The Libs are lost, just like Nemo

It was a terrible election loss for the Liberal Party, which has lost its way.

Victorian Liberal leader Matthew Guy, with wife Renae, speaks to supporters after his defeat to Daniel Andrews. Picture: David Caird

This was the Liberal Party’s Nemo election.

Trapped in a goldfish bowl of hatred towards Dan Andrews, the party learnt little from the 2018 landslide and even less from the pandemic.

Instead, it lost its way again, underestimated Andrews and listened to the noisy minority locked in their contempt for the Victorian Premier.

“Some things are really big on Spring Street and they don’t mean much on Main Street,” Andrews said outside Parliament House on Sunday. Quite.

The point is, you don’t have to like Andrews or his policies to appreciate his acumen or ambition.

The Liberal Party will look forensically at the result and should start with Matthew Guy.

Unfortunately for him and his party, Guy will leave politics as a two-time, big canvas failure.

He didn’t work as leader and probably never was going to; he jarred on the nightly news; voters never trusted him; and his leadership numbers were dire.

Yet it could have been worse because in September the Liberals were apparently looking at a potential WA-style wipe-out, their support was so bad in Victoria.

Seen through that prism, Guy may well have saved some of the furniture but he failed to deliver on the promise he made when he ousted Michael O’Brien.

Guy was elevated to the leadership amid pandemic hysteria and immediately discovered voters weren’t into the payback so many on the party’s Right were looking for.

For much of his leadership, Guy had very little support from former fellow travellers like the Institute of Public Affairs, which became utterly bogged down over the pandemic restrictions.

I’ve never met anyone who liked the restrictions – not one person – but there was still a broad sense the health advice should be followed.

This was the public position of the Morrison government and the very public position of every other state.

When idiots were marching in the streets, throwing taps and bottles at police, hijacking roads and urinating at the Shrine of Remembrance, the punters backed the police. What a shock.

Some big name commentators sniffed Guy’s weaknesses and turned on him, believing he was too soft on climate and philosophically a centrist. Which he was.

When Guy needed money from the big end of town, the donors dribbling the funds too slowly into the bank account when the time for action was many months earlier.

Of course, the guns turned on the campaign when things went bad for the party on Saturday.

The Liberals had a significant issue two months ago in that ­people didn’t believe Guy could win so there was some really ­aggressive briefing of party polling to shift the perception. It was tactical, not necessarily strategic.

The final internal numbers were close to Saturday night’s results and will hold up under the scrutiny of the party’s internal review, according to multiple sources.

The structural challenges facing the Liberals are nothing less than stunning.

There are Liberal-leaning demographics in just 37 of the 88 seats and it’s almost unbelievable the places where the branches have been run down into glorified cake stalls.

There were, according to multiple sources, issues with local campaigns in the provincial capitals of Ballarat and Bendigo and in some key areas in Melbourne’s north, northwest and west.

That doesn’t mean people didn’t turn up, just that they weren’t able to match the Labor machine.

The teals can’t be happy either. Liberals have held the seat of Kew and probably the soft-left inner-city oasis known as Hawthorn.

If this happens, it will be a savage blow for the teals, who were restricted by the donation laws, but neither Liberal candidate in those key seats was swimming in cash compared with the millions splurged in Kooyong earlier this year.

Victorian Nationals leader Peter Walsh. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Nicki Connolly

Contrast the Libs’ omni­shambles with the results achieved by the Nationals’ wily leader, Peter Walsh.

The Nats picked up three new seats, all of which were potentially highly significant for Labor had they been forced into minority.

None of this means that Labor and Andrews deserve a free run to 2026 because the Premier has so much to fix.

The budget is a nuclear strength cock-up, made worse by the selfish spendathon otherwise known as the election.

The public service needs an overhaul, the major projects budget has been smashed, the ambulance system and the health networks are groaning in agony.

Yet one thing stood out on Sunday when Andrews and his deputy, Jacinta Allan, stood in the back garden at parliament.

They looked like they wanted this victory so, so badly.

The same can’t be said for the Liberal Party.

They are lost. Just like Nemo.