If the Victorian election were a boxing match, the ref would have stopped the fight. Except that the election isn’t until November 26.
The fact that Melburnians suffered one of the world’s longest lockdowns under Covid won’t be enough to stop Premier Daniel Andrews gaining a third term.
Last weekend Andrews basked in the favourable publicity generated by his announcement of free university places for nursing students. As feelgood stories go, this was a ripper. Meanwhile The Weekend Australian proclaimed on its front page: ”The Andrews era to live on”. The paper’s Newspoll gave Labor a lead of 56-44 (two-party preferred) over the Coalition led by Matthew Guy.
The Liberals live in a world of pain caused by an internal scandal that has overshadowed Labor’s own internal scandals. Under Guy they ceded the plumb seat of Hawthorn in 2018, and now another stronghold, Kew, is likely to fall to a Teal independent.
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It is not healthy for a government to face no realistic challenge, but that is often the case in state politics. Labor’s biggest electoral problem is that the Greens continue to nibble away at its support in inner Melbourne electorates.
The ALP was out of office in Victoria for 27 straight years until 1982. The rupture known as ”the Split” in 1955 cost the party its Catholic supporter base and pushed the party towards the hard left. Only after federal intervention in the state branch’s affairs did Labor become electable under centrist forces.
The Liberals, in the grip of puerile careerists on the hard right, face something similar until they can tack back to the centre. The party may pick up some outer Melbourne seats on the back of lockdown disillusionment but it has no hope of gaining the 19 seats needed to form a majority in the Legislative Assembly.
Since 1982 Victoria’s politics have increasingly mirrored those of Labor and the Greens. There is an inquiry into colonialism, something that will likely be adopted by the Albanese government after the Voice referendum.
Mark Sawyer is a journalist with extensive experience in print and digital media in Sydney, Melbourne and rural Australia.