Premier of Victoria

So to the hot take hoedown, I want your hottest piping hot takes on this.

And we are in the middle of a state election here in Victoria and trouble for the Premier.

Victoria's Premier has been accused of sleeping on the job, literally.

Labor staffers have told the Herald Sun Premier Ben Carroll regularly takes hour-long naps while at work and they're even told not to disturb him.

So the Victorian Premier Ben Carroll reportedly takes hours hour-long naps at work.

My question to the panel, for your hottest take, is napping at work okay? Frank.

Well, clearly it depends on the context.

That is a hot take there indeed.

They've made a commercial decision.

What does it mean for the geopolitics of the thing? It's not entirely unclear, but the geopolitics is so important because evidently so important that they went and got Steve Brax, the former Victorian Premier, in 2022, and they made him the federal government's special envoy to the Greater Sunrise Project.

So this was significant enough four years ago that we had a specific former premier of a state in Western Australia that was solely responsible for managing the relationships around this project.

What does it mean? It's a bloody disaster from just looking back.

All of that stuff... is anathema to our way of life, to our political culture, and we have to work out how to restore it or preserve it if we can.

Jesse, you worked for the Premier of Victoria for a number of years.

You went in there just after the 2014 election.

I remember having Daniel on the pod talking At one stage he was talking about, you know, this was early, he was talking about the early experience of when he first elected Premier that he would on a Friday night jump in the car and head down to the local fish and chip shop to get food from his local fish and chip shop and just stand in the queue with everyone else.

And he's the Premier of Victoria.

which I thought was a really cool thing to the point that David was just making.

But I wonder over the time of his premiership that changed and you would have staffed him on a number of occasions.

Oh, yes.

The pick of the week was Victorian Premier.

Ben Christmas Carroll ordering a medium quarter pounder at McDonald's and then not having his credit card with him to pay for it.

Medium quarter pounder.

The Federal Government is keen to have the agreement passed through Parliament, but the Coalition argues the deal is poorly designed because it commits Australia to legally binding climate emissions.

The Victorian Premier has acknowledged the state's debt needs to be addressed as 100 prominent Victorians issue an urgent warning ahead of the election.

In an open letter, they have raised concerns the state's debt, which is nearing $200 billion, is as much as New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania's combined, with interest alone costing Victoria $24 million a day.

Premier Ben Carroll says he's already started to make savings and insists taxpayer dollars will be spent wisely, but he won't be making cuts that will leave Victorians worse off.