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Dominant, domineering, divisive. Undefeated.

Victorian Labor’s longest-serving – and Australia’s highest-paid — premier is just hours from stepping down after more than 3,200 days leading the state.

Various political experts have repeatedly nominated Daniel Andrews’s social reforms and public transport projects as the legacies for which he will be remembered.

“He’s certainly been, I think, the most forthright premier we’ve had since Jeff Kennett”, said La Trobe University politics expert Ian Tulloch.

“He doesn’t shirk any issues, takes the media critics head on and he’s, I think, genuinely proud of his legacy in the state.”

Daniel Michael Andrews joined the Labor party in 1993 while studying politics at Monash University.

He worked as an electorate officer and became a campaign director for the Victorian Labor Party in 2002.

His work would often take him to Canberra where he shared a flat with another up-and-coming Labor member, Anthony Albanese.

In 2002, he was elected as the member for Mulgrave, in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs.

His ascension begins

He was appointed to the frontbench of the Bracks government in 2006 and added the consumer affairs and gaming ministries to his portfolio a year later.

When John Brumby took over as premier from Steve Bracks, Mr Andrews was elevated to the health ministry, making his first major announcements for Victoria — the landmark Victorian Cancer Action Plan and the state’s first Comprehensive Cancer Centre.

When Labor was defeated by the Ted Baillieu-led coalition, Mr Brumby stood down as Labor leader, paving the way for 38-year-old Daniel Andrews.

“Precocity was one of the features of Daniel Andrews,” Monash University political historian Paul Strangio said.

“The early age at which he became an MP, the age at which he became a minister in the Bracks government and was elevated to cabinet and then, of course, when he became leader of the Labor Party in 2010, he was still a very young man.

“And he departs today as premier of Victoria, the age of 51, still a comparatively young man.”

His elevation to opposition leader meant Mr Andrews never spent a day on the backbench during his entire political career.

“There were the early stages where many thought he would never become premier because the first opposition leader, when just after you exit government, rarely do be the ones who lead a party back into government,” Professor Strangio said.

“But again, there’s a great deal of self-confidence and self-conviction in Andrews and he proved his mettle quickly, and he became a very successful opposition leader for the sheer fact that (the Baillieu-Napthine government) was the first one-term government in Victoria for more than half a century.”

At the next election, he wrestled government back for Labor and was sworn in as premier in December 2014.

From there, it was back-to-back-to-back victories, with increasing margins.

But Mr Andrews went on to become a divisive leader.

Bold ambitions

His first act as premier in 2014 was to the cancel the East-West Link road project.

The contract to build an 18-kilometre toll road to connect the Eastern Freeway at Clifton Hill with the Western Ring Road at Sunshine West was signed in the dying days of the Napthine government.

An auditor-general’s report found the decision to scrap the project cost Victoria $1.1 billion in compensation and costs .

Big ticket projects were to feature over the next nine years, which has put Victoria into massive debt but which Mr Tulloch said would see Mr Andrews leaving the state in a better place.

“I think in terms of policy issues, the huge public transport infrastructure bill, also an enormous investment in health and public hospitals, and indeed in schools as well, in education and TAFE.”

Among the infrastructure announcements, the Andrews government’s Level Crossing Removal Project has promised to remove 110 dangerous and congested level crossings across Melbourne by 2030.

More than 70 have been removed so far, but not without major public transport disruptions.

The North-East Link will join the Eastern Freeway to the Ring Road in Melbourne’s north-east, and the Andrews government signed an agreement with toll operator Transurban to build the West Gate Tunnel project in the city’s west, which is years behind schedule and over budget.

There are now question marks over the future of the long-called-for Melbourne Airport rail link and the ambitious long-term plan to build a 90km rail loop linking Melbourne’s outer suburbs .

But a flagship project under Mr Andrews’s Big Build is the $12 billion Metro Rail Tunnel , which includes twin 9km tunnels under Melbourne’s CBD and five new underground stations.

It is due for completion in 2025.

His latest infrastructure project was announced just last week in response to the state’s housing crisis and includes a plan to demolish all 44 of Melbourne’s public housing towers by 2051.

Other achievements under Mr Andrews’s leadership include Victoria becoming the first state to legislate assisted dying and medicinal cannabis, major adoption reforms, the decriminalisation of sex work, the opening of Melbourne’s first safe drug injecting room, and Australia’s first formal Indigenous truth-telling inquiry in the Yoorrook Justice Commission.

Professor Strangio said Mr Andrews’s achievements and his style of governing had left a significant mark on Victoria.

“He’s something of a genius in politics, there’s no doubt about it and I think the other thing I’d emphasise there, he understands the exercise of power.”

The ‘dark side’ of politics

But Professor Strangio said there were two sides to Mr Andrews’s political career.

“I suppose the dark side is the accumulation of power around him,” he said.

“A very domineering leader, power concentrated in his hands and those of his own private office and then of course, there have been questions raised about the politicisation of the public service under his watch, a disdain for some of the institutions that are there to hold government to account such as IBAC.”

There were multiple inquiries by the anti-corruption commission including findings of nepotism, widespread misuse of public resources and a culture of branch stacking within the Victorian Labor party dating back decades.

IBAC’s Operation Sandon found property developer John Woodman bankrolled Victorian MPs and candidates in a bid to win planning approvals.

But none of IBAC’s reports have made any adverse findings about Mr Andrews.

In 2018, the Victorian ombudsman found Labor had misused $388,000 by using taxpayer-funded electorate officers to carry out campaign work for the 2014 state election.

But her report found no evidence Mr Andrews facilitated the scheme.

Mr Andrews has come under fire for forming links with China through the Belt and Road trade deal and for being too close to unions, despite an ongoing fallout with the United Firefighers Union over a bitter enterprise bargaining dispute.

The-then emergency services minister Jane Garratt quit in 2016 rather than support the government’s stance on negotiations.

Mr Andrews’s own announcement about his resignation came on the same day firefighters were protesting on the street against ongoing disputes.

“He was a dominant, domineering figure, who didn’t take prisoners,” Professor Strangio said.

Commonwealth Games cancelled

But one of the last acts as premier was also the farthest reaching.

After another contract cancellation costing the state hundreds of millions of dollars, Daniel Andrews announced in July his government was pulling out of hosting the 2026 Commonwealth Games in regional Victoria.

It drew criticism from country cities and the sporting community, to international sport and government figures.

“The Commonwealth Games fiasco, I think that was badly thought out to begin with and I think that that’s a really negative aspect on his premiership,” Mr Tulloch said.

There were two controversies away from politics that also became focal points for some parts of the media — a car driven by his wife hit and seriously injured a teenage boy on the Mornington Peninsula in 2013 and a fall down stairs at a holiday home led to what he described as “vile” rumours.

But perhaps the most divisive administration of his duties was in relation to COVID.

Victoria endured the toughest restrictions in Australia over 2020 and 2021, and some of the longest lockdowns in the world.

Mr Andrews fronted daily, marathon press conferences that often went for more than two hours.

Victoria’s measures fiercely split the community and gave rise to two social media movements – “I Stand With Dan” which supported the premier, and “Dictator Dan” which was strongly opposed to his measures.

“If the election results last year is any indication of what the public thought about his handling of the COVID pandemic, I think he’s come through that with flying colours, despite the critics,” Mr Tulloch said.

“He’s been very successful in keeping the community on side, and the fact that he exits office after nearly nine years of government and you look the opinion polls and Labor’s still riding high, now in part that’s explained by the fact that we have a Liberal Party opposition that has been in disarray for such a long period of time, but nonetheless, he’s been respected by the community.