
I've got some other things I'd like to condemn him for too. Global warming, the low quality of foreign pron on SBS and the fact that Melbourne haven't won a Premiership in nearly 40 years. He'll do as a convenient scapegoat for all that and more.
Then he made some ill-advised gag about doing a political comeback and every second-rate press gallery hack sprinted to their keyboards to write an in-depth analysis of what it meant for Victoria, the Liberals and Robert Doyle. Bloody Jeff my ass, who else would they write about when nothing else interesting was going on.
Face it, even if you hated his guts as Premier (which it seems quite a few people did) you secretly miss not having him around to bitch about don't you? I thought so.
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