I make that promise, Peter — Can’t Explain

title: "I make that promise, Peter" claim: "I make that promise, Peter, to every single Victorian." caption: "Every single Victorian. Then the levies arrived with different names." status: featured example: false published: 2026-08-15T09:00:00+10:00 person: Daniel Andrews claimType: no-evidence-required year: 2014 tags: [andrews, victoria, taxes, pallas, "2014"] source: url: https://www.3aw.com.au/neil-mitchell-the-promise-daniel-andrews-broke-a-third-time-yesterday-20170430-gvw1sx/ date: "2014-11-28" publisher: Seven News title: "Neil Mitchell: The promise Daniel Andrews broke a third time yesterday" quote: "I make that promise, Peter, to every single Victorian." evidence: path: 2014/promise-peter/source.md kind: note captured: "2026-08-14"

Daniel Andrews, Channel 7, 28 November 2014, the night before the election. Peter Mitchell: will you promise not to increase taxes or introduce any new taxes? Andrews: “I make that promise, Peter, to every single Victorian.” Tim Pallas, the same week: Labor will not introduce any new taxes or increase any existing ones to fund its commitments.

By April 2017, 3AW had car stamp duty, some house-sale duty, and the Uber levy on the board. Andrews: not a broken promise. “We’ve delivered on each and every commitment we’ve made.”

This card files that sentence. It does not file “every tax is a rort.” COVID came later. The 2014 line did not have a pandemic clause.

What did have a receipt:

Victorian Auditor-General, AFR 2024–25: the government “has introduced several new taxes.” Taxation income +68.1% since 2019–20, “driven in part by new taxes.” Mental health and wellbeing surcharge plus COVID-19 debt levies: $3.1 billion and $3.3 billion extra in 2023–24 and 2024–25. The COVID Debt Repayment Plan raised $4.3 billion through those levies. Taxes that year: $38.9 billion.
Windfall gains tax — a levy when rezoning lifts land value. Vacant residential land tax. Both sit on the State Revenue Office site. Both arrived after the Mitchell interview.
Opposition lists count dozens of “new or increased” charges. Those lists are a campaign. The auditor’s figure, and the SRO pages, are not.

Grammar: no new taxes, no increases, every Victorian. Logic: a levy with a new name is still a tax. Rhetoric: “we’ve delivered on each and every commitment.”