A vote for self-belief

THE game has just changed in a big way.

Just a few days ago, the prospect of a hung parliament and the Greens gaining the balance of power was a real possibility.

With polls showing their vote at 14 per cent, the Greens were looking as if they would get up to four inner-city seats and might decide who won government.

Not any more. The Liberal Party has just shot down that Greens dream in flames and, in turn, possibly killed its own chances of dislodging the 11-year-old Brumby government.

By effectively giving three, if not four, inner-city seats to Labor, it has made its job to win 13 seats to form government much more difficult. Labor headquarters will be very happy with this scenario. It will no doubt redirect the huge amounts of resources devoted to saving the inner-city from the Greens to its fight against the Liberals in suburbia.

It is hard to understand the rationale of this decision. The Liberals and Nationals were copping flak for preferencing the Greens, and there was no way the Greens would have ever formed a coalition with the conservative parties in a hung parliament.

But surely a minority Greens/Labor government - not unlike the federal situation - would have been better for the opposition than a re-elected Labor government. The only answer is the Coalition must really believe it can win this election in its own right.