Victorian state election: Denis Napthine should not have lost, not if history is any guide
Date November 29, 2014 - 8:44PM
Josh Gordon
Denis Napthine should not have lost. Not if history is any guide. The recriminations for the Liberal Party – at both the state and national levels – will be significant.
As the Coalition would be painfully aware, there has not been a single-term government in Victoria since 1955, when John Cain senior was ousted as a result of the great Labor split.
On Saturday evening, as the disastrous results for the government began to filter through the Liberal Party's consciousness, senior figures from both the state and federal governments were scrambling to apportion blame in the race to influence the first draft of history.
One senior state Liberal put it, state-specific factors played the biggest part, although the federal budget, and Tony Abbott's performance more generally, acted as a ball-and-chain for the Napthine government. As if it needed any more handicaps.
When the Coalition crept into power in November 2010, the consensus was that Ted Baillieu would significantly build on his narrow majority the second time around, just as Steve Bracks did in 2002 when he won 62 out of 88 seats after three years of minority government.
Baillieu controlled both houses of Parliament, which theoretically gave him a historic opportunity to implement his agenda. Moreover, he enjoyed considerable public good will after 11 years of Labor.
The best Labor might have hoped for in early 2011 was to rebuild and regroup, with a view to winning in 2018.
Yet somehow along the way things went disastrously wrong for the Coalition government.
At the time of writing, Labor looked likely to win at least 45 seats in the 88 seat house. That would represent the barest of majorities, with the Greens on track to win the seat of Melbourne and possibly Richmond.
One thing is obvious: this election has been a tremendous political achievement by Daniel Andrews and Labor, and a dreadful political fumble by the Liberal Party in a state that was once supposed to be the jewel in the Liberal crown.
The result – and the question of how the Coalition squandered its position after just four years – will be dissected and studied around the nation as a watershed moment in Australian political history.
There is no single thing that went wrong for the Coalition. A combination of factors played a role.
First, Baillieu's first two years were characterised by a palpable sense of inertia. Efforts were made to repair the budget and implement election promises. But by the middle of 2012, there was a palpable sense of despair in government ranks that the processes of government were not functioning as they should. In fact, they were failing.
Second, switching leaders mid-stream was always going to be difficult. The change from Baillieu to Napthine was never really properly explained to voters. People were simply asked to accept it. Typically history would suggest leadership transitions to unelected leaders are problematic. This was certainly the experience with John Brumby, Christina Keneally, Joan Kirner, Anna Bligh, Julia Gillard and Lara Giddings.
Napthine injected some energy, but he failed to provide a unifying theme as to what the shaky government with an unelected leader was about.
Napthine was always adept at reeling off a long list of achievements and projects (and it was a reasonably good list), but less capable of fitting all those pieces together such that they would come to be seen by the electorate as a coherent whole.
Third, for much of the past two years the parliament has resembled a circus, largely because the government failed to manage Geoff Shaw, who deserted the Liberal Party to become a balance-of-power independent. Not only did Shaw precipitate the demise of Baillieu (after declaring a lack of confidence in his leadership) he also dispatched Ken Smith as speaker (again after declaring a lack of confidence in his ability to control the parliament). Labor exploited this ruthlessly to inflict maximum pain for the government.
Forth, if all this was't bad enough, Tony Abbott added further led to Napthine's saddle bags. Abbott almost certainly severely damaged the Liberal brand in Victoria. The perception of Abbott was one of incompetence, unfairness and dishonesty. Small wonder state Labor campaigned hard to remind voters at every opportunity that Napthine and Abbott are on the same team.
Finally, simply put Labor ran a far superior campaign. The Liberal campaign lacked coherence, failed to engage most of the mainstream media and failed in terms of a ground offensive. In many ways it was a style of campaign which more belonged in the Kennett era.
Labor, which had less money, ran a strategically clever ground campaign using thousands of volunteers in key marginals.
It will be a tough task for a next generation of Liberals – including Michael O'Brien, Matthew Guy and Mary Wooldridge – to rebuild. Daniel Andrews too, will face challenges, including managing the factional system, the unions and – just maybe – the Greens in the parliament.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/victoria-state-election-2014/victorian-state-election--denis-napthine-should-not-have-lost-not-if-history-is-any-guide-20141129-11wvdg.html