Matthew Guy: the family man behind the Opposition Leader

MATTHEW Guy is sharp and disciplined and says being in Opposition is “a hard slog”. He agrees the election will amount to a handful of votes in a handful of seats, but the Coalition has done enough to differentiate itself in key policy areas. Here’s what he says will win them the election.

DELIVERING the message should be simple in your own lounge room. But Matthew Guy has competition.

The Opposition Leader, along with his wife Renae, looks set for the big day ahead; a policy launch in Carrum, smack in the sandbelt seats which cost the Coalition the 2014 election.

He’s been buzzing since 6.30am and the daily campaign conference call.

He’s made coffee and the family dog, Wally, has submitted to requests to stop befriending the guests.

But the photographer is fussing about the combination of kids, animals and the threat of rain. He will lead the Guy troupe (including Wally) past the basketball and the bike, to nearby parklands where cockatoos and parakeets roost.

But he must hurry. Alex, five, must be readied for school, along with his older brothers, Joseph and Samuel.

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Matthew Guy with his wife Renae, and sons, Joseph (10), Sam (8) and Alexander (5) with their dog Wally. Picture: Tony Gough

Vera is here, too, the Mum plucked from central casting. Vera may not have called into talkback radio lately, but she has wanted to.

She is dishing out slices of sticky bun. And recalling the time Guy, now 44, wore a Liberal Party badge to primary school. And bollocking him for barracking for St Kilda. And feeling sad that he doesn’t have time to come for dinner anymore.

She understands, of course. But…

“Eighteen months,” she says, throwing up her hands.

Guy has tried — and given up — extolling his mastery of Argentinian chicken. He admits, good naturedly, that he thought it would be a good sell in family and togetherness.

Now, finally, he is seated on the couch, answering questions about the plight he has shared with a mentor, Jeff Kennett, and his political foe, Daniel Andrews.

He is sharp and disciplined: none of the black humour that is said to loosen his private moments.

He nods and smiles before each question is finished, perhaps because his campaign began 11 months ago. And if few Victorians noticed that it did, then, well, yes, that’s the lot of opposition leaders.

“Opposition is a hard slog,” he says. “It just is. A lot of people ask me the same questions they asked of Dan Andrews as Opposition Leader. That Ted Baillieu got as Opposition Leader, that (Denis) Napthine certainly got as Opposition Leader. They say they need to see more of you, they want to see more of you. Then you point out to them that you are on the TV news every night.”

He is behind in the polls and took a “brand hit” from the federal Coalition leadership coup in Canberra. Yet Guy says Prime Minister Scott Morrison will be a welcome addition on the hustings. The internal polling is better than some external polls, which have given the ALP a 53-47 two-party preferred or better lead.

Guy agrees with Andrews, who told the Sunday Herald Sun the election will amount to a handful of votes in a handful of seats.

He speaks of streets in target seats, where one side of the road is staunch ALP and the other true blue Liberal.

“It can be won,” he says. “There are still 30 per cent who are soft or undecided in terms of their vote and that is pretty significant. But our target research is pretty good.”

The Coalition has tried to differentiate itself in key policy areas.

A surge in youth gangs and perceptions of random violence have inspired promises of mandatory sentences.

Matthew Guy with his mother Vera. Picture: Tony Gough

These are unashamedly strident — repeat carjackers and home invaders face an automatic decade in jail. Those who get parole will be tracked with GPS technology.

“Jail means jail,” he says.

Spending and infrastructure are big-ticket items in both party campaigns, with a $19 billion regional rail link a plank in Guy’s decentralisation plans for Melbourne and the state.

The Coalition has vowed to move passengers between, say, Melbourne and Geelong in 32 minutes, and foster growth in the likes of Geelong, Ballarat, Seymour and the Latrobe Valley. Guy encapsulates the challenge — Melbourne will add the population of Brisbane in the next 20 years.

“It will be a mix of things, it’s such a seat by seat race,” he says of the election choice.

“But I think population is becoming front and centre of people’s minds very quickly about where the state is going and how we are going to manage it.”

It’s one thing to have a plan, another to enact it.

Opposition is an imitation of power, a performance which can be largely overlooked except in times of uproar.

In August last year, Guy was blindsided when it was revealed that he had dined with Tony Madafferi, a Melbourne fruiterer linked by police — despite never being charged — to drug imports and murders.

The “Lobster with a Mobster” headlines led to questions of personal judgment and party donations. Guy’s seafood dinner — washed down with Penfolds Grange — was for some Melburnians an unofficial introduction to their choice of next premier.

He can joke about it now, and dismisses the dinner as an honest error — he didn’t know, he says, that Madafferi would be there.

Only the ALP and trade union trolls online raise the matter now, he says. And journalists.

“I think there were some in the media who thought it was the scandal they hadn’t had for three years,” he says. “But of course it wasn’t and it dissipated very quickly….

“Some people say any publicity is good publicity. I’m not sure that that’s entirely the case. It’s just one of those things in politics. You just have to deal with it. And move on.”

The dinner and the resulting fallout helped unify his party, he argues. Unity differentiates today from his time as (then Opposition Leader) Napthine’s chief of staff in 1999-2002, when there was “constant undermining” and “constant sniping”.

“We’ve seen none of that,” he says. “Even through things like the dinner 12 months ago, the party has stuck together and the party has remained united.”

He points to fallings out within the Andrews Government, such as Jane Garrett’s departure from Cabinet over the CFA/UFU dispute.

Yet the Liberals are not above internal bickering.

Some insiders lament not only the federal leadership overthrow, but the claims of bullying that followed.

Internal murmurings swirl about the effort and performance of some state shadow ministers, a suggestion that Guy rejects as inaccurate and unfair.

Matthew Guy says being in Opposition is “a hard slog”. Picture: Tony Gough

Kennett describes Guy’s leadership as “outstanding”. His team has not fallen to self-interest or fraud, Kennett argues, in emphasising “values” as a point of difference.

Nor does Kennett accept the one-sided polls, citing surprise results in Tasmania, South Australia or, indeed, his own surprise loss to Steve Bracks in 1999.

Guy was a thrusting minister in the Napthine Government. But some within the party fear he has squandered much-needed chances to get noticed.

Guy was asked on-air by 3AW’s Neil Mitchell about a cartoon of Serena Williams by the Herald Sun’s Mark Knight.

Guy’s response — safe and forgettable — disappointed some members of his leadership group who believed he ought to be more forthright.

Guy speaks of bold decisions — as opposed to taking risks.

As Planning Minister, he overrode the prevailing advice to rezone farm land at Phillip Island, a decision he later overturned at a cost of several million dollars to taxpayers.

He also approved high-rise developments.

“People asked why did you approve skyscrapers in the downtown,” he says.

“The answer was because people wanted to live in them. And more to the point, it takes the pressure off the suburbs. Best have 500 apartments in the sky than 500 apartments along every quiet street. I don’t think people could accuse me of having done nothing in my time as a minister.”

Risks, however, are not the politician’s lot.

“I think you have to make decisions but you’ve then got to stand by the ones you make,” he says.

“I’m not really a risk-taker at all. Otherwise I wouldn’t have got into politics. It’s not the game for too many risks.”

Few observers dispute Guy’s work ethic or energy.

He and Renae, a former media advisor, met when they worked together in Napthine’s office. “Home time” used to be scheduled into Guy’s diary, but this luxury has been abandoned for the campaign.

“I don’t think we’re alone in this regard,” she says.

“A lot of families do that. We just catch up when we catch up.”

Many of his beliefs stem from his heritage. Cue Vera.

After Guy was elected leader of the party, his advisors were surprised when an ABC journalist set about arranging a studio interview. Who arranged this, they asked the journalist?

“His Mum,” she replied.

Vera was born in a German camp for Ukrainian refugees. As a boy, Guy spoke to his maternal grandmother about death, dispossession and totalitarianism.

The strafing of Ukrainians on the road amazed him, as did Russian attempts to return Ukrainians for likely internment in Siberia.

His aunt died as a child — she was buried during a bombing raid, in a lonely service attended only by her mother and an Orthodox priest.

In the bunker, Guy’s grandmother prayed as the walled shivered. She counted out bomb drops in groupings of eight — 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 . . . 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8.

British troops with guns prevented Russian soldiers from forcing the family’s return to Russia. Their kindness informed the family’s hope for a new home in an “English speaking” country, where a son and grandson would repeat these stories in oppression imposed by both extremes of political ideology.

Guy, as an eight-year-old, watched the 1982 Victorian election with his father, when John Cain beat Lindsay Thompson to usher in 10 years of ALP power.

He joined the Young Liberals as a 16-year-old, a kid at Montmorency High, during the recession. He feared he would not go on to find work.

His political stripes bemused his father, as it did Vera when the first phone bill arrived he started campaigning on the party’s behalf.

“The Liberal party still owes me $200,” she says, half laughing.

Guy says he’s thought a lot about winning. But what if you lose, he’s asked.

He’d have a big sleep in, he laughs, dodging the question, before dashing up the stairs to prepare for the day ahead.

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