Dan Andrews’ memo for federal Labor: voters like big ideas

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews shows you the political advantage of a big and bold policy agenda, writes Cameron Milner. Picture: Getty Images

Getting a third term in Australian politics these days is no mean feat, so full congratulations must go to Daniel Andrews and his Labor team. Andrews joins Annastacia Palaszczuk as current Labor leaders elected for a third term and the lessons for Labor federally are writ large.

The foremost learning is that voters in Victoria and Queensland initially elected Labor with slim majorities and then at successive elections gave it larger majorities as they could see what Labor was delivering, and wanted the certainty of election commitments being implemented.

Therein lies the key to an Anthony Albanese re-election. It’s what Queensland senator Anthony Chisholm has rightly identified as the way for federal Labor to gain more seats in the vital state of Queensland; that voters first need to see Labor in action to trust it with their vote.

Andrews, though, also shows you the political advantage of a big and bold policy agenda. Staring down state debt that exceeds that of Queensland, NSW and Tasmania combined and campaigning for a suburban rail loop with billions more of state debt, all while resurrecting the State Electricity Commission, were hardly small-target policies.

Similarly, Palaszczuk has delivered a massive investment in renewable energy with CleanCo and now Queensland’s energy plan, all while seeing record infrastructure investment.

So having big plans, even with borrowings, is not the electoral poison the timid, win-by-two-seats brigade would have Albanese Labor believe.

The other lesson for Labor from Victoria is the impact of Liberals directing preferences to the Greens while putting Labor last. Such a move federally would put seats such as Macnamara (formerly Melbourne Ports), Wills (inner Melbourne) and Cooper (formerly Batman) in play for the Bandt Greens.

Also interesting is the flagging teal wave. Despite teal central casting serving up more white, upper-middle-class Tesla-driving candidates, they failed to fire as they did in May, even with Greens, Labor and Victorian Socialists preferencing them in the leafy suburbs of Kew, Hawthorn and Brighton, all retained or won by Liberals.

The lesson is unfettered access for teals to guilt-ridden billionaires’ cash spent buying a federal seat doesn’t work so well with campaign expenditure caps.

The state result if translated federally would see the return of the hardworking and eloquent Tim Wilson in Goldstein based on the strong Liberal primary vote in the state seats of Caulfield, Brighton and Sandringham as well as the choking of the teals’ vote. I appreciate how hard Wilson worked and the natural disappointment of losing to someone such as Zoe Daniel, but as John Pesutto has shown in Hawthorn, you can have a second chance in politics. Josh Frydenberg also would be returned on the electoral figures in Kooyong based on results in Hawthorn and Kew.

It is telling that in an election where the Victorian Liberals incomprehensibly had a primary swing against them, in heartland areas such as Kew, Hawthorn and Caulfield the Liberal vote held or increased. The state Liberals’ recycled “lobster with a mobster” leader struggled from the start, hobbled by his scandal-plagued office and a rebrand of Matthew Guy that simply fell flat.

The Liberals under Peter Dutton won’t make the same mistakes and Labor underestimates his electability at its own risk. Dutton is a formidable operator who has put Labor under genuine pressure over the $275 power bill reduction and the lack of an economic plan to fight inflation.

Guy, by contrast, never made the case even for a “send them a message” protest vote in Victoria, instead believing he’d become premier despite Andrews’ more than 20-seat lead and the insurance policy of minority government with the Greens.

Labor is at a high-water mark federally in Victoria, but based on the state vote and Labor coming third in the state seat of Hawthorn, the tenure of the member for Higgins, Michelle Ananda-Rajah, may see her, along with teals Monique Ryan and Daniel as electoral aberrations and historical footnotes. The federal seat of La Trobe looks firmly out of reach and Chisholm is not great on state Labor figures either.

The wider conundrum for federal Labor is the success Labor state governments are having, which shows voters are quite prepared to vote Labor in, then back in again, based on big plans and service delivery.

As well as third terms for Andrews and Palaszczuk, there has been the Mark McGowan landslide in Western Australia to gain a second term. Peter Malinauskas in South Australia ended a first-term Liberal administration. Labor’s electoral success will be completed when Chris Minns leads a Labor government in NSW after March next year.

So Labor knows how to win and keep winning. Albo Labor just got there in May. It should use the advantage of being in government to throw off the focus group-led strategy of “say nothing, do nothing”. The political myopia must end. Big ideas are rewarded by voters.