Steve Price: ‘Voters want a reason to change government; come on Matt, at least make a game of it’
Victorian Liberal leader Matthew Guy is headed for election defeat but could at least show his party has “some spine” by pledging to sack the Melbourne City Council.
Opinion
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With the Victorian election now just 77 days away, Liberal leader Matthew Guy is again headed for defeat.
A clean cut, nice, cookie-cutter type politician - he needs to muscle up and give Victorians some real reasons to vote for him in November because everyone has plenty of reasons to vote Daniel Andrews out.
If, in a two-horse race, you can’t win this state election, you need a new jockey.
In this last term alone, Labor locked Victorians up at home for longer than anywhere else in the world.
More than 800 aged care residents died from Covid, many alone and without family.
More recently, emergency hospital patients have been treated in tents outside hospitals and others died after Triple-0 failed them.
Add to that the billions wasted in infrastructure budget blowouts, plus allowing the Melbourne City Council to ruin our capital city.
Surely, off that list alone, Matthew Guy can prosecute a case for himself?
Sadly, it’s not happening unless Guy can cut through aggressively and quickly.
He won’t go there, but I’d start with a promise to sack the Melbourne City Council if I won in November.
This council has betrayed the people of Melbourne and turned our city into a laughing stock.
Tourism Research Australia revealed this week the Melbourne CBD was officially the worst affected Covid destination in Australia.
Visitor spending by tourists has collapsed, with the Victorian Tourism Industry Council saying it had declined by $17.8 billion, or 55 per cent.
We have reported before about the mindless obsession with bike lanes and massive concrete tram stops, making access for traders, tourists and locals near impossible.
Rate paying business leaders are routinely ignored when they complain.
No point prosecuting that case here again, and the council has put a moratorium around new bike lanes, but the damage has already been done.
Council has also stolen car park spots in a green attempt to turn Melbourne into Amsterdam.
Matthew Guy should simply say an incoming government, led by him, would appoint a Minister for Melbourne and rid this proud state of the rabble in town hall. Sack the lot of them. Support for this would be massive.
Guy should also demand the latest council folly - to not just pass a meaningless vote to move the date of Australia Day, a date over which they have no control, but to also spend rate payers money on a campaign to ditch it - be dropped.
Lord Mayor Sally Capp quotes from a so-called independent survey that makes the claim the majority of residents and business owners want the January 26 date for our national day changed.
Really? A majority of the 140,000 odd residents and business owners ticked shift the date box in this survey, did they?
Well, not exactly.
The poll was conducted by a crowd called RedBridge; a polling outfit with deep state Labor connections that has worked closely with Dan Andrews both as campaigners and staffers.
It was a phone survey of 1600 inner city residents and businesses owners. We are not told of the split between the two but are asked to believe 59.8 per cent want the date changed. Capp calls it a “significant sample”.
This compares with an Ipsos poll back in 2021 that said the ‘change the date’ level was a paltry 28 per cent.
That difference might be explained because inner city Melbourne residents consistently vote Green and were those polled by RedBridge.
Melbourne is the capital city of Victoria and should not be some Green dominated island doing things for inner city elites alone. Melbourne belongs to all Victorians.
Watch what happens if the MCC gets its way with Australia Day being changed from January 26.
Next thing you know we will be getting rid of the Melbourne Cup holiday because of claimed cruelty to horses and Anzac Day because we invaded Turkey.
It’s only a matter of time until Christmas Day comes under pressure because of its offence to non Christians.
Sacking Sally and her largely Green band of Marvellous Melbourne-destroying colleagues might not win the Liberals the election, but it would show the party has some spine.
Voters want a reason to change the state government, not just as a Covid punishment but to vote for a better Melbourne, the one we used to all be proud of.
Come on Matthew, at least make a game of it. Melbourne deserves a fighting chance.
LIKES
A classy fitting memorial for former Seeker Judith Durham.
AFL played at the Gabba in Brisbane, a packed house, footy smart supporters and a great atmosphere.
Finally masks on planes off at the end of this week.
A Current Affair host Tracey Grimshaw choosing her own exit from a stellar career.
DISLIKES
More Thursday night matches than ever before under new TV rights deal.
Dodgy release of the damming Triple-0 report on a Saturday, during footy finals.
Federal plan to try and convince pensioners to leave their family home to free up housing stock.
Nick Kyrgios and his racket smashing tantrums.
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