Daniel Andrews reckons Steve Herbert's decision to repeatedly use his driver to chauffeur his two dogs 120km to his country house is different to the case of Geoff Shaw.
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Shaw, remember, got into serious strife for using his Ford Territory to ferry goods for his hardware business. In Opposition, Labor exploited the issue mercilessly, repeatedly demanding that the "rorting" member for Frankston be sacked.
Several years on, Andrews claims the comparison with Shaw is not valid. Why? Because Shaw used his vehicle for personal profit and did not apologise.
Whether or not Herbert financially "profited" by ferrying his dogs around in a chauffeur-driven car misses the point. He may not have made any money out of it, but he still derived a personal benefit at taxpayers' expense.
Herbert may have issued a grovelling apology but this also misses the point, particularly since his decision to say sorry evidently came only after the Premier's office went into meltdown.
Belatedly saying "sorry" had more to do with media management than genuine contrition. As reported by News Corp, Herbert's initial response was to say there was "absolutely no issue", because the driver would have otherwise been doing nothing.
Sorry Steve, but there is an issue. On what planet is it acceptable to use public money extracted from Victorians to ferry dogs around? On environmental grounds alone it is a disgrace.
If the rules are a bit grey surrounding the use of parliamentary vehicles then surely - surely - it is time they were tightened up. How many more examples of this sort of behaviour must we endure?
As we saw with the Choppergate saga, in which former speaker Bronwyn Bishop chartered a helicopter to travel from Melbourne to Geelong for a party fundraiser, the public are thoroughly fed up with politicians' sense of entitlement.
The bottom line is that Herbert, who is paid more than $300,000 a year as a minister, should have known better.
Andrews also faced questions in parliament on Thursday relating to allegations of a complaint that Herbert, who has churned through a number of chauffeurs, raised his voice to one driver, and asked for his dogs to be walked.
The Premier said no complaint had yet been made about Herbert's conduct, but vowed that if one were made, it would be properly and appropriately investigated.
Andrews - who was uncompromising when dealing with claims of inappropriate behaviour against former minister Adem Somyurek - needs to quickly recognise that Herbert's privileged position as a minister is no longer tenable. Otherwise, this saga will become yet another political quagmire for the government that Andrews can ill-afford.
