There probably isn't an organised conspiracy to derail Daniel Andrews. Not yet anyway; most Labor MPs are smart enough to realise this sort thing tends to end badly.
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Even so, the premier's enemies - and there are plenty on both sides - could hardly have designed a worse scenario.
It is starting to feel like the government is lurching from one crisis to the next, struggling to gain traction, just as the former Coalition government did for much of its term. It was booted out after just four years, becoming the first single-term government in Victoria since 1955.
Could we be heading for a repeat? If the events of the past few weeks and months are anything to go by, the answer is ... possibly. The big difference this time is that the Andrews government - as it likes to tell us - hasn't been wasting time, unlike the last government, which at times seemed gripped by paralysis.
After a string of mishaps, the question is, are voters even listening? And will they be confident the government will deliver?
Most recently, there have been revelations from The Age that Labor's speaker and deputy speaker claimed tens of thousands of dollars at taxpayers' expense to live considerable distances from their western suburbs electorates on the Bellarine Peninsula.
You'd struggle to make it up. Labor MPs are horrified, angry and frustrated, as the expense scandals have almost completely deprived the government of any oxygen.
On Thursday, Steve Herbert, who last year resigned from the front bench following revelations he used his taxpayer-funded car to chauffeur his dogs, announced he was leaving the parliament mid-term, capping off a couple of horror weeks.
After the CFA debacle - which is not yet resolved - the atmospherics of all this could not be worse.
To add to the government's woes:
- questions have now emerged about the state's energy security following the closure of Hazelwood next week;
- the looming closure of the Heyfield timber mill and the government's apparently ill-conceived plan to possibly buy it has added to worries about Latrobe Valley jobs;
- Law and order remains a huge political problem, amid soaring crime rates, juvenile justice riots, and growing alarm about public safety;
- the expense debacle is unlikely to disappear any time soon, with the opposition and others demanding a police investigation.
At a certain point the public tend to make up their mind about a government unable to rid itself of crisis and scandal, no matter how compelling the narrative about infrastructure, services and progressive polices. Have we reached that point?
