Inside the election parties of Daniel Andrews and Matthew Guy

After a stunning landslide victory, Premier Daniel Andrews made only one concession to the jubilant crowd during his victory speech. Meanwhile at Matthew Guy’s reception, the only consolation in this election nightmare was that the suffering was short.

Daniel Andrews made only one concession during his victory speech in front of the crowd packed into the function room at the rear of Mulgrave’s Village Green.

As his family clung to him under the bright glare of the stage light, the Premier of Victoria confessed to missing his father.

He wished his dad was there to witness a celebration like this.

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It was on the same stage four years earlier that Bob Andrews had held his son’s arm aloft, as if declaring him the winner of the toughest of bouts.

And so it seemed only fitting the Labor leader would declare a debt of gratitude to the man responsible for helping mould his ambitions.

The seeds of the latest victory had been sown as they surveyed the family property together at Wangaratta.

The Premier’s mother was in the crowd to share the moment. Mr Andrews said he was certain, somehow, his father was too.

Premier Daniel Andrews is met by his mother, Jan, at his victory party. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

“My mother is here tonight. And for all that she has given me, I will never properly be able to say thank you. But I say thank you,” he said.

“As fathers tend to be of sons, he would be proud I think.”

It signalled a moment of quiet poignancy in a night when political revelry threatened to spill over like the packed bar of a sports saloon.

Mr Andrews thanked wife Catherine and his children, who he said had known little more than this political life.

Then he moved to the kind of comments that this crowd thrived on. “The people of Victoria have overwhelmingly endorsed a positive and optimistic plan for our state,” he told them.

“They have in record numbers at the same time rejected the low road of fear and division.

“For that I am very, very proud.”

It was ironic, perhaps, that a campaign labelled particularly dull by critics, would end in the kind of unhinged dancing and high-pitched hollers best reserved for a muddy music festival.

But supporters were adamant — Dan Andrews hadn’t just ushered the party to another four-year term; he’d pressed fire on the kind of political missile likely to hurtle down the corridors of Canberra.

Before his arrival, mouths had gaped as graphics, marked heavily by red, beamed from smart phones.

Labor supporters celebrate at at the Mulgrave election party. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Champagne for everybody.

By 9pm as Opposition Leader Matthew Guy made his concession speech, it was underlined by jeers and laughter.

But like a post-game breakdown, the most diplomatic progressives were eager to dissect the results.

They said the Andrews Government had not been without its scandal, but unlike the Coalition leadership before it, had delivered on its promises. Victorians had not been left wanting, one said.

More champagne?

Earlier in the day, the Premier’s clear run to the voting box had only been briefly stifled by an elderly bloke in a Melbourne Demons’ cap.

The retiree had been apologetic as he was unwittingly set between the Labor leader and an entourage of media at Albany Rise Primary School.

But Mr Andrews obliged the man as he wrestled with his voting slip and the camera bulbs flashed.

It was an unscripted moment, a rare display, that helped frame the final morning of the campaign.

It would be almost 12 hours before the Premier would be the subject of talk reserved for the political history books.

Premier Daniel Andrews and his wife Catherine wait to cast their vote at Albany Rise Primary School in Mulgrave. Picture: Alex Coppel

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In the meantime he and Catherine stood in line awkwardly waiting like any other constituent.

A woman in front of them asked of his children. The bloke behind might have been forgiven for not realising what all the fuss was about.

Mr Andrews wore the same blue suit jacket and jeans for the occasion — a campaign uniform perhaps now in dire need of an overhaul.

There was the usual exchange of pleasantries for campaigners, while rivals stood like sentries at the school gates.

Across the road, an Aussie flag snagged up a pine tree fluttered upside down furiously as Mr Andrews’ nearest political rival for his seat of Mulgrave repeated the same sales pitch all morning.

Maree Davenport had painted her fingers and toes for the occasion.

It was the kind of war paint she said was justified after a weeks of sustained paper cuts.

Ms Davenport needed only 1600 votes to swing her way to win the trust of the electorate. She’d been whistling to the same tune of Liberal leader Matthew Guy; that Mr Andrews had failed to address a spiral of crime or the cost of living.

But on this unseasonably cold morning the Premier was not looking to engage with campaigners.

On this day of reckoning, he rarely looked nervous.

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Matthew Guy woke at 4.45am yesterday, not because he slept poorly, he said, but because his son Sam woke him after a bad dream. No, he explained, Sam had not had nightmares about electoral oblivion.

Nor had Guy. In his vision, which he shared five hours later, on-the-ground campaigning would prevail. The boring stuff. The knocking on doors and the pressing of flesh.

“Nothing worthwhile is easy,” he said.

Guy hoped Eltham would go the Liberals’ way. But it didn’t. Nor did the other marginals that the Liberals needed. They swung to the government. As a supporter said at Guy’s party wake last night: “What a bloodbath.”

By 7pm it was clear the universally bad polls were right all along. There would be no Brexit-like errors in the predictions. The only consolation in this election nightmare was that the suffering was short.

“Not good,” senior Liberal powerbroker Michael Kroger was overheard telling party staffers a tick after 7pm.

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Liberal party president Michael Kroger at Matthew Guy’s reception. Picture: AAP Image/David Crosling

Ten minutes later, the smattering of the Liberal base gathered at the Veneto Club in Bulleen would hear former ALP premier Steve Bracks declare on TV that the election was already won.

Here was a big room with few people. Intended guests knew not to come because the signs were so bad so early. Some who had come left before Guy arrived for his concession speech.

There were no balloons and little banter. This was no baying mob, as many losing election parties can resemble, though there were reports of tensions, that Kroger was seen raising his voice.

The post mortems began at once. The chatter within the room turned to four years from now. And recriminations.

On TV, former premier Jeff Kennett demanded Kroger resign his party position. In the room, Kevin Andrews looked glummer than ever.

Nearby, Kroger gave a TV interview, saying no one person should take responsibility. “Of course we all take responsibility…” he said. “He (Kennett) regularly calls on me and others to resign. We take his comments with a grain of salt.”

Guy’s concession was sober and humble. He was leaving blame games to others. He thanked his colleagues.

“They have been unified, they have stuck together,” he said. “They have done what they had to do to stick together and to learn from the mistakes of disunity.

“Can I say for the next parliament, as a party, we need to stick together, we need to stay united, and we need to stay focused on our opponents in the game and not on ourselves.”

Earlier, Guy had been at his former school, Sherbourne Primary School, where he had worn a Liberal Party badge in about grade two.

He had sounded perhaps pleased that the campaign was almost over. During idle chatter, he offered balder thoughts that he would never have voiced during the campaign proper.

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One observer described his demeanour as “loose”, as though he was watching someone who felt defeated. Guy himself laughed off his manner. “It doesn’t matter now,” he figured.

He was right. As was a woman who sidled up to him in front of the cameras. “I don’t agree with your policies, but I think you really believe what you say…” she said. “You haven’t got a hope in hell.”

Guy joked on Friday about being in Tahiti instead of the winds of the sandbelt seats. As he said last night, “our time in the sun will come again”.

Now he has a chance to fulfil his holiday wish. Assuming, that is, the Liberal Party does not send him to Coventry.

— Patrick Carlyon