‘Hope always defeats hate’: Andrews receives rock star reception at Mulgrave party

Premier Daniel Andrews received a rock star reception at his election night party in Mulgrave where he declared “hope always defeats hate” as the Labor faithful cheered “four more years” to celebrate Labor’s historic third consecutive win.

Andrews is on track to become one of Labor’s most successful premiers after Labor’s thumping victory. For the first time during this year’s election campaign, he used his victory speech to address the ugly scenes in his electorate of Mulgrave and reflected, unprompted, on his government’s management of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Labor supporters start the celebrations of a likely victory at their party’s main election-night party in Daniel Andrews’ seat of Mulgrave.Credit: Joe Armao

“Reforming giant and Labor icon Paul Keating once said to me, ‘Son, leadership isn’t about doing what’s popular, leadership is about doing what’s right’,” Andrews said to loud cheers. “People in this great state have endorsed resoundingly a strong, stable majority Labor government.

“Friends, hope always defeats hate.”

Andrews thanked healthcare workers, Labor volunteers, the trade union movement, his staff and family, and said he would “govern for all Victorians”. He said his government had to make “very difficult decisions” during the COVID-19 pandemic, but Victorians had stuck together, were compassionate and looked out for each other by getting vaccinated.

He thanked one of his electorate officers, saying “they’ve had to deal with quite a lot” in reference to ugly scenes in the electorate of Mulgrave as well the actions of protesters and far-right activists.

Former deputy premier James Merlino accused the Liberal Party of flirting with “the extreme ends of society”, while outgoing Labor minister Martin Pakula took aim at the Coalition’s campaign strategy to make the election a referendum on Andrews’ leadership, calling it a “Hail Mary strategy” that backfired.

“It’s hard to hear the community clearly when you spend all your time in an echo chamber,” Pakula tweeted.

Merlino said Saturday night’s result was an “acknowledgement of the hard work” of the Labor government under Andrews’ leadership over the past years.

Merlino also called out the Liberal Party over “their engagement with the extreme end of our society”, and said there would be time post-election to analyse Labor’s losses in the inner-city to the Greens and the huge swings it suffered in the outer west and northern suburbs.

Former Labor assistant secretary Nicholas Reece, who was at Andrews’ election party, said Saturday night’s result was “nothing short of extraordinary” for Labor and not even the optimists in the Labor camp had predicted this victory.

He said Andrews has had to navigate one of the most disruptive periods in political history and managed to lead the party to a third term majority government.

“It’s an extraordinary victory,” Reece said. “There was a lot of nervousness on the Labor side going into this election, there’s been a lot of noise and a lot of vitriol, so there was some uncertainty about how that would play out in the election.

“What we can now see is all that noise was a lot of noise.”

Although Labor’s primary vote dipped across Victoria, including in some traditionally safe seats in Melbourne’s outer suburbs where residents bore the brunt of the health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, Andrews has cemented his position as one of Labor’s most successful Victorian premiers.

Former premier Steve Bracks told Channel 7 that Andrews would join the three-term leadership club.

“In any event, it will be a third term for sure for Daniel Andrews. Yes, I think he will. He will be joining John Cain who got a third term [and] myself; the only three Labor leaders who have done that.”

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