Damaged Dan faces pandemic music and the prospect of minority government
The great polariser is losing ground. Disgruntled Melburnians appear set to punish the Premier at the ballot box. Brace for a wild, unpredictable ride.
Just as Scott Morrison lost it all, it was same with South Australian premier Steven Marshall before him and it quite possibly will take down Dominic Perrottet in NSW on March 25 next year.
There is a broad consensus that Andrews’ best hope if an election were held today is a reduced majority, the worst-case scenario, for Labor, being pushed deep into minority, surrounded by Greens and possibly some teals in the inner city.
The question in Victoria is the quantum of Labor losses and whether or not the most challenging political circumstances for a Melbourne-based premier since probably World War II – certainly since the 1992 Kennett election – can be navigated in the run-up to polling day on November 26.
There are potholes everywhere for Labor, regardless of the 55 seats it won in 2018 in an 88-seat chamber. Its best hopes of a small, anti-government swing hinge on the sclerotic nature of its Coalition opposition, which is in self-inflicted turmoil.
With just over 100 days to go until the election, strategists believe that in the most extreme scenario there are 10 to 14 Labor seats that could fall, the catch being that only maybe six to nine of these would be won by the Coalition, opening the way for debate about what a minority Labor government would look like and who Andrews would deal with.
The Victorian Premier’s next major challenge will be the Albanese government’s first budget on October 25, which will come just four weeks before polling, at a time when soaring inflation, rising interest rates and falling house prices gnaw at the ankles of millions of voters.
If the election goes badly for Labor, it will have significant implications for Albanese in key outer suburban seats – particularly in Melbourne’s west, north and northwest – where the ALP is large and in charge but its supremacy has been battered by the worst coronavirus infection rates in the country in 2020.
These suburbs are the political equivalent of western Sydney in 1996 and Labor wants desperately to hold back a voter rebellion caused by the pandemic and frustration over a lack of services.
Clogged roads, particularly at peak hours to and from the city, too few public transport services, too few doctors, and an unreliable ambulance service have combined to drive people to dump old political allegiances. Labor’s best hope is that the stuttering Victorian opposition loses all its momentum due to the current own-goal integrity scandal sparked by a weird attempt to bolster the pay of Liberal leader Matthew Guy’s former chief of staff via a wealthy donor.
But even with this factor, strategists across the spectrum – Labor, Liberal, Greens, teals – are bracing for a wild, unpredictable ride on election day.
The entire Victorian election will be fought under the unofficial banner of the state having been one of the world’s most locked down jurisdictions, a debilitating chapter in the state’s history that has left even the most supportive Andrews backers still battling with the after-effects of public health incarceration.
The politics are deeply complex, potentially leading to another marked shift to the left in Victoria as inner city Labor and Liberal voters seek to park their votes with the Greens, and to a lesser extent teal candidates.
It is conceivable the Greens and teals will have as many as seven to 10 seats combined and will hold the balance of power in Victoria.
The Victorian election will be supercharged by the emotion of the 2020 and 2021 lockdowns, but the lockdown restrictions impacted different communities in different ways. Many liked the Andrews response, but as the election approaches, political polling points to a large, disgruntled rump ready to punish Labor, especially in the outer suburbs.
Dr Stephen Parnis may know why. He is a respected frontline medico who supported the Andrews (and national cabinet) public health measures but wonders how the great Victorian malaise will resonate.
“Everyone is tired. The impact of the last few years is still playing out,’’ he says.
“I think people are trying to enjoy things we lost for a while. I think it’s better than it was in 21 and 20. But I’m not sure that they (people) are in a party mood.”
There is open talk in Labor circles of the Andrews government being plunged into minority government, losing up to 14 seats, but no one is preparing for the embattled state Coalition to win 18 seats (based on the 2018 election result) and storm into power in its own right.
Regardless, the eight reformist, scandal-plagued and unapologetic years of Andrews rule have quite likely peaked. At the same time, Andrews, 50, stands as the most influential state leader since the Liberal premier Henry Bolte left the premiership in 1972 after 17 years.
After a recent, longwinded media conference over the response to the misuse of taxpayers’ money for campaigning, Andrews – energised – walked from the back of Parliament House with a greeting that was part hello, part unintended message. “We push on,” he said.
Jeff Kennett, the last equally full-bore Victorian premier, who ruled from 1992 to 1999, is convinced that the backlash against Andrews will be significant, fuelled by the pandemic response, which was marred by failures in the rapidly built hotel quarantine system in 2020 and exacerbated by a lack of an effective vaccine rollout in 2021, the latter being a federal responsibility.
“People are just waiting to send a message to the government,” Kennett said.
“I think the reality is the Victorian community is getting ready. I think there are baseball bats to be wielded. It’s occurred here before in 1992.”
No one in the political system underestimates Andrews. Currently Australia’s longest-serving political leader, the Premier is as formidable and focused as he has ever been, determined to engineer a modest enough swing against him to deliver a functioning majority Labor government for a third term. Assuming victory, most expect him to then stand down by midterm after 14 years as Labor leader and 10 as premier.
Andrews is as polarising as Kennett ever was but the Labor leader copped the hardest political landscape of all.
Both he and Kennett have at times been unfairly vilified but both have revelled in the notoriety that comes with being agents of rollercoaster change.
The strategic challenges faced by Andrews are more similar to those that faced Labor’s Joan Kirner in 1992 than Kennett in 1999, with Kirner going to the polls after the recession had torn through Victoria and the boom and bust of the financial sector, some of it state-backed.
While there are some personality similarities between Andrews and Kennett – think D11 bulldozers – the differences are sharp.
Andrews has shown little to no interest in budget repair, which is arguably the single biggest issue facing Victoria, although debt-addled modern voters seem not to care greatly.
Andrews also exhibits rare political discipline and a relentless ability to stick to his message. He needs every advantage he has, including an unprecedented social media presence and a modern Labor machine that uses data with strategic precision to drive its decision making.
Regardless, the list of political challenges facing Andrews is higher than K2, most linked one way or another to the virus, starting with a crushing pandemic response, leading in part to a debt-laden state budget.
Then comes a long line of scandals and mini-scandals that have torn holes in the credibility of the police and legal systems, the overt misuse by Labor of taxpayers’ money for campaigning, vast overruns in major project spending, a health system buckling under the pressure of the pandemic, ambulances that may or may not turn up for the dead and dying, and a Labor Party being run federally.
THE Greens may well become the second story of the campaign. Andrews is under attack from the left, with the Greens seriously eyeing three more inner city Labor seats – Richmond near the MCG, neighbouring Northcote on the Yarra, and the well-heeled Albert Park near St Kilda.
If the Greens grab these seats, this would bring to six their representation in the 88-seat Legislative Assembly and a potential balance of power position if Labor dips into minority and has no one else to deal with.
It is a misnomer that conservatives are the Greens’ natural enemy.
For more than 20 years, Victorian Labor has been waging war against the Greens in the inner city and it has been the core reason that the Andrews government swung sharply to the left with its social reforms including euthanasia, drug harm minimisation, targeted spending in the gay communities and subtle decision making that has undermined mainstream traditions such as the Catholic Church.
This is the Greens’ agenda. The pandemic and changing demographics in the inner city may mean Labor can no longer hold back the Greens, in the same way that the teals have undermined the Liberal Party on climate. There are likely to be several teal candidates contesting seats at the election, most in Liberal electorates.
Greens Victorian leader Samantha Ratnam, an upper house MP, said the high tide in this year’s federal election could be a sign of a growing Greens representation.
“We’re hoping to build on the momentum of that Greenslide and increase our representation in the Victorian parliament so we can push the next government to go further and faster on climate change, housing affordability and integrity,” she said.
“We have good prospects of picking up seats like Richmond, Northcote, Albert Park; and even traditionally safe Liberal seats like Hawthorn, Caulfield and Brighton are in play for us at this election.”
Liberal own goal
Whenever things go pear-shaped for Andrews, he can take solace from the fact he has Her Majesty’s opposition to help him out.
Until a fortnight ago, both sides of politics believed the Coalition was quietly on a march.
But then Liberal leader Matthew Guy, a former Kennett staffer and two-time party leader, became embroiled in a scandal after it was revealed that his chief of staff requested a donor make more than $100,000 in payments to his private marketing business, in addition to his taxpayer-funded salary.
Senior Labor sources said until the Liberal own goal, the momentum had shifted Guy’s way and there were concerns his environment-friendly, integrity-heavy health and ambulance platform was working. “All that’s stopped in its tracks,” one Labor figure said.
Guy, 48, seized the leadership in a bloody coup last year over contemporary Michael O’Brien, a former staffer to Peter Costello when Costello was treasurer. He won the battle because of the internal view from the “go harder” faction that wanted O’Brien to smash Andrews over his draconian response to the virus.
Now Guy is being cannibalised from inside his own party. Adding to his troubles was the departure of Guy’s media director Lee Anderson, a capable hand who had clearly had enough of the chaos.
Liberal supporters often complain that Andrews “gets away with murder” and that Guy and his predecessors are/were treated much more harshly by the media than the Victorian Premier.
They may be partly right, although Andrews has been vilified, poked, prodded and lied about to the extent that only Kennett could understand.
Swing may be on
Wyndham City Council in Melbourne’s outer west was one of the worst-hit coronavirus areas in Australia and is one of the many areas filled with disgruntled former rusted-on Labor voters. Its mayor, Peter Maynard, recently contracted the virus and declared: “It knocked the bejesus out of me.”
One of Maynard’s tasks in the run-up to the state election is to meet and greet candidates in surrounding state seats; all Maynard wants is a better deal for his area.
“As long as they show us the money, I am happy,’’ he jokes.
But with independents expected to push Labor in several outer suburban seats across Melbourne, there is also a serious side to the conversation, with the lockdowns and other pandemic restrictions having smashed multicultural areas, small businesses and factory workers.
They were once locked-in Labor voters but strategists also believe hit and miss infrastructure spending and general long-term neglect by ALP governments has driven voters to eye change in the outer suburbs.
“There are people who are doing it tough. It hasn’t been easy for anyone,” Maynard laments.
Which is why, three months out from polling day, the swing may be on.
The great polariser is losing ground. Dan Andrews is expected to shed votes and seats at the looming Victorian election, according to private party polling, becoming the latest political leader to pay the price of pandemic incumbency.