The Liberals will direct preferences to Labor rather than the Greens at the Victorian election, virtually destroying the minor party's chances of winning seats in the lower house and seizing the balance of power in the state.
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It means Labor is almost guaranteed to retain a suite of inner-Melbourne seats it feared would fall to the Greens, and reduces to almost zero the prospect of a hung Parliament.
The de facto Coalition-Labor alliance to shut out the Greens will be a blow to the Greens, which had hoped to win up to four lower house seats and become the kingmaker of Victorian politics.
Liberal heavyweights including the Opposition Leader, Ted Baillieu, the party president, David Kemp, and the state director, Tony Nutt, resolved last night to ''put the Greens last'' in all 88 lower house seats.
The Liberals were angry to discover the Greens had been negotiating a preference deal with Labor under which the Greens had agreed to buttress the government's vote in 13 of the 15 most marginal seats in the lower house and Labor would preference the Greens in all upper house seats.
The Liberals say their decision is in the best interests of Victoria because it will be spared the instability that followed the federal election.
Mr Baillieu said the decision would give voters a clear choice on Saturday week: either a new Coalition government or a returned Brumby government relying on preferences from the Greens.
The deal came just hours after Mr Baillieu, at his campaign launch, unveiled a $1.4 billion blueprint to fix Melbourne's problem-plagued public transport system.
The money would be spent on 40 new trains over eight years, but only seven in the first term of government. Today he will pledge to start work on an airport rail link.
