THE $134,304 QUESTION: DO WE STILL NEED STATUES — OR IS IT TIME TO REINVENT HOW WE REMEMBER HISTORY?

### By Kyle (Xy) Josef Taus (KJT) A bronze statue of former Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews is going to cost taxpayers $134,304. And, unsurprisingly, people have opinions. Lots of them. Some Victorians see it as recognition of one of the state's longest-serving Premiers. Others see $134,304 and immediately think: **Housing. Hospitals. Power bills. Groceries. Rent. Public safety.** And I understand that reaction. When people are counting dollars at the supermarket checkout, being told that more than $134,000 is being spent turning a former politician into bronze isn't exactly going to make everyone stand up and applaud. But I think we're having the wrong argument. Because underneath the Daniel Andrews debate is a much more interesting question: **How should we record political history in the 21st century?** And perhaps an even bigger one: **If governments know an expense is coming years in advance, why aren't we budgeting for it years in advance?** --- ## FIRST, THERE'S SOMETHING IMPORTANT MISSING FROM THE ARGUMENT Whether you supported Daniel Andrews or couldn't wait to see the back of him, there is some historical context that shouldn't be ignored. The statue wasn't invented specifically for Daniel Andrews. Victoria has an established convention, introduced during the Jeff Kennett era, recognising Premiers who serve more than **3,000 days in office** with statues at Treasury Place. Daniel Andrews served **3,219 days as Premier**, from December 2014 until September 2023. He crossed the threshold. That doesn't mean everyone has to celebrate his political record. It doesn't mean his government's decisions suddenly become immune from criticism. And it certainly doesn't mean Victorians aren't entitled to question the cost. It simply means that if we're going to have a rule, convention or tradition, we should acknowledge that the rule existed before we knew who the next person qualifying under it would be. That's an important distinction. You can't really create a measuring stick and then complain about the result when somebody you don't particularly like reaches the line. --- # 3,000 DAYS IS A LONG TIME TO SEE A BILL COMING This is the part of the conversation that interests me most. Three thousand days is approximately **8.2 years**. That's not an unexpected expense. It's not a tree falling through the roof. It's not an emergency hospital repair. It's not a natural disaster. Government literally has thousands of days to watch the milestone approaching. So perhaps the real financial question shouldn't be: **“Where are we suddenly going to find $134,304 for a statue?”** It should be: **“Why was a predictable expense allowed to become a sudden expense in the first place?”** Imagine if, once a Premier reached 2,000 days in office, a tiny amount started being allocated each year toward their eventual historical recognition. The final cost wouldn't magically disappear. But it would already be planned for. Budgeted. Expected. Accounted for. And most importantly, it wouldn't suddenly appear during a cost-of-living crisis looking like somebody found $134,000 behind the parliamentary couch. Good budgeting isn't simply deciding what we can afford today. Good budgeting is recognising what we know we're probably going to need tomorrow. **Ten years doesn't happen overnight.** Neither does 3,000 days. --- # BUT DO WE ACTUALLY NEED ANOTHER STATUE? This is where I think the conversation becomes much more interesting. Perhaps the 3,000-day tradition should remain. But perhaps the **statue itself doesn't have to.** Bronze made perfect sense historically. Before television, smartphones, websites, digital archives and social media, monuments were one of the few ways societies could permanently record significant people in public spaces. You walked through a city. You saw a statue. You read the plaque. You learned something about the person. But we're now carrying access to virtually the entire recorded history of civilisation around in our pockets. So perhaps commemorating political history should evolve with the technology available to us. Why couldn't Victoria establish a completely new form of historical recognition? --- # FROM BRONZE TO DIGITAL HISTORY Imagine instead of automatically commissioning a six-figure statue, Victoria created a permanent **Victorian Digital History Collection**. Every Premier reaching 3,000 days could receive an official digital historical record. Not propaganda. Not an advertisement. A genuine historical record. It could contain speeches, election results, photographs, major infrastructure projects, legislation, controversies, achievements, criticism, interviews and significant events from their period in government. That last part matters. History shouldn't only record what politicians want remembered. It should record what happened. **The good. The bad. The popular. The unpopular. The achievements. The mistakes.** Because a historical record should document a government, not campaign for it. --- # WHAT ABOUT AN NFT? Yes. I said NFT. Before half the internet starts throwing tomatoes at me, hear me out. I'm not suggesting Victoria launches **DanCoin**, puts Parliament House on the blockchain and tells everyone we're going “to the moon.” Although admittedly that would make Question Time considerably more entertaining. I'm talking about taking the underlying idea behind NFTs — a uniquely identifiable digital object with provenance — and separating it from the speculative cryptocurrency circus that became associated with them. An official digital commemorative item could exist as a permanent historical artefact. There could be one official government edition representing the historical record. Or perhaps a limited number of commemorative editions could be released publicly. If people wanted one, they could purchase one. Suddenly something that traditionally **costs taxpayers money** could potentially generate revenue. That money could then support museums, archives, libraries, historical preservation or community projects. Now the commemorative object isn't simply an expense. It becomes an asset. That's worth at least discussing. --- # OR MAYBE WE GO BACKWARDS TO GO FORWARDS Ironically, the answer doesn't necessarily need to be futuristic. Maybe it's a stamp. Remember commemorative stamps? Australia has been recording pieces of our national story on tiny pieces of paper for generations. Premiers reaching major service milestones could be recognised through an official commemorative stamp series. Or perhaps a commemorative coin. A medallion. A limited collector's edition. A physical historical card. Something people can actually own. Something that doesn't require $134,000 worth of bronze permanently occupying public space. And perhaps there is something wonderfully democratic about that. Instead of one enormous monument belonging to the government… **thousands of tiny monuments could belong to the people.** --- # MAYBE THE ANSWER IS BOTH PHYSICAL AND DIGITAL Here's another possibility. Create a smaller physical marker at Treasury Place. Instead of a full statue, install a beautifully designed historical plaque or monument containing a QR code or whatever technology eventually replaces it. Scan it. Suddenly the person comes alive historically. You could see Daniel Andrews delivering speeches. You could examine election results. You could explore major projects. You could read criticism. You could examine decisions made during COVID. You could see newspaper coverage from different political perspectives. You could explore the government's achievements and failures. A statue can show you what somebody looked like. A digital monument could show you **what they actually did.** That seems considerably more useful. --- # AND YES — DANIEL ANDREWS IS CONTROVERSIAL There's no point pretending otherwise. Daniel Andrews remains one of the most polarising political figures in modern Victorian history. His supporters point to infrastructure investment, social reforms, electoral success and leadership through an extraordinary global pandemic. His critics point to Victoria's debt, infrastructure cost overruns, government accountability, pandemic restrictions and other controversies associated with his administration. More than 12,000 people even signed a Victorian parliamentary petition calling for the proposed statue to be cancelled. That's democracy. People should question governments. People should question spending. People should question political legacies. But there is an important distinction between **questioning somebody's political record** and repeating allegations as established facts. I've seen claims online about Daniel Andrews' personal wealth, organised crime, corruption and supposed secret payments. If those claims are going to be made, evidence matters. Political criticism doesn't become stronger by including allegations that can't be substantiated. In fact, it becomes weaker. There is already plenty of legitimate material available to debate about the Andrews government's record without turning Facebook rumours into historical facts. Accountability works best when it's built on evidence. --- # A STATUE DOESN'T MEAN “WE AGREE WITH EVERYTHING YOU DID” This is another point worth considering. Historical recognition doesn't necessarily equal endorsement. We don't preserve history because everyone involved was universally loved. If that were the standard, our museums would be remarkably empty. Daniel Andrews served as Premier for 3,219 days. That happened. He became Victoria's longest-serving Labor Premier. That happened too. He governed Victoria through COVID-19. That will inevitably be part of Victorian history for generations. Whether somebody thinks he handled that period brilliantly, terribly or somewhere between the two doesn't change the historical significance of the period. The purpose of preserving history shouldn't be to tell future generations: **“This person was wonderful.”** It should be: **“This person was here. This is what happened. Now you decide what you think.”** That's a very different philosophy. --- # PERHAPS WE NEED A “FUTURE EXPENSE” RULE The statue debate also exposes something much bigger about government budgeting. Governments know about thousands of future expenses long before they occur. Infrastructure maintenance. Technology replacement. Public buildings. Anniversaries. Transport upgrades. Equipment replacement. Historical commemorations. Major events. Yet politics often treats predictable expenses as though they suddenly fell out of the sky. Perhaps every significant government program should have a **Future Expense Reserve** attached to it. If an asset has to be replaced in ten years, start preparing now. If a policy automatically creates an expense after 3,000 days, start preparing before Day 3,000. If infrastructure will eventually require major maintenance, include that cost when announcing the project. Don't announce the shiny thing today and leave somebody else the invoice tomorrow. Governments love cutting ribbons. Future governments get stuck replacing the ribbon factory. Maybe our budgeting system needs to think further ahead. --- # THE COST-OF-LIVING ARGUMENT STILL MATTERS None of this means $134,304 is irrelevant. Every dollar of taxpayer money should have a purpose. Governments don't earn money in the conventional sense. They manage money collected from the community and generated through public assets, charges and economic activity. That creates a responsibility to spend carefully. And during a period when Victorians are struggling with housing, groceries, energy bills and other essentials, ceremonial spending will naturally attract scrutiny. That's reasonable. But we also need perspective. Cancelling one statue isn't going to solve Victoria's housing crisis. Building it isn't going to cause the housing crisis either. The real issue is **priority, planning and symbolism.** When citizens are being told government budgets are tight, visible discretionary spending becomes politically powerful. Which is precisely why predictable ceremonial spending should be planned well in advance rather than defended after an invoice appears. --- # SO SHOULD DANIEL ANDREWS GET HIS STATUE? Under the existing convention? **Yes, he qualified.** That's simply where the established 3,000-day threshold leads. But should Victoria automatically continue building $100,000-plus bronze statues every time another Premier reaches that threshold? That's the question I think deserves reconsideration. Perhaps Daniel Andrews should actually be the **last traditional statue**. Not because he deserves recognition less than previous Premiers. But because technology now gives us the opportunity to create something better. Let his statue complete one era. Then redesign the tradition for the next. --- # THE PREMIER 3000 PROJECT Here's my proposal. Keep the 3,000-day milestone. But create something I'll call the: ## **PREMIER 3000 PROJECT** Any Victorian Premier reaching 3,000 days would automatically receive an official historical commemoration. That could include: **A permanent digital archive** documenting their government. **A smaller physical marker at Treasury Place** linking visitors to that archive. **A commemorative coin or medallion** available to collectors. **A limited stamp series** documenting their period in office. **A digitally authenticated historical collectible** — NFT-inspired if appropriate, but without turning public history into cryptocurrency gambling. And perhaps most importantly: **A budget that begins accumulating before the 3,000-day milestone arrives.** No surprise bill. No sudden political fight about where the money came from. No pretending Day 3,000 somehow arrived unexpectedly. --- # HISTORY SHOULD BE PRESERVED — NOT WORSHIPPED That distinction is important. Statues traditionally put people on pedestals. Literally. Maybe that's part of the problem. The next generation of public memorials shouldn't necessarily put politicians above us. Perhaps they should put history **in front of us.** Interactive. Searchable. Questionable. Debatable. Permanent. Accessible. Let future Victorians see what governments promised. What they delivered. What they didn't. What they spent. What they built. What went wrong. What went right. And what people living through that period thought about it. That would be a much richer monument than bronze. --- # THE BIGGER QUESTION This debate started with a fairly simple Facebook question: **Does spending $134,304 on a Daniel Andrews statue pass the pub test?** Maybe. Maybe not. But I think there's another question worth asking at the same pub: **Why are we arguing only about whether to build the statue when we could be redesigning what a political monument actually is?** Keep the history. Keep the milestone. Keep political accountability. But modernise the monument. And while we're at it, modernise the budgeting. Because governments shouldn't have to choose between remembering yesterday and paying for tomorrow. They should be capable of planning for both. **Bronze remembers a person.** **History should remember the whole story.** And perhaps the monument of the future isn't something we simply stand underneath and look up at. Perhaps it's something we can open, question, explore and learn from. ### Kyle (Xy) Josef Taus — KJT **#SmileForKyle | #Smile4Kyle** More thoughts, ideas and conversations: https://kylexytaus.blogspot.com/