Since nothing is forever in politics, it is worth not linking too much with orthodox opinions.
With more than four months to go before polling day, the 2022 Victoria election campaign has begun. Preliminaries are out of the way. The resignations and retirements of both parties have been announced. Daniel Andrews has his plan of succession and, by implication, his total domination of government and the ALP.
Premier Daniel Andrews. Credit: The Age
Matthew Guy’s transformation from the terrifying and permanently furious opposition leader of 2018 to an equitable father continues. Party mails have begun to reach the mailboxes of key voters in recent days. The standard view seems to be that a majority Andrews government, after winning so much last time, can expect to be re-elected after getting a bit of an electoral haircut. Is this a certainty?
Political settlements come and go. Between 1955 and 1982, the Liberal Party ruled Victoria in its own right, without the need to form a coalition with the National Party (formerly Country). Throughout those 27 years, Labor has never been in a genuine dispute. But in the 40 years since 1982, the Liberal-National Coalition has held office for a total of just 11 years and Victoria has come to be known as the safest Labor state in the country.
Recent history brings lessons for today. We take the 2010 state election. Labor was looking for a fourth term with John Brumby, who had succeeded Steve Bracks in the medium term. Four months into election day, as we are now, the government recorded 56% of the bipartisan preferential vote on Newspoll. Things looked good.
But the ALP campaigned weakly. The Liberals, led by Ted Baillieu, put together a good one. The poor performance of the Frankston Railroad, which ran through five marginal seats occupied by Labor, produced an electoral disaster for the Brumby government: in the election, all five seats fell to the Liberals. In all, the Coalition won 13 seats, enough to give it a parliamentary majority.
One thing you can say about Daniel Andrews is that voters don’t need to send him a message twice. The Frankston line now has renovated stations and many level crossing removals. Bentleigh, Mordialloc, Carrum and Frankston, home of the line south of Caulfield, are back in Labor hands and are likely to stay there.
But the state has changed since 2010. It has grown. Western suburbs have erupted. Growth in the north and southeast has been almost the same. And society’s attitudes toward politics and politicians are changing. We saw it in the May federal election. Ties to major parties are waning, in some places quite hastily.