Stefan Bradley
WINNER – Labor:
Premier Daniel Andrews and the Labor team must be feeling a strong sense of vindication. Despite Victoria’s unique experience with COVID that brought with it anti-lockdown protests and hostility from sections of the media towards the government, voters decided the opposition were not up to the task. Labor is instead on-track to repeat the 2018 “Danslide” and will have a similar, if not identical, number of seats in its third term. Mr Andrews is seen as someone who gets things done, and voters in Melbourne especially see evidence of that everyday with the infrastructure projects either under construction or completed. That will continue with the Suburban Rail Loop and the SEC revival.
Neutral – Greens:
The Greens celebrated too early. They have definitely won the seat of Richmond, but their leads in other seats disappeared pretty quickly. An extra lower house seat is nothing to scoff at, but they were hoping to double their representation to six.
Losers – Independents:
There are two groups of independents to focus on in this election – the regional independents and the so-called ‘Teals’ backed by Climate 200. The Nationals won back Shepparton and Mildura from the independents, as well as Morwell following Russell Northe’s retirement. Mr Northe represented the seat for years as a National, but won the last election as an independent. The Teals have not replicated the federal result in the state, with the Liberals slightly ahead in Mornington and Hawthorn. At the time of print, there are no independents with a seat. With the Victorian Liberals backing a climate change policy and no Scott Morrison in the picture, the Teals didn’t have a clear opponent to run against. And being a state, not a federal election, it was harder for them to get media coverage.
Winners – The Nationals:
The Nationals won three seats, pushing their numbers from six to nine, and they didn’t lose any seats. Winning back a seat previously lost to independents is a hard task, but as federal member Darren Chester has said in the past, The Nationals function as a “coalition of independents”, so a grassroots campaign with strong candidates has paid off for them. They were winners, BUT The Nationals want to be in power, and they are not; they need the Liberals to do so. Speaking of which…
Losers – Liberals:
This loss is particularly embarrassing for the Liberals, because it looks like they haven’t learnt from their mistakes. They’ve been personality-driven in putting the focus of their campaign on Daniel Andrews and replacing former Liberal leader Michael O’Brien with Matthew Guy – a curious move, since Mr Guy led the party to a crushing defeat in 2018. The ‘anti-Dan’ campaign at the federal election didn’t work, and Mr Andrews was always ahead of Mr Guy in polls as Preferred Premier, so why did they think things would be different this time around? They clearly need an overhaul. Is there any talent that can mould the party into winners, reversing decades of decline in the state?
