Lessons for Crisafulli in latest Danslide

What promised to be a mundane election actually produced one of the most gobsmacking results in Australian politics in recent years. And David Crisafulli will be absorbing every detail of the result, writes Paul Williams.

What promised to be a mundane election actually produced one of the most gobsmacking results in Australian politics in recent years.

Last Saturday, Victorians easily re-elected their Labor government for a third term despite opposition, pressure group and some rabid commentators’ claims that Victoria – responsible for tough pandemic measures – was little better than a totalitarian dictatorship. Indeed, social media memes painted Premier Daniel Andrews as “Dictator Dan” presiding over “Danistan”.

Despite predictions Labor would be obliterated by angry torch-bearing mobs – and that Andrews might lose his own seat – Labor was re-elected despite a six per cent primary swing. That’s a hefty shift, but we must also remember Labor’s 2018 high-water mark, and the Melbourne Cup field of micro-parties in 2022. Andrews himself would win his own seat of Mulgrave with 60 per cent after preferences.

But it’s the fact the Coalition opposition also went backwards in both seats and votes, and that the Andrews government will lose, at most, three seats (after picking up some Liberal districts), that carries the most potent lessons for oppositions everywhere. Indeed, Melbourne might be 3000km from Cairns, but Queensland’s Liberal National Party leader David Crisafulli will be absorbing every detail of Saturday’s Victorian result.

Dan Andrews celebrates winning the 2022 Victorian State Election. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

The first and most telling lesson is that oppositions cannot sit on their hands, do nothing and expect victory to fall into their laps when tired old governments stumble. Instead, oppositions must actively make the case for change.

The Guy opposition did not do this, just as the Queensland LNP is now struggling to do so.

But oppositions can cut through by ceasing to behave like carping obstructionists and instead acting like alternative governments.

Queensland Leader of the Opposition David Crisafulli. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dan Peled

That means getting the leader-follower formula right. While Liberal leader Matthew Guy presented as a moderate, he – like defeated South Australian Liberal premier Steven Marshall – appeared to have little control over an arch-conservative rabble shouting opinions the vast majority of Australians find distasteful. One Liberal candidate’s call to not recognise Indigenous Australians because “we won this land fair and square” is just one odious example.

This challenge is particularly salient for Crisafulli: a moderate (from north Queensland) who now lives in the southeast leading a very conservative party room comprised mostly of regional and rural MPs.

Will the LNP, for example, repeal abortion and euthanasia legislation if elected in 2024?

But good oppositions also find the right policy mix. The Andrews government over eight years achieved much in health, education and especially road infrastructure. It’s therefore sensible for Matthew Guy to match Andrews’ shopping list. But when the Coalition’s policy costings failed the pub test, the Opposition was forced to rely on anti-Andrews sentiment. In fact, the Liberals foolishly put Andrews’ picture on their how-to-vote cards.

But Andrews was not nearly as unpopular as commentators suggested. After reaching pandemic peaks of over 60 per cent approval, Andrews finished the campaign with almost equal approval and disapproval ratings. Moreover, he bested Guy as preferred premier by almost 20 points.

The second lesson is found in understanding exactly what “mainstream” means in contemporary Australian politics. At state and federal level, the Liberal Party – with moderate, urban MPs defeated by Green and Teal candidates – has become concentrated around outer-suburban and regional MPs and their arch-conservative positions on a range of social and environmental issues. The Liberals claim to represent the “mainstream” but, in reality, they are today appealing to only an outer-suburban and regional working class.

Counter-intuitively, conservative commentators have blamed the defeat of both Matthew Guy and Scott Morrison on a Liberal Party they claim became too “liberal”. The irony is surely lost on them. Instead, conservative critics demand Australia’s Liberal Party now sing from Donald Trump’s songbook.

But last Saturday’s result suggests otherwise. There were six hard-right minor parties contesting the Victorian election, each spouting anti-political correctness or anti-lockdown messages. Together, they scored a tiny six per cent of the vote. Put simply – and in a salient lesson for Crisafulli and federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton – the vast majority of Australians don’t share hard-right social positions. They instead want a Liberal Party cognisant of a modern Australia where policy is made on facts and not fear, and where genuine outsiders (and not just cranky old blokes pretending to be battlers) get a fair go.

Last, the person most buoyed by Saturday’s result outside Victoria must surely be Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk herself. In short, last weekend’s upset demonstrated that even long-standing leaders who have lost their gloss can be re-elected if their governments deliver on the things that matter. If Queensland’s LNP cannot appeal to the southeast mainstream, it can expect many more years in opposition.

Paul Williams is an associate professor at Griffith University