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As expected, commentators have put forward a variety of theories explaining why Daniel Andrews is still Victoria’s premier and why the Liberal Party failed so miserably in its campaign to win government.
Theories include: compared to Daniel Andrews, Matthew Guy appeared weak and lacking conviction; the ALP has a more professional and well-oiled campaign machine; the Liberal Party adopting contradictory and ill-defined policies, and Andrews being a consummate political operator better able to manipulate public opinion and the media.
Commentators have also offered solutions to ensure the Liberal Party performs better at the next election. Their proffered solutions include changing the leadership team, getting rid of underperforming members of parliament, preselecting stronger candidates earlier in the election cycle and adopting polices more suited to left-of-centre progressive voters.
Unfortunately, much of the commentary is superficial and anecdotal, with commentators failing to provide any substantial evidence to support their claims. Even worse, all the commentary thus far works on the assumption that political parties must win at all costs. Ignored is the underlying democratic principle that whoever is in government must be there to promote the common good, to help ensure human flourishing and to safeguard liberties and freedoms.
History proves power for power’s sake leads to totalitarian governments of both the left and the right where citizens’ rights are denied and society soon descends into corruption and violence. As Lord Acton put it, power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The record of the governments under Andrews’ control since 2014 speaks for itself. Examples include the Red Shirts affair, branch stacking, politicising the public service, refusing to be open and transparent in response to independent inquiries and cabinet being reduced to a one man’s rubber stamp. More recent examples involve the ALP government’s response to the COVID-19 infection where government over-reach led to essential freedoms and liberties being denied, parliament shut down and MPs denied entry plus resorting to state-sanctioned violence.
As a result of such draconian measures and incompetence approximately 800 died in aged-care facilities, students are a year or more behind in their schooling, small businesses have been bankrupted, rates of anxiety and depression have escalated and there are now year-long waiting lists in elective surgery.
Victoria’s debt, at a time of rising interest rates, exceeds that of Queensland, New South Wales and Tasmania, massive infrastructure projects are way behind schedule and over budget, 33 deaths have occurred due to 000 emergency phone delays and ambulances are “ramped” night after night due to the shortage of available hospital beds.
Of greatest concern, as argued by an ex-Justice of the UK Supreme Court Jonathan Sumption in his Menzies Institute speech, is once long-held liberties and freedoms and parliamentary conventions are ignored “governments rarely relinquish powers that they have once acquired”. What’s to be done? As argued by ex-Prime Minister John Howard, “A political party that does not give pride of place to ideals and values is a political party that will very quickly lose not only its soul but also its sense of direction”.
If the Victorian Liberal Party is ever to prove itself a viable alternative to the Andrew’s government it must define the values and beliefs that differentiate it from the ALP and Greens by presenting policies underpinned and consistent with its core political philosophy.
While written in 1942, Robert Menzies’ ‘Forgotten People’ speech, with its focus on family, self-reliance and small government, is a good place to start when considering what the Liberal Party should stand for and what it is committed to achieving if it wins government four years hence.
More specifically, Liberals must champion our Westminster-inspired parliamentary system underpinned by concepts such as popular sovereignty, the separation of powers, ministerial responsibility and government being transparent and accountable to the people.
The common law legal system inherited from the United Kingdom must also be defended. As Lord Sumption argues, government mandated lockdowns, border closures and forcing people to get the jab all run counter to a legal system based on the right to autonomy and liberty free from government over-reach and coercion.
A legal system that can be traced back to the Glorious Revolution and Magna Carta and that draws on both natural justice and the New Testament and that once lost is almost impossible to reinstate.
In the election just concluded it was obvious the Liberal Party had no idea what it stood for. In addition to expelling Bernie Finn from the party for opposing abortion, Matthew Guy also told Renee Heath, a Liberal candidate for the upper house and target of a Nine Media hit job she would not be allowed to sit in the party room because of her links to a Christian church. So much for freedom of religion and freedom of expression!
The Liberal opposition also went missing during the two-plus years of draconian and unjust measures inflicted on Victorians by the Andrew’s government as a result of COVID-19. In desperation, the party also tried to outdo the Andrews government’s zero emissions policy as well as massively increasing unsustainable government debt.
Given most of the Liberal members of parliament seem consumed with self-interest and with inter-party personalities and rivalries it should not surprise the party was bereft of well researched, persuasive and convincing policies at the recent election. Ensuring a better result in four years starts now. Against bitter experience, one can only hope for the future of democracy in Victoria that the Liberal Party and its new leadership team have it within them to rise to the task.
Dr Kevin Donnelly is a senior fellow at the ACU’s PM Glynn Institute and author of The Dictionary Of Woke.
The power-brokers and leaders in the Liberal Party are currently captive to the prevailing cultural zeitgeist. To survive as a party that can credibly differentiate itself from the ALP and Greens, the Libs are gonna need a mighty powerful new broom to sweep their house clean and get back to championing the interests of middle and aspirational Australia. Unfortunately (for the Libs), this will need something more like a road suction sweeper than a broom. Can’t see that happening anytime soon. Fortunately (for the rest of us) there remains the hope that the Nats, with the aid of a modest dust-buster and a re-brand, could step in to the breach.
What a good idea: “#Taking Politics Out Of Climate Change.”
Almost as difficult as taking “change” out of the climate. T
The issue of course has been so corrupted by politics for decades.
We have a Minister of Climate Change determined to disrupt and demolish a functioning ES energy market while claiming it’s in the public interest as it will enable the government to control the weather and increasing number of flying pigs sighted over the ACT and other states.
Expect the new environment agency proposed this week will become a similar beast to BOM, CSIRO and so on: staffed by career activists who we are told ad nauseum are “independent”.
Was it Richard Feynman who warned us to be wary of believing too much in what he called “the ignorance of experts?
You lose the argument when you adopt your opponent’s language.
Why ever say “the need for transition to renewables”, “Net zero”and even “Minister for Climate and Energy”
As the Minister will have ono effect on the climate, why not call him “Minister for Energy and Climate Fantasy”?
And how about the $1 billion flushed down the drain due to cancellation of a tunnel project when Andrews first came to power? Hope is not a strategy, Kevin. Until the conservative voters of Victoria get off their LFAs and work individually and collectively, at reinstating the ideas set out by Menzies, the state will sink further into the nether regions of the socialist gutter. You are right, Alice. It was Richard P. Feynman who said that science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts.
Firstly a political party must have principles, then it has policies, then it has tactics.
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Guess where the Libs are lacking in their quest to be all things to all voters? Even to the extent of preferencing the Greens before Labor.
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A good article by Kevin with some telling truths, not the least being about Bernie Finn and Renee Heath as the grovelling Libs showed that they have no spleen.
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Sorry but I also have no time for Howard, he who perfected the art of using much taxpayers money to promote Party policy immediately before calling an election on that issue. The only sense he has made was when he criticized his own Victorian party branch for preferencing Adam Bandt ahead of Labor thus giving the Greens their first seat in the House of Reps.
The Liberal party in Victoria lost because it deserved to. The fact that Australia’s most corrupt (red shirts, multiple IBAC investigations), incompetent (health system, hotel quarantine) and brutal (world record lockdowns) state government beat them easily, speaks volumes. The Liberals lost because they betrayed every principle they once had to pursue a tactic of Labor-lite, despite the fact that this has failed repeatedly at state and federal level except (so far) in NSW and Tasmania. Matt Keen, of course, is diligently trying this in NSW, which will be the end of the last Liberal state government on the mainland next year. Einstein said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, and that certainly sounds like Treasurer Keen and the Victorian Liberals.
The idea that the Victorian Liberals could find their way back to relevance is laughable. The only response for Victorians who don’t want to die waiting for an ambulance or have their children indoctrinated with identity politics, is to head north across the Murray.
Did either major party deserve to win the Victorian election? Probably not. After eight long years in government Labor has essentially botched what is arguably currently the most important area of government in Victoria : the health system.
And the LNP in Victoria appears to have no discernible philosophy or policy structure. Neither deserved to win.
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But someone had to win. And it was the Andrews’ Labor government which won.
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Neither campaigned all that well. Both tried a touch of smear and character attacks. I don’t think there’s any great lesson for the LNP in how Labor campaigned, with perhaps Labor’s policy to re-establish the State Electricity Commission being a possible exception. According to Labor internal polling it got traction. Whether Labor will ever bring it back as promised is another question. But the promise seemed to work positively. According to Labor internal polling it was a turning point in the campaign.
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While like Labor the LNP didn’t deserve to win they could have if they’d campaigned well enough. Victoria was overdue for change and the health system by every objective criterion was in crisis and still is. The health crisis in Victoria is certainly an extremely serious issue and it’s clearly happened during eight long years of Labor rule.
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A properly targetted campaign could have held Labor totally responsible for the dire state of the health system – simply using objective measures of performance without any negative rhetoric or anti vax or anti lockdown rhetoric or personal attacks on Daniel Andrews. The simple objective health performance measures are very alarming in themselves. They should have led to a change of government.
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If the LNP had concentrated their campaign on that issue alone without the Andrew’s character attacks and without touches anti lockdown rhetoric they would have won.
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Ironically that rhetoric probably went down well in a number of Labor electorates which actually saw swings to the LNP of around 10% and even higher. But these were electorates where the margins in Labor’s favour are just too great and they can never be won by the LNP.
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On the hand the LNP campaign failed miserably to attract enough votes in a number of winnable electorates that the LNP had to win to achieve government.
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We saw a similar phenomenon in the federal election. The most important example of it was in Kooyong where Josh Freydenberg was defeated in what was once a guaranteed blue ribbon Liberal seat. Josh Freydenberg is a very well qualified MP and has always been an extremely hard working and effective minister and is quite a personable human being yet he lost a heartland Liberal seat.
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Why? Following the sorts of arguments implied in this article and in some comments you’d be inclined to think he wasn’t conservative enough. Yet those who took the votes off him were far less conservative than he is.
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Well then why did he lose? It’s a key issue.
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Josh Freydenberg was arguably the leading federal voice against the management of covid in Victoria particularly against the Andrews’ government lockdowns and restrictions. Whether he had his heart in it or not always puzzled me. My view is it was what cost him his seat to a far less conservative teal.
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If a highly intelligent, personable, well qualified,hard working and effective minister can’t hold his seat in the Liberal heartland it should be setting off alarm bells in the Liberal party. It may be starting to in Victoria but it certainly isn’t at the federal level.
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There was a sizable swing to the LNP in Victoria and a slight swing away from Labor. Of course Labor was on a high base from their last landslide win.
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However at the last federal election there was a small swing away from Labor and a huge swing away from the Coalition . The Coalition vote was a disaster. It represented an incredible 70 year low.
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The remedy was to put Peter Dutton in as leader. Every poll since he took over the leadership has had the Coalition vote considerably lower than the disastrous election result. The latest opinion poll has the Coalition’s primary vote a massive 5.7% lower than the disastrous election result – down from 35.7% to 30%. And Labor is up from 32% at the last election to 42% now.
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Why? It’s not as if Labor is a brilliant government showing outstanding leadership. It’s failing miserably on the major inflation issue for example – leaving all the heavy lifting to the Reserve Bank.
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It’s not that the Coalition leader isn’t conservative enough. His base is the conservative side of the party.
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It’s because the federal opposition is a fence-sitting shadow of what a real opposition ought to be. The current opposition spends its time waiting for gotcha moments to pin on Labor rather than proposing genuine policies. The Coalition seems like it’s on a holiday after 9 years in government. And the continuing disastrous opinion polls show the people are well aware of it.
I agree Ian , and the Pell persecution can be added to Andrews CV of shame , yet despite the Libs deserving to lose due to wind sniffing me-tooism , and that nowadays there’s a dental floss difference between western parties , how on earth could the Victorian populace reward Andrews for his malfeasance ? Any one issue would signal the end of office , but there he is , his policies vindicated (In his mind) , the people have spoken ! This is why I fear for the west – the ignorance of our collective citizenry , soon to be subjects .
Kevin ,may I have some license?
I will use the sentiments of Doctor Peter Kreeft ,in regard to idiots. To call the Liberal Party a bunch of idiots is an unbelievably big insult to the Labor party!
And the Liberal Party ought to stop blaming its leaders for poor results in Victoria and federally and take a deeper look at itself. It needs to develop sound policies for Australia’s future at state and federal level and not be deflected from doing that by using the unpopular leader angle as a cop-out. There’s plenty of scope for superior conservative policies.
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For example Scott Morrison’s so called lack of popularity has been blamed for much of the Liberal Party woes. That’s been floated as an excuse for losing Josh Freydenberg’s Kooyong seat.
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Painting Scott Morrison as unpopular was part of Labor’s winning federal election strategy along with a small target approach on policy. The mainstream media went right along with both – some media incredibly even going out of their way to praise the small target approach. A dishonest approach which holds back valuable information from the electorate and eats away at our democratic system.
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Eventually there was arguably a bandwagon effect on Morrison’s so called unpopularity when at long last Anthony Albanese just nudged very slightly ahead of him as preferred PM in polls. Until that point Scott Morrison had been clearly ahead in nearly every poll as preferred PM. You would not think that from the mainstream media today. They’re still pushing Labor’s last election strategy on Morrison’s so called deep unpopularity.
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Of course a leader’s personal popularity doesn’t guarantee victory. The very successful John Howard was never overly popular but his policies were so sound and well argued he didn’t need to be very popular personally.
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But when an opposition leader is grossly unpopular, has little or no policies and fence sits, and looks mainly for gotcha moments to pin on the government – a party has a real problem. That’s the case with Peter Dutton.
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He mainly agrees with Labor, fence sits or looks for gotcha moments to pin on Labor. There are no well argued alternative policies coming from his opposition. And there’s plenty of scope for them. The Albanese government is no world beater.
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Of course on any objective measure he is also grossly unpopular with the electorate. It’s a double whammy for the Coalition. The latest preferred PM opinion poll for example has Peter Dutton on 19% compared with Anthony Albanese on 57%). On most opinion polls Scott Morrison led as preferred PM.
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However unlike with Scott Morrison you won’t constantly read about Peter Dutton’s unpopularity in the mainstream media because they like Labor are very happy with Peter Dutton as Liberal leader. They know he can never win an election.
Ryan Anderson makes the case that cultural and demographic trends are running against the Liberals:
https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/12/why-we-never-win/
Perhaps the Liberals should have done something to fix our education system, fight the culture wars and rein in mass immigration when they had the chance.
Watching the Q&A session with Andrews and Guy on Fox I wanted to give Guy a good shake, yelling wake up you wet lettuce. He had at his disposal enough ammo to destroy Andrews, but didn’t fire a shot. Good riddance.