Results suggest Brumby bush push has failed

AFTER almost 11 years of government and 25 days of campaigning, the Victorian election boils down to one thing: a referendum on John Brumby.

That may sound obvious, given he is the leader of the state government, but the spotlight has shone harshly on the Premier these past weeks because Labor has chosen to make him the sole focus of their campaign.

Their main slogan is: "For the times ahead: John Brumby, Victorian Labor." His smiling face has been pasted on every billboard, most ads and all press releases.

And the Labor launch was all about him.

Held in his old stamping ground of Bendigo, it was dominated by an Australian Story-style video in which he drank tea, sheared sheep, walked around his farm and even professed his love of trees. And not a windsor knot in sight.

The only thing missing was him strolling along a sunset beach.

So the latest Newspoll will send shockwaves through the party.

The government's plummeting primary vote and the dive in Brumby's popularity mean Labor's campaign to soften the abrasive Premier appears not to have averted an electoral reckoning.

If the Newspoll swings prove correct, Brumby will join only a handful of state leaders not to win government in their own right.

It will be a devastating loss for him personally, and for the party.

What will also alarm Labor is that the poll predicts most of the Liberal gains will be in the suburbs.

Labor has spent a significant chunk of the election campaign in the bush, working off the strategy that if it holds the regional seats it gained off Jeff Kennett in 1999, it can retain government.

This poll throws that assertion into doubt.