So far these losers are playing in a scoreless draw

A mighty fine choice: untrustworthy Labor leader Daniel Andrews, left, or a Coalition led by Matthew Guy, right, without a clue.

I’m not averse to watching a random game of football. But, from time to time, my strongest reaction is the hope both teams lose.

This is how I feel about the Victorian election. I hope both sides lose. Not that I am rooting for the gaggle of minor parties. I hope they lose, too.

Labor should not be re-elected given the string of scandals, deterioration in law and order, clear instances of mismanagement and its preposterous, grovelling efforts to reel in inner-city voters who might otherwise go Greens.

But the Coalition is weak as water. Its messaging is unclear, its communication strategy is hopelessly ineffective and what new policies it has offered are mostly bizarre or pointless. Sadly, many of these policies don’t come cheap, although it’s true the Coalition is racking up fewer billions of dollars than Labor — at this stage, at least.

Liberal Matthew Guy is not well known, even though he was planning minister in the short-lived, forgettable Baillieu-Napthine Coalition government. The Opposition Leader has the cut-through of melted butter.

There are issues that have landed at the opposition’s feet that are ripe for securing electoral advantage: excessive population growth, overdevelopment, traffic congestion, overcrowded schools and hospitals and rising crime rates.

However, it’s hard to see why voters would get excited about the Coalition’s idea of establishing a population commission or pushing decentralisation.

And while Guy talks tough on crime, there has not been a great deal of discussion on tackling this difficult issue, particularly in the context of the overrepresentation of certain ethnic groups. Having said this, the recent terrorist-­related incident in Bourke Street has played into his hands.

Among the Coalition’s particularly silly policy initiatives are the installation of solar panels at schools and subsidising the purchase of new TVs or fridges for low-income voters so they can cut power bills.

While Guy opposes Labor’s lun­atic idea to impose a renewable energy target of 50 per cent by 2030 — voters of Richmond, are you taking notice? — he uses a soft voice. Similarly, Labor’s insane announcement it would create a permanent moratorium on fracking, notwithstanding that scientific consensus has it a safe process, barely raised a squeak from the Coalition.

It’s unclear what the Coalition stands for. The view is that population growth is too high, but it’s not obvious what is being proposed apart from creating some incentives for people and businesses to flee Melbourne.

It views Labor’s climate change policies as extreme but it backs a series of harebrained initiatives itself. Law and order is a big issue but, again, we don’t have a well-­defined vision of how things are going to improve.

By rights, Labor should be voted out. Early in its term, it was forced to expend more than $1 billion of taxpayer funds to compensate the contracted parties for the cancellation of the East-West Link. This was notwithstanding the fact we had been promised that no compensation would be payable. We have had the Red Shirts scandal in which Labor MPs, including now serving ministers, were involved in the misuse of taxpayer funds for electioneering purposes.

The Andrews government has spent endless hours and more taxpayer dollars to prevent inquiries into this, even though Labor reimbursed the primary amount of money taken. Victoria Police is involved — but even ministers are refusing to be interviewed.

That there is so little outrage about this can be blamed partly on the ineffectiveness of the opposition as well as the lack of interest by the major news outlets apart from the Herald Sun.

When it comes to scandals, we should not go past the murky and expensive deals Labor has done to placate the ambos and firefighters and their aligned trade unions. It was outrageous that the paramedics were not prevented from using publicly funded ambulances on which they scrawled anti-­Coali­tion political slogans during the previous election campaign. No surprise then that, once elected, Labor entered into an overly generous, secretive deal with the ambos and their union.

But the industrial dispute with the firefighters really takes the cake. The issues at stake have not been just about adding to the absurdly lavish pay and conditions of professional firefighters but also about administrative changes that would displace volunteer firefighters with professional ones.

The head of the United Firefighters Union effectively saw off one government minister and is campaigning against her election to a seat in the upper house. The UFU managed to have suppressed a clearly unfavourable report about the extent of bullying and misogyny within the service.

In the meantime, the Andrews government finalised a shady confidential deal with the UFU, and nobody with any authority was allowed to stand in the way of this appalling, expensive outcome.

Labor supporters will point to its achievements, particularly in the infrastructure space. Mind you, cancelling a much needed road-tunnel project was not a good start and now it is being replaced with another one that will not be finished for years.

Removing the rail level crossings certainly makes sense, but the use of sky rails without adequate consultation and the consent of the locals is all part of the style of the Andrews government.

And while the details are never fully disclosed, it’s clear that these infrastructure projects have been very expensive. When the person holding the stop-slow sign on the freeway extension is being paid $150,000 a year, we know value for money is a problem. The cosy arrangement between the Andrews government and the CFMEU means projects are costing much more than they should.

The strong Victorian economy may save the Andrews government, although per capita growth is much less impressive than the gross figures would suggest. But unemployment is relatively low and jobs have been growing strongly.

While Labor has failed to constrain the growth of public sector jobs and the associated costs — did it ever want to? — and state debt is blowing out, the fiscal position of the state remains acceptable. Given that property stamp duty makes up one-third of state revenue, any downturn in the real estate market, particularly in volume terms, will have a large negative impact on the budget bottom line. Things could easily deteriorate markedly in the next four years.

Sadly, my hope that both sides will lose at the next Victorian election won’t be achieved. Either way, Victorians will continue to be badly governed.