Maybe I’m just irritable after five hours on the road, but I’m flabbergasted — almost annoyed — to see the Rosebud Memorial Hall three-quarters full when I arrive. It’s one of the most relentlessly miserable evenings possible — incessant, heavy rain and oppressive, glass-fogging heat at the same time, as though Melbourne thought the whole “four seasons in one day” thing was too slow and decided it was time to jam several climate systems together all at once. It’s the kind of weather that would have you bail on drinks with a friend, and yet here are roughly 100 people who’ve come out to listen to two hours of state politics talk.
Such is the importance of the seat of Nepean, which covers the south-west tip of the Mornington Peninsula, as the horseshoe of outer Melbourne arcs back around Port Phillip. It’s been solidly Liberal since its formation in 2002, until it was unexpectedly snapped up by Labor’s Chris Brayne in the Danslide last time out. He holds it by a feather-light 0.7%. If the Liberal Party can’t win here in 2022, they really are fucked.
They’ve headhunted Sam Groth, a former tennis player and journalist, and you can immediately see what they’re going for here — he’s young and sandy-haired, a foot taller than anyone else on the panel. Brayne, who manages to be visibly even younger than Groth, has a “cool teacher” vibe, and one thing he’s clearly learned in his time in Parliament is political hand gestures, moving an invisible saucer from one table to another as he speaks, throwing an invisible dart to underline points. They both wear the “pollie after hours” uniform of an open collared suit.
Esther Gleixner is there for the Greens. I’ve said before that Greens candidates cannot keep to their allotted time at these things, and Gleixner takes that to comic extremes — reading from a piece of paper in her light, musical voice, she dedicates her opening statement to her pre-politics life, and when she gets to the phrase “so the reason I’m running for the Greens” the timekeeper rings the bell. When she answers the first question, on housing affordability, she starts “I actually have a bit of background in this area…” Christ, Esther, there were parts of your background you didn’t get to in your intro?
Then we have two independents — one of the “pissed off and telling it like it is” variety in Charelle Ainslie and a “sensible centre” type in Elizabeth Woolcock, a lapsed Liberal and former small business owner. And finally, Hank Leine of the Freedom Party of Victoria, formed by anti-lockdown campaigner Morgan Jonas — their merch is the only party branding I see in the crowd, although Brayne appears smiling on the back windows of a few cars outside.
Leine never mentions vaccinations but is very preoccupied with debt, jumping from one idea to another like paving stones that are slightly too far apart — “What do they want next? Your home? Do they want your super to pay their debt? The Freedom Party has doctors to look at health policy, we’ve got tradies, we’ve got the right person for the right job, not someone who used to sell hot dogs out of a caravan looking at health policy.” He calls the major parties the “Labrels”, which is solid.
Groth is still a touch rough around the edges, which is fine, except he fights against it; he’s an energetic talker and he’s across the pitch and the numbers but it makes his stumbles stand out. It’s striking that the Libs, having crashed and burned on confected law and order issues last time out, are trying to fight the ALP on their own territory here — Groth goes hard on health, pitching promised funds for the local hospital, as well as education and climate change. The night before, I’d heard Roma Britnell, the Liberal incumbent in the South West Coast, talk approvingly of a “Nordic model” for recycling — God, Peter Dutton wouldn’t should up for this even if he were invited.
Which makes the Herald Sun‘s recent coverage all the more absurd — Leine believes Victoria’s approach to sex education is “grooming” conducted by paedophiles working under the cover of suppression orders, but he never once says someone can’t break their back on two stairs, or asks who was really behind the wheel in 2013.
Brayne is a relaxed, wonky presence — his wafer-like margin, the weirdness of his winning in the first place means he’s still fighting it as an outsider, pitching himself as the long overdue voice for the area: “The question is, do we want to go back to the status quo, a candidate who takes the Mornington for granted, or do want to keep getting things done?”
Groth is solid, and that’s probably all he needs to be, given everything, but it’s tough to say anyone comfortably won — it’s an old-fashioned two-party fight here, which may account for the slight caution on Groth and Brayne’s part. Added to this there are a bunch of civility rules in place; questions pre-submitted, none from the crowd on the night, candidates could only talk about their own policies, so any jabs at an opponent had to be lightning-quick. None of it lends itself to soaring, inspiring oratory or fiery debate. Apart from a group who clearly loved Brayne, the Freedom Party T-shirts and a few truth-bomb moments from Ainslie, the applause each candidate gets is essentially uniform.
The tenor of the evening is perhaps best summed up by Groth’s closing statement. Extolling a vote for the Liberals, “led by Matt Guy” — the first mention of the Liberal leader in either of the forums I’ve been to so far, contracted to Matt presumably so people would think he was talking about someone else — he’s getting going, rattling off numbers and projects, and just as he says “and so on November 26 I urge you to vote for …” the timekeeper rings her bell, and he has to stop.
