First there was this: ‘I will lead from the front’: Michael O’Brien says he’s right man for Victoria. This is what he specifically said. You tell me what he stands for.

“Every single day I get up, I’m determined to work for Victoria and to lead my party so that Victoria can do better,” he said.

“I was elected unopposed by my party after the last election because they know that, as a former treasurer, nobody is better placed to lead Victoria’s economic recovery … than me.

“I think Victorians need a better alternative … and that’s what I’m determined to offer.

“They do not want more of the same – more of the lockdowns, more of the waste. They want to see a better, brighter future, and that’s what the Liberal Party is going to be offering Victorians.”

Empty beyond vacuous. So this is where we have moved onto: ‘Borrowed time’: Liberals give O’Brien ultimatum for May leadership spill.

In what was seen as a significant intervention, opposition health spokeswoman Georgie Crozier, a member of Mr O’Brien’s four-person leadership team, expressed frustration during last week’s party room meeting that opposition MPs were not effectively holding the Andrews government to account for its errors.

According to three sources present at the meeting, Ms Crozier implored colleagues to pursue the government with more vigour.

Not as if there is nothing to pursue Dan Andrews over: Victorian wages still hurting from lockdown. And it’s not just that Victoria has had the worst wages result across the country during the last twelve months. There is this as well, which no one knows anything about.

It came as Moody’s moved on Tuesday to change its rating on Victoria from the highest Aaa to Aa1, saying the double downgrade was sparked by a “marked erosion in Victoria’s governance of its public finances”, with the agency predicting the state’s debt – due to hit nearly $47 billion this year – would remain high until the end of the decade.

The Moody’s move had been widely expected since the other main ratings agency, S&P, downgraded Victoria in December and Treasurer Tim Pallas shrugged off the news, saying the government made no apology for borrowing heavily to cushion the state from the worst of the pandemic crisis.

That Government misdirected spending has been at the centre of the problem for years ought to be evident to anyone who has watched the Andrews government and has the slightest idea about what makes an economy prosper. Yet this is all they can say.

The Victorian Liberal opposition was on the attack on Wednesday over the Moody’s downgrade with Treasury spokeswoman Louise Staley saying decision was an indictment on the financial management of the Andrews government.

“This is a significant worry for Victoria moving into the future,” Ms Staley said.

“Moody’s specifically said we do not have the flexibility to deal with any future shocks.

“In other words the cupboard is bare.”

There is so much waste around, but my favourite is the billion dollar train station at the Shrine on St Kilda Road which will never be used by anyone, ever, other than on one day a year, and possibly not even then.