Victoria’s political analysts are predicting the Labor government will be returned, in its own right, at Saturday’s state election.
All agreed there was no sentiment for a change in government, with the coalition not expected to make significant headway and pick up the seven or eight seats, required to gain government.
They said the Greens momentum may now have been checked, with little chance of them forming a coalition with the Labor Party.
“The most likely outcome is a Labor victory, the second most likely outcome is a minority Labor government, with the Greens holding the balance of power,” Dr Economou said. “The least likely outcome is a Coalition victory.”
He said the coalition campaign had been “poor.”
“They have lost any sense of good discipline,” Dr Economou said.
“I would have thought the line to run would have been ‘where’s the money coming from?
“But the Libs are all for locking everyone up and handing out subsidised televisions – it all sounds a bit desperate.”
He said the plan to offer cheap appliances was the Coalition’s version of the Federal Labor Government’s ill-fated “cash for clunkers” plan, which sought to get old cars off the road.
The coalition had financial woes, particularly over its dispute with the Cormack Foundation and campaign funds and the gaoling of its former state director for stealing $1.5million from the party.
No coalition
Dr Economou said it was also unlikely the Labor Party would form a coalition, with the Greens.
“There’ll be no coalition for a couple of reasons,” he said. “Labor won’t do it, and the Greens wouldn’t want to be involved in one.”
Dr Economou said the Greens would be constrained from criticising the government, if they had cabinet ministers inside a coalition.
That was evident in Tasmania, in 2010, when a Labor-Green coalition saw the minority party gain two cabinet positions, in return for support on most policy issues.
“The Greens ran into terrible trouble, in Tasmania,” Dr Economou said.
“I don’t think there is the desire for a coalition, on either side. The Greens would have learned the lesson, from what happened in Tasmania, and opt to stay out of government.
“You can still get what you want with policy outcomes and remain ideologically pure, at the same time, which would be very appealing to the Greens.
“They were a lot more influential on policy issues when they reserved the right to be able to protest.”
He said the Greens were mainly an “inner city phenomenon.
“They are part of the inner city bubble. They have no idea as to what the world is about, beyond the clutch of inner city suburbs, where they reign supreme.
“Their supporters are drawn from a very, very narrow band of the Victorian community.”
He said he was unsure what the Greens would want, in exchange for cabinet positions.
“The other thing is I’m not sure how the government would respond.”
Swings and roundabouts
If Labor was to lose inner-city seats, it could offset that by picking up regional, and outer suburban, electorates.
That was evident when considering where Premier Dan Andrews had spent his time, during the campaign.
“The really important thing is where the Premier has been. He’s not been touring Brunswick, he’s not been taking a tram ride up Sydney Road,” Dr Economou said.
Instead, the Premier had spent a significant amount of time in Bass, stretching from Pakenham to Inverloch, and held by Liberal, Brian Paynter.
But he said there was also the “crucial” question of the seat of Shepparton, held by Independent, Suzanna Sheed.
“We mustn’t forget her; she could be quite important.”
Fellow Monash University academic, Associate Professor Paul Strangio, was slightly less ‘bullish’ than Dr Economou, with the absence of State-wide polls complicating matters.
“That, in itself, is a somewhat striking development,” Assoc Prof Strangio said.
The absence of polling placed “a large caveat” on predicting the outcome, as limited seat-based sampling had little depth and there was no overall trend to go on.
“What polling there has been has tended to suggest, if anything, the sentiment has shifted towards the government, meaning there now seems to be a stronger likelihood it will be returned with a majority.”
He said the campaign itself had been notable for the large number of promises, spread out over a long period.
“The way campaigning expands out is partly a product of having a set date, we always know the election is coming in late November, so there is a sense campaigning begins earlier.
“All the parties try to spread the number of promises out; they can no longer have them in a concise period, right at the end.”
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Battleground seats
He said the election would fall into four main battlegrounds - the sandbelt seats, the outer suburban fringe, rural and regional Victoria and the inner city.
He agreed Ripon, Morwell and Bass were all looming large as key electorates, as were the inner Melbourne seats.
“Brunswick is normally cited as most likely to fall to the Greens, while Labor is far more confident about Richmond,” Assoc Prof Strangio said.
Prahran, which fell to the Greens in 2010 due to a “flukey” preference flow, may well be won by Labor. That would cancel out any loss in Brunswick, held by Labor by 2.2pc.
“Generally, the performance of the Greens is going to be very interesting, in this election.
“There is a sense in which the momentum has shifted since the Federal election for Batman (retained by Labor).
‘You could once argue, with some credibility, that the Greens were enjoying an inexorable growth trajectory, but there is a sense this may have been interrupted.”
Regional influence
Deakin University’s Geoff Robinson said it was a reasonable assumption to believe the government would be returned.
Dr Robinson agreed the Greens prospects of holding the balance of power had diminished.
Although polls had been wrong in the past, most notably in America, where President Trump lost the popular vote but won crucial marginal seats, that was unlikely in the upcoming State election.
He said both major parties seemed to be playing to their traditional bases – the coalition focussing on crime and road transport, with Labor targetting infrastructure, education and health.
“It seems to have been a very much an urban focussed campaign,” Dr Robinson said.
The state’s most marginal seat, Ripon, currently held by Liberal, Louise Staley by 0.8per cent of the vote, could again fall to Labor.
Ripon covers the area to the west of Ballarat and Bendigo, including major population centres such as Creswick, Ararat, Maryborough, St Arnaud and Stawell.
Dr Robinson said the performance of independents, including Ms Sheed, was also worth watching.
He said the most prominent independent candidates were standing in Benambrah (Bill Tilley, Liberal, with a six pc margin) and Ovens Valley (Tim McCurdy, Nationals, 16.6pc margin).
But he said while Brunswick and Richmond were on the Greens target list, “something would have to go wrong with Labor, for them to lose.
“In the past, when we have had changes in government, its because the party (in power) has underestimated the opposition and run a lazy campaign,” he said.
The Labor Party had run a “pretty focused and ruthless campaign this time around.
“It’s pretty much steady-as-she-goes.
“Labor governments tend to be re-elected in Victoria, it’s very much a Labor voting state these days, and something needs to go wrong for that to change.”
Legislative Council
Victoria’s Legislative Council is notoriously hard to call, say, political commentators.
More seats could fall to micro parties, due to what Assoc Prof Strangio said was “the extraordinarily complicated and convoluted preference arrangements”.
“Labor didn’t have a majority in the current term, and it could well be even more complicated this time,” Assoc Prof Strangio said.
“It adds a mercurial aspect, some of them are single issue micro parties, if they happen to end up in the legislature, they are unknown in terms of policies,” Dr Strangio said.
And Dr Robinson said Victoria could theoretically end up with up to eight micro party members. “It could make for an interesting Upper House,” he said.
The fifth seat in each of the non-metropolitan Upper House regions is currently held by Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party and Vote1 Local Jobs MP’s.
Last election, the Shooters and Fishers were helped by a strong preference deal, which meant it picked up seats in northern and eastern Victoria. Dr Robinson said the rise of the right wing micro parties might make any future Labor government more socially conservative.
But he said the higher degree of political volatility might be a plus for country Victoria, as it could lead to greater attention on those rural seats from the government of the day.
Dr Economou said the size of the Upper House electorates, as well as the number of voters and candidates complicated determining election winners.
He said he could foresee an outcome where the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party, as an anti-conservation party, held the balance of power in the Upper House.
“It seems to be the go-to party for disillusioned coalition voters,” he said.