What Victorian wipe-out means for Liberals

The bluest of blue ribbon seats are gone in Melbourne — so how will the Liberals find a way to claim their heartland back?

This isn’t the wipe-out the Liberal Party always feared in Victoria. It’s worse.

Kooyong, Goldstein and Higgins — the bluest of blue ribbon seats — are gone. Chisholm is now safe Labor territory, no longer a marginal battleground, and Deakin and Menzies could fall too, even though the opposition barely bothered to campaign there.

With almost 70 per cent of the vote counted, the Liberal primary is just 28.92 per cent, a 5.96 per cent swing since 2019. The party has been crushed in Melbourne even as Labor’s primary also dropped by 3.99 per cent.

It is a similar story in Sydney, Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane, where the common thread is Scott Morrison’s unpopularity.

But lumping the loss solely at the feet of the prime minister ignores bigger structural challenges that will be more difficult to resolve — especially given Peter Dutton looms as the only option to lead the Liberals.

Former Prime Minister John Howard with Katie Allen, who has lost the seat of Higgins. Picture: Ian Currie

While the Queenslander is popular among his colleagues, and more pragmatic than his hard-headed public conservatism would suggest, he has never appealed to inner-city voters.

The fact is the Liberal Party will not be able to govern while it is barely winning a quarter of Victoria’s 39 seats.

It will have to find a way to claim back its heartland from the teal independents, a task only possible by offering a more ambitious agenda on climate change.

Morrison’s achievement to negotiate net zero through the Coalition should not be underestimated. The issue destroyed many before him.

But the Liberal Party should think long and hard about whether it can recover in opposition while formally tied to the Nationals.

Internally, some Liberals admire Dutton’s ability to work across the party’s broad church.

Peter Dutton has never appealed to inner-city voters. Picture: Zak Simmonds

However, with most of their moderate MPs dumped from parliament, it’s hard to see who will convince and help him push the party room closer to the political centre.

Conservatives think this purge is proof they should shift to the right, which fundamentally misunderstands the identity crisis the party faces.

That is not to say Dutton should not continue Morrison’s belated effort to target aspirational voters in Labor’s outer suburban seats.

But in Victoria, the Liberal Party is not even close to competitive in the growing western and northern suburbs.

Asked about this by the Herald Sun last week, Morrison was dismissive.

Politics is a numbers game, and that’s where the numbers are.

Until the Liberals offer voters a genuine alternative in those seats, they will struggle to form government again.

Originally published as What Victorian wipe-out means for Liberals