Rita Panahi: Liberals need to stop echoing Labor and give the electorate a real choice at the ballot box

In trying to hold on to a handful of seats in affluent suburbs the Liberals are sacrificing good policy and handing Dan Andrews the easiest of third-term victories.

The hapless Victorian Liberals can’t buy a trick.

This week they learnt that selling out their voters, principles and self-respect to kowtow to wealthy climate activist and Teals puppet master Simon Holmes a Court, in the hopes that he’ll spare them from his fatwa against the Liberal party, was a fruitless exercise.

Despite announcing that a Matthew Guy government would legislate an emission reduction target of 50 per cent by 2030, the full page ads were back and the son of Australia’s first billionaire was on Twitter again spruiking for more candidates.

Matthew Guy’s Liberal Party is staring down another landslide election defeat. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

“Are *you* the next #independent state member for #brighton, (sic) #sandringham (sic) or #caulfield (sic)? @BaysideIndi wants to hear from potential local candidates passionate about true #independent representation & interested in november’s (sic) election,” Holmes a Court tweeted.

Presumably he was laughing maniacally as he typed “true independent representation”.

One wonders if by complete coincidence all the candidates will end up being white middle-aged Leftist women who’d be entirely at home in the Greens or Labor’s Socialist Left faction? They will all of course be running against sitting Liberals. What a coincidence, Deidre Chambers!

Simon Holmes a Court is back and looking for new candidates for the upcoming Victorian election. Picture: Josie Hayden

Among the Liberal MPs being challenged will be member for Brighton James Newbury who has been shamelessly cosying up to Holmes a Court, and member for Caulfield David Southwick who has also proudly pushed hard Left policies that could be taken from the Greens’ manifesto.

What an unholy mess.

In trying to hold on to a handful of seats in the most affluent part of town the Liberals are ready to sacrifice good policy, the masses in the outer suburbs and regions and hand Dan Andrews the easiest of third term victories imaginable.

There is a great deal of ill feeling in this state against the premier who inflicted six economy and soul destroying lockdowns but Andrews is likely to win in a landslide because he has no opposition.

As one current Liberal frontbencher told me this week, “I can’t think of a major policy area where we offer anything notably different to Labor”.

And, the good news for Labor doesn’t stop with the Liberals’ harakiri, new electorate boundaries are likely to hand Labor two extra seats at November’s state election.

The opposition needs to pivot and formulate policies that give the electorate a real choice at the ballot box.

Right now they’re not even serving as opposition, but Labor’s echo.