Victoria’s shameful, grubby election campaign descends into chaos

The Victorian election campaign has descended into an ugly, all-out brawl described as “grubby” where dirty tactics have crossed a new line.

Victorians deserve better than what they are getting during a grubby election race that started as a contest of ideas and has descended into a slanging match where police have been forced to intervene.

Politics is an ugly sport, but this is something entirely different. It is a distraction that insults voters and takes attention away from what really matters — who is going to lead Victoria into a brighter, post-pandemic future?

To say there have been some scandals is being restrained.

In the past month, both the Premier Daniel Andrews and the Opposition Leader Matthew Guy have been referred to the state’s anti-corruption watchdog.

The independent Victorian Electoral Commission has been accused by Mr Guy of “serious, deliberate and unprecedented interference” in the election because it referred the Liberal Leader and his former chief of staff to the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission over a possible breach of donation laws.

Catherine Cumming is being investigated by police over comments she made about the Premier on Saturday.

A Liberal MP made a sick joke about Mr Andrews’ fall down slippery steps — a fall that resulted in five fractured ribs and an acute compression fracture of the T7 vertebra.

A Labor volunteer has a broken leg after an altercation at a Wodonga pre-polling station.

Liberal candidate Timothy Dragan, 26, has been forced to apologise for saying, on tape, “there’s no such thing as traditional Australians” and “we won this land fair and square”.

His colleague, fellow Liberal candidate Renee Heath, has been exposed as a member of the City Builders Church, which is opposed to gay, trans and reproductive rights and has been linked to alleged extreme gay conversion practices. Mr Guy, once informed of the news, told the media she will not sit in the Liberal party room if elected next Saturday.

A Labor candidate, Lauren O’Dwyer, who has described herself as a “proud Yorta Yorta woman”, has been challenged by a family member over the claim. A family member told the ABC her family has never identified as Indigenous.

The Herald Sun exposed brazen rorting of the voting system by Labor’s so-called “preference whisperer Glenn Druery. A video showed him bragging about having “more balls in the air than a vasectomy doctor” in pursuit of delivering a crossbench the Andrews Government can work with.

Renee Heath, a Liberal candidate for the Eastern Victoria region, has been linked to an extreme church. Picture: Facebook

On Saturday, it somehow got much, much worse.

In what has been described by one veteran journalist as “one of the worst acts I’ve ever seen by a parliamentarian”, sitting MP and Angry Victorians Party candidate Catherine Cumming invoked the sickening term “red mist” while speaking to voters at Flinders Street Station.

“I joined the Angry Victorians Party for one reason: to make Daniel Andrews turn into red mist,” she said to a cheering crowd of supporters.

“In the army we would call it pink mist, but I want him into red mist. Give anyone here in the army a job to blow someone up and they will.”

The term is a riff on the military phrase “pink mist”, which refers to the spray of blood that occurs when a person is hit in the head by sniper fire or an explosion caused by an improvised explosive device (IED).

Police are investigating whether the comments meet the criteria for “inciteful behaviour”.

“This is not okay. Whatever your colour of politics calling for an MP to be blown up is outrageous,” tweeted Victorian Reason Party leader Fiona Patten.

Leader of the Victorian Greens, Samantha Ratnam, also tweeted: “Catherine Cumming’s comments at the far-right rally today were absolutely abhorrent and have no place in parliament let alone in our society”.

Victoria's election campaign has descended into the grubbiest forms of politics.

Liberal Leader Matthew Guy also called on Dr Cumming to “withdraw those remarks immediately and apologise unreservedly”.

“I condemn in the strongest possible terms remarks made by Dr Catherine Cumming today.”

She didn’t withdraw them. Instead, she attempted to wriggle out from underneath the criticism by telling reporters she was referring to Labor’s branch-stacking “red shirts” scandal and “blowing up corruption”.

To that, veteran broadcaster Neil Mitchell wrote on social media: “Do we look that stupid?”

The campaign continues for another week before voters have their say on November 26.

The Premier remains a popular but polarising figure in Victoria and how he handled the Covid-19 pandemic will play a big role in his chances of being re-elected.

The Greens and “teal” independents are expected to poll well following record results at the federal election in which they unseated long-held Liberal and Labor members.

The Opposition is hoping for better things this time around for Mr Guy who lost in a landslide to Mr Andrews at the last election.