Not many Australian opposition leaders have had the opportunity to lose twice — Kim Beazley, Andrew Peacock and Bill Shorten are three federal examples — but departing Victorian Liberal leader Matthew Guy has joined the club after a second thumping on Saturday night.
Even fewer opposition leaders get a third go, although Lawrence Springborg notched up three losses as leader of the Nationals in Queensland, and the Liberals’ Jeff Kennett finally had a win in Victoria on his third attempt in 1992.
There won’t be any return to power for Guy, but at least he achieved a 3%+ Coalition swing in the two-party-preferred (2PP) vote, albeit that was mainly delivered by his Nationals colleagues who regained three regional seats previously lost to independents.
Independents
Indeed it was an ordinary and quite unlucky night for Victoria’s record number of independent candidates. In the federal election, the six main metropolitan teal women all achieved narrow victories over Liberal men (except for Kate Chaney in Curtin who beat Celia Hammond). However, at state level, six female independents topped 46% of the 2CP vote, yet none was able to convert that into a victory against their Coalition opponents.
As for the much-discussed independent men taking on Labor in metropolitan Melbourne, Dr Joe Garra flopped in Point Cook with a primary vote of just 7.4%, Dr Ian Birchall failed to repeat his 2018 heroics in Melton, polling only 9.94%, and Ian Cook’s much-publicised campaign against Daniel Andrews in Mulgrave did deliver a primary vote above 20%, but the premier still comfortably held his seat with a 2PP against second-placed Cook, exceeding 60%.
Greens
The Greens appear to have botched a once-in-a-decade opportunity to sweep the inner city, picking up only one additional seat, Richmond, despite receiving Liberal preferences ahead of Labor (which came out of nowhere the day before early voting started) for the first time since 2006. As such, they simply weren’t ready to fire up successful campaigns in winnable Northcote, Footscray, Albert Park, Preston and Pascoe Vale.
All this will result in a less diverse lower house, with just four Greens, no independents and a comfortable Labor majority of as many as 55 of the 88 seats.
Upper house
The upper house will be a far more interesting affair. It looks like Labor will finish with just 15 of the 40 seats — a significant contrast with Mark McGowan’s landslide in Western Australia in 2021, when he secured majorities in both houses, or with Kennett’s two Victorian landslides in 1992 and 1996.
In his victory speech on Saturday night, Andrews conspicuously failed to mention Guy by name, and he increasingly treats much of the mainstream media with contempt. However, he will need six crossbench votes in the upper house to pass legislation opposed by the Coalition, though it’s unlikely there’ll be a significant legislative agenda heading into the ninth year of his reign.
The Greens were royally screwed in the 2018 election by the Glenn Druery preference wheel, when their upper house numbers crashed from five to one, yet this time they’ve won two upper house seats and could finish with as many as six.
Minor parties
Unlike 2018, when his minor party clients secured a record nine of the 40 upper house seats, Druery faced significant competition this time with the Coalition picking off the trio of Family First, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party.
Druery also faced a rival progressive alliance put together by the Reason Party’s Fiona Patten, who pulled off a masterstroke with the last-minute October 13 registration of Legalise Cannabis Victoria as a feeder party. The feed turned into a preferences feast as the start-up party polled a staggering upper house primary vote averaging almost 5% across the eight regions.
Legalise Cannabis looks like it will achieve the 16.66% quota and win a seat in the Western Metro region — as well as potentially in South-East Metro, based on Antony Green’s projections. But Patten’s history of dealing with the Andrews government also came to the fore this election, with Legalise Cannabis’ preferences pivotal in delivering Labor vital second seats in each of the Eastern Victoria and Southern Metropolitan regions where it traditionally polls poorly.
The Victorian Greens have a history of taking a purist approach to the Andrews government in state Parliament, painting Labor as sell-outs on everything from coal, gas, gambling, public housing and native forest logging, and refusing to deal pragmatically with them. This partly explains why Andrews has sat back and allowed the Druery preference manipulations to continue in Victoria, despite it having been abolished in every other major jurisdiction.
Between the Greens, Legalise Cannabis and Patten — who looks likely to be returned in Northern Metropolitan — and incoming Animal Justice MP Georgie Purcell, the Victorian upper house crossbench is going to have a decidedly progressive feel, although Shooters’ representative Jeff Bourman is likely to get back in Eastern Victoria.
One Nation
One Nation is also in with a chance in Northern Victoria. If it does finally secures its first seat in Victoria, which has traditionally been its least supportive mainland state, it will be a further indictment of the group voting tickets system, as explained in this recent Crikey piece.
Hanson’s ticket polled only 3.94% in Northern Victoria, but appears likely to get home off the back of Coalition preferences. Remember when Peter Costello famously put One Nation last in his seat of Higgins in 1998?
However, there is likely to be an even bigger uproar if former taxi driver Rod Barton from Transport Matters gets another four years after only managing to poll 0.25% of the vote in his North East Metro region.
Barton is coming dead last out of 22 tickets, but the preference flow is so good that if he can just find a way to sneak into second-last place he can still harvest micro preferences all the way to victory.
