With the official campaign period under way as of Tuesday, early indications are that the Victorian state election on November 24 will join a grim litany of disasters suffered by the Liberal Party since its epochal act of self-sabotage in August.
The change in temperature post-Turnbull emerges with some clarity from poll trend measures that show a formerly tight race developing into a Labor blowout, typified by this week’s finding from Newspoll that the Labor is out from 51-49 to 54-46.
This is all the more remarkable for having unfolded at a time when state politics has been dominated by the “red shirt rorts” that have implicated a swathe of Labor MPs.
While the Coalition has some cause to hope for improvement as the campaign focuses attention on state issues, victory seems a distant prospect at best.
However, a view through the lens of the major contest increasingly fails to tell the full story of modern elections, and this one is no exception.
Going into the election with the barest of majorities, Labor has every reason to be nervous about the ongoing tide to the Greens in its once-safe inner-city seats.
After a string of near-misses going back to 2002, the Greens finally broke through in 2014 in the long-coveted seat of Melbourne, made a further unexpected gain from the Liberals in Prahran, and scored a third seat with their win over Labor in the Northcote byelection last November.
Their existing three seats are neighboured by Richmond, where they ran Labor closer than ever before in 2014, and Brunswick, where Labor member Jane Garrett has deemed her prospects so bleak she is switching to the upper house, a move that caused considerable upset to the party’s delicate factional equilibrium.
The big question in these seats is whether the Liberals come through on their mooted strategy of leaving it to Labor and the Greens to fight them out — and it seems they plan on keeping Labor guessing right up to the close of nominations next Thursday.
A Liberal decision to forfeit would be a body blow to Labor, who for the past two elections have been put ahead of the Greens on Liberal how-to-vote cards, which are diligently followed by around two in five of their supporters.
How these votes would behave let loose in the wild is not precisely known, but the result could only be less favourable than the current situation for Labor, who need every vote they can get.
Further prospects for a swollen crossbench are offered by a brace of independents who believe they have sniffed a breeze wafting from Wentworth and Wagga Wagga.
Mostly this is a problem for the Coalition, particularly the Nationals — but Labor isn’t entirely off the hook.
In the normally bolted-down seat of Pascoe Vale in Melbourne’s middle north, independent candidate and former Moreland mayor Oscar Yildiz is making his presence felt through a high-visibility campaign he estimates will cost him $150,000.
Then there’s the question of an upper house that will — God forbid — be chosen under an unreformed system that continues to make use of group voting tickets, virtually guaranteeing a micro-party grab bag elected through industrial scale preference trafficking.
Seemingly the only wild card not in the deck is One Nation, who have never had much luck in Victoria, and are opting to save their money on this occasion.
Interesting test of ideology versus strategy for the Libs. They’re bound to be raving on about the evils of a possible minority Labor government supported by the Greens, but if they help elect Greens in Brunswick and Richmond, wouldn’t they be partly responsible for that outcome?
A Liberal decision to forfeit is like going into a soccer final hoping for a draw. In the event of a minority government allowing the Greens a free run will skew policies even further to the left regardless of which major party gains the most seats
“This is all the more remarkable for having unfolded at a time when state politics has been dominated by the “red shirt rorts” that have implicated a swathe of Labor MPs.”
Only dominated if you’re a Herald Sun reader, William, or if you peruse the ghastly online advertising the Liberals have been running for months. You can’t read a list of “10 Foods That Will Get You Cast On The Bachelorette” without an ad underneath blaring about Labor Arrested Over Red-Shirt Rort authorised by N Dementor, Liberal Part of Australia.
This is actually a genuine “bubble” issue unlike things that Scott Morrison calls the Canberra bubble.
At state level especially, my experience is people want to see real things done that improve their lives or they perceive as improving their lives. Failure to do this saw a first term Liberal government defeated last time, which is almost unheard of.
The red shirts thing doesn’t bite too much because for once the “both sides do it” perception is actually accurate. People vote on schools and trains and hospitals and roads and jobs, not on these ephemeral entitlement scandals.
Why are the Greens persisting with Kathleen Maltzahn in Richmond ? She is a long time sex work abolitionist yet recently recanted this aim after the Lib party conference voted to recriminalise sex work. This is not a credible stance from her nor a smart decision for the Greens to keep her on in a right race.
This represents everything that has morphed badly from a party that started as a firm environmental party to one that is as slippery as the majors. They’ve lost my vote after decades. At least Dan removed the level crossings as promised so I’ll give him a go this time. Red shirts a big issue ? You must be joking.
There’s something weak in the Vic Greens. Their losing candidate in Batman was a multi-time failure as well. Until recently they were led for ages by the utterly ineffective (or worse) Greg Barber, you’d be hard put to a single achievement he’s had in politics and then after he goes it is alleged that, well…..
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-06/former-victorian-greens-leader-accused-of-running-sexist-office/10178894
I didn’t even know the name of the current Vic Greens leader until her photo appeared at the top of this article. The only Vic Green I could have named was Ellen Sandell. The guy in Prahran has been invisible.
The Greens have big support in Victoria despite all this but I think it is mostly earned by the Federal representatives and the generally progressive nature of Victoria rather than anything the Vic Greens do.
Colleen Hartland was a stand out ripper of a grass roots policy politican but I couldn’t name her successor without a google.
Colleen Hartland was a stand out ripper of a grass roots policy politician. I couldn’t name her successor without a google.
“How these votes would behave let loose in the wild is not precisely known, but the result could only be less favourable than the current situation for Labor, who need every vote they can get.”
The Liberals did not run a candidate in the Melbourne by-election when Labor unexpectedly held onto the seat, the last time they did hold it.
One of the factors was that in the absence of a Liberal candidate, Lib voters gravitated to a conservative independent (if memory serves he was even a Liberal party member), who DID preference Labor ahead of the Greens, and his voters followed that at a huge rate, maybe 80 or 90%.
I’m just saying- be careful with a windy claim that the result could only be less favourable than the current situation for Labor, unless you have actual evidence for that.