The year in state and federal politics saw Labor, Independents and the Victorian National Party emerge as the biggest winners of 2022.
In contrast, political commentators were unanimous in saying the Liberal Party - federally and at a state level - was now in crisis
In Victoria, Labor won 56 seats in the 88-seat Legislative Assembly, a net increase of one seat from the 2018 'Danslide', while junior coalition partner the National Party, took back three seats held by independents, to increase its representation to nine.
Deakin University senior lecturer Dr Geoff Robertson said the election resulted in Victoria ending up as a "very polarised" state.
"The Liberals were squeezed out, with the regional independents losing ground to the Nationals," he said.
In Melbourne, the Liberal Party lost out to Labor.
"Regional areas are not enthused by the Labor Party," Dr Robertson said.
"But in Victoria, that is outweighed by Melbourne and the big provincial cities, so it doesn't really make much difference. One view of the Andrews government is that it is urban-focused - in Victoria urban, of course, now means Bendigo, Ballarat and Geelong".
Keating style
Dr Robertson said Mr Andrews had a "(Paul) Keating" style, fashioned after the former Labor Prime Minister.
"It was interesting that in his victory speech he quoted Keating - it's that Jack Lang (former NSW Labor premier)/Keating style, it's better to be hated than people feeling indifferent about you.
"That fires up your own support base and helps hold off the Greens - he is a polarising figure.
"The rusted-on conservatives are unhappy, but Victoria is not a state where there are that many rusted-on conservative voters."
The Nationals could make the case that they had renewed, by standing younger female candidates.
"That's been the problem with the Liberals, they haven't renewed; even if (National Party leader) Peter Walsh looks like the archetypal old farmer, overall I think the Nationals have done a good job of updating themselves," he said.
The personal style and ability of National MPs, such as Lowan's Emma Kealy, had helped.
Dr Robertson said appeared Ms Kealy was one opposition MP who appeared to have positive relations connections with government ministers.
"The Nationals have a suite of MPs who are going to be pretty good at that one-on-one lobbying."
The government would not be doing anything the opposition told it to do, so "quiet lobbying" would be required.
Dr Robertson said the negative campaign, run by the Liberal Party, did not work.
"I thought the state government was showing its age, but the Liberals didn't come across as a credible alternative - what positive messages they had were drowned out by the 'get Dan' stuff."
"Labor could point to lots of big things going on and that appeal to the 'can-do' worked for Andrews as well."
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Nasty campaign
La Trobe University adjunct research fellow Ian Tulloch said in Victoria it had been an "extremely nasty" campaign, targeted at the Premier and his family.
"His handling of the pandemic the election result was overwhelmingly an endorsement of his handling of the pandemic and his personal leadership style," Mr Tulloch said.
He wasn't surprised the independents didn't do as well in the state election, as they did federally.
"They weren't as high profile as they were federally, and they didn't have the funding, unlike the campaign 'spendathon' in Victoria - at least one of the Teals, federally, spent $2 million," he said.
In Bendigo, Ballarat and Geelong, sitting Labor members were returned with strong voter support.
"In South Barwon, just outside of Geelong, there was a 6 per cent swing to Labor - there have been a lot of demographic changes in the Surf Coast, people shifting out of Melbourne for a different lifestyle," he said.
"Those people are often high-income earning professionals, they can work from home, and they are Green or Labor voters.
Ripon, won by Labor's Martha Haylett from sitting Liberal MP Louise Staley, was an interesting result
"With all the publicity about transmission lines, across all that farming land, that really didn't help the Liberals at all," Mr Tulloch said.
"The people that were protesting the most were Liberal and National Party voters - similar to 2018, with all the hullabaloo about the CFA, which had no impact at all."
Liberal woes
At a federal level, Australian National University Professor of History, Frank Bongiorno, said the coalition had enjoyed a very good year, in 2020, in terms of COVID management.
"At the end of 2020, there was a general sense Australia had come out of that year in much better shape than many other countries, perhaps most other countries," Prof Bongiorno said.
But by 2021, there was a "sense of decay" about the federal government, and that it had not handled the pandemic very well.
"In the early months of 2022, the significance of COVID, in the public debate, declined quite rapidly as the federal election approached and in a lot of ways it wasn't a very prominent issue.
"There was a sense of the fragility and vulnerability of the federal government."
The election was a huge "earthquake" in many ways, with the change of government and rise of the independents and minor parties, he said.
"We have never had a government come to power with a primary vote in the low thirties, so it suggests a really significant shift away from the major parties," Prof Bongiorno said.
"Voters have shown now, very dramatically, they are much more willing to shop around, to have a look at other possibilities, in a way that was unthinkable 30 years ago."
For the Liberal Party, it was "a very bad year - they are a party in real crisis now".
Women were critical, and the coalition lost a lot of support over issues that were "animating" people, such as climate change, integrity and anti-corruption issues, he said.
Mr Tulloch said a lot had been said about why Prime Minister Scott Morrison lost the election.
"A fair bit of it has to do with him and his own unpopularity," Mr Tulloch said.
"With (Queensland MP for Dickson) Peter Dutton as leader they face a rather daunting future, because he is not that popular, outside of Queensland.
"Because he comes from the right, he is not the sort of person who can return the party to the centre of politics, where they can win an election - they do face a number of problems in terms of attracting young and female voters to vote for them"
He said it would take more than one electoral term to rebuild..
Andrew Miller
I'm a general reporter with Stock & Land, with a special interest in irrigation issues. I completed my cadetship, with the Age, in 1980. Over my career, I've worked for ABC radio news (Mt Isa, Qld) and at provincial and suburban newspapers.
I'm a general reporter with Stock & Land, with a special interest in irrigation issues. I completed my cadetship, with the Age, in 1980. Over my career, I've worked for ABC radio news (Mt Isa, Qld) and at provincial and suburban newspapers.
