Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, South Australian Premier Steven Marshall and Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews (Images: AAP)

Looking at the various crises assailing the Victorian government, veteran political marketing strategist Toby Ralph sums up Premier Daniel Andrews’ predicament thus:

There’s no shortage of angry businesses going broke, terrified individuals submerged in debt, frustrated teens going stir crazy, tin-hatted 5G deep state conspiracists and angle-hungry media getting stuck into Andrews, so he must be wondering why he took the job.

As it turns out, the sentiment could be extended to any politician in this era of COVID-19. Could there have been a week with more state governments in distinct crisis all at once?

Political historian Frank Bongiorno told Crikey that COVID-19 might have pushed the country’s politics into another period like that between 1987 and 1992, which saw “state governments in Australia in perpetual crisis — financial scandal, personal/official corruption, economic decay and so on”.

Annastacia Palaszczuk

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is showing the risks of taking a hardline approach, as she dug in over the states hard borders when a woman was denied a quarantine exemption to attend her father’s funeral.

And whatever the irony of this government in general and this prime minister in particular getting all misty eyed about callous border security policies, the point does cut through — there appears to no reason at this point, beyond politics, to stick with this denial.

Related or not, this week there has been an exodus from the Labor ministry — Tourism and State Development Minister Kate Jones, Energy and Mines Minister Anthony Lynham, and Disability Services Minister Coralee O’Rourke all announced they would quit politics ahead of the October state election.

Gladys Berejiklian

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, in particular, must be fuming. You survive the devastatingly mishandled Ruby Princess saga, get coronavirus cases down to an acceptable level, only to have to deal with John Barilaro. Again.

This time, the state deputy leader — following calls from senior Libs that he quit over his perpetual “disloyalty” — led a rebellion against the government, threatening to withdraw Nationals support for any Liberal party bills over the guaranteed vote winner of ensuring farmers are allowed to kill koalas.

The whole thing blew over anti-climatically — Barilaro rolled over this morning after Berejiklian called his bluff. Still, in a year where everything has been exhaustingly unprecedented, there’s something reassuring in the sight of the National Party being insular, pointlessly destructive and just generally weird units.

Steven Marshall

Even South Australia has managed a (scarcely noticed) scandal this week.

Factional divisions in the SA Liberal Party came to the fore during secret ballots to elect new parliamentary office-holders, with veteran MP John Dawkins booted from the party just hours after becoming Legislative Council president.

He had defied the party room in running against endorsed nominee Jing Lee for the Legislative Council presidency, and is now was the first SA Liberal MP to be kicked out of the party since 2002.

Daniel Andrews

Let us count the ways: the Victorian budget, facing plummeting revenue and increased spending, is in the worst shape of any in the country. The ongoing debate over whether there is any justification at all for the ongoing curfew. The apparent sidelining of Health Minister Jenny Mikakos. The drip feed of damning revelations of the hotel quarantine inquiry.

And, of course this is amplified by the conservative media’s blood lust for the leader of the self-proclaimed “most progressive state in the country”.

Only yesterday The Australian ran a story about Andrews’ wife Catherine — a civilian with no obligation to engage with the press — blocking journalists on Twitter, as though that illustrated… something?

Mark McGowan

The exception is, as per bloody usual, Western Australia. The only crisis WA’s leader faces right now is that he’s too bloody popular (consistently over 90% in polls over the course of the crisis).

Now his federal colleagues are being forced to oppose a resurgent WA secessionist movement that, presumably, intend to install McGowan as some form of king.