A Daniel Andrews statue – or just a dead cat?

May 15, 2026 — 4:48pm

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To understand the damage the growing list of Big Build outrages is doing to Labor’s re-election prospects, you only need to take a whiff of what the government just threw on the table.

At precisely the same time that Premier Jacinta Allan was being grilled in parliament about a company owned by awful men exploiting a program intended to promote women in the construction industry, one of her advisers texted through to say they’d found a sculptor to make Daniel Andrews’ statue.

This, my friends, is what is known in politics as a dead cat.

The idea is that, when you are in serious trouble, you distract everyone by announcing or leaking something so malodorous, it immediately changes the conversation.

It is difficult to think of a story that cuts deeper for Allan than Women in Construction, a labour-hire company founded and owned by a violent abuser of women and previously managed by a convicted........

© The Age