How Peter Dutton handles Victoria will define his leadership

Peter Dutton has a reputation as being passionate on a lot of issues that don’t matter in Victoria, writes John Ferguson. Picture: Zak Simmonds

There are already deep fears among senior Liberals that Peter Dutton won’t work in Victoria.

The view is that no matter how hard he tries to position himself as New Dutton, the state will reject him when, or if, he gets to the next election.

Which is not to damn him as a bloke but it is to highlight the extent to which the perception of Dutton and Scott Morrison is a big part of what has gone wrong in Australia’s second biggest city for the Liberal Party.

For a generation the Liberal Party nationally has tried to bypass Victoria, creating a path to government that assumed nominal gains or losses in the southern state and effectively entrenched, long-term electoral failure.

Dutton with wife Kirilly, daughter Rebecca and sons Tom and Harry. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

The perception is that it became an arrogant form of Liberal blood sport to hammer NSW and Queensland-centric messages, regardless of how it was playing in Victoria.

The result?

The Liberals are looking at securing about eight seats of the 39 in Victoria, based on the latest counting.

The core “surprise” was the rise of the teals and the loss to Labor of Higgins.

The loss of Goldstein was baked in during the campaign; no-one was really expecting the teal Zoe Daniel to lose; even Liberal Tim Wilson’s closest mates felt he was cooked.

Higgins was a different story, with the Liberals quietly confident of retaining it and confident of keeping Kooyong.

Labor felt it was in the market in Higgins but assumed Frydenberg would hold his seat.

Kooyong, Higgins and Goldstein are in the top five fundraising seats for the party in Victoria.

No-one was really expecting the Zoe Daniel to lose in Goldstein; even Liberal Tim Wilson’s closest mates felt he was cooked. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Crosling

In normal years, they can help fund other seats, even outside Victoria if it’s necessary.

Josh Frydenberg is/was the Victorian party’s number one fundraiser, having raised millions for his own seat and siphoning some of the excess to poorer electorates.

It will be hard for Kooyong to retain its fundraising reputation and capacity with Monique Ryan wandering Glenferrie Rd for the next three to six years.

Same with Higgins and Goldstein as the demographic challenges take over.

This is a looming financial disaster for the party in the inner city, particularly as it faces a state election in November.

For literally decades, the party has known it was facing long-term decline, talking enthusiastically about the need to shift attention to Melbourne’s north, northwest and west.

These areas have been owned by Labor.

The Liberal Party has virtually no political representation in these areas in terms of resources.

Former president of the senate Scott Ryan pulled his government office out of Moonee Ponds during the last term, leaving just two state MPs to cater for millions of people.

One of those - upper house MP Bernie Finn - has been kicked out of the parliamentary party, so there is now one Liberal office in these growth corridors.

Ryan was talking about the opportunities and challenges in these suburbs 20 years ago. But nothing meaningful ever happened.

Labor’s vote in some of these electorates came way off the boil at the weekend’s election but the Liberal Party, having ignored the opportunities, was in no position to capitalise.

It’s been discussed for many months that the outer suburbs have been turning against Labor in Victoria, principally because of the lockdowns and Labor’s broader pandemic response.

In La Trobe, the outer eastern Melbourne seat, Jason Wood actually improved his vote while all around him Rome was burning.

Michael Sukkar is in a tight race for the seat of Deakin in Victoria. Picture: Jason Edwards

It is vital for the Liberal Party for Michael Sukkar to retain his seat of Deakin because of his strategic campaigning ability and work rate.

What is killing the Liberal Party in Victoria is a lack of strategic acumen and, frankly, endeavour.

Money is not an issue.

The party, when the Cormack Foundation is lumped into the sale of the former Exhibition Street headquarters, is worth north of $100 million.

Although Cormack continues to ration its wealth and is not the pot of gold that some would like it to be.

The entrenched factionalism in Victoria has done nothing to help the Liberal cause and a lot of the analysis of this factionalism is sloppy.

Frydenberg, as the campaign progressed, went from being a Howard conservative (which is what he was) to a moderate.

Frydenberg was unique in a sense, because he actually held the policy line and never swayed much at all from these Howard roots.

What he knew, however, was that Morrison raving on about marginal social issues like gender identity was a disaster for what are now known as the teal seats.

It’s not that Kooyong was marching in the streets about transgender children, it’s just that smart people saw through the politics.

The years of homophobia and transphobia are largely dead in Australia in no small part due to the spread of the internet.

As much as Malcolm Turnbull, from a Liberal perspective, played a reprehensible role in undermining the Morrison government, he was a figure who resonated well in Victoria.

People liked him and he helped bolster the Liberal vote.

In 2019, there was a mini revolt in key seats like Kooyong, quite probably because the party had gone with Morrison.

Morrison did not make anywhere near the effort that Tony Abbott did to connect to Melbourne, even if Abbott’s world view failed to resonate.

He at least tried.

Peter Dutton, meanwhile, has a reputation as being the Coalition hard-arse on a lot of issues that don’t matter in Victoria.

It will be hard to undo his rhetoric on African crime gangs, an issue on which the state party copped a hiding in 2018.

Abbott worked so hard to counter perceptions against him in Victoria but Dutton could shift to the city full-time and still struggle.

Josh Frydenberg was unique in a sense, because he actually held the policy line and never swayed much at all from these Howard roots, writes John Ferguson. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

With all these hurdles, the Victorian Liberal Party is being run like a country Rotary Club.

State president Robert Clark is under pressure to quit but is so wonderfully stubborn, having seen off Jeff Kennett, that he might see out everyone.

If the party in Victoria had vision and strength, it would seriously be looking at pulling away from the national organisation.

It could keep its campaigning tie-in with party headquarters but sell an entirely different message. One that actually wins votes.

Maybe even find a way to work up a sweat in the seats where the population growth is.

What the teal candidates showed is that if you want it badly, work hard and smart and spend enough money, then any electorate is winnable.

The teal colour has been taken.

The Victorian Liberals could do worse than grab a light shader of dark blue and undertake an urgent rebranding in the manner of British Labour in the 1990s.

Maybe even start working overtime to find a Victorian Liberal to take over the opposition when he falls.

Frydenberg, Costello, Sukkar.

Anyone?