Lessons from the Victorian Election analyse reasons for Coalition loss

 
    February 03, 2015
    Herald Sun

Denis Napthine’s Liberal Party has been accused of worrying too much about internal politics.

WITH the finger pointing in Liberal and National ranks reaching a crescendo following Saturday’s disastrous Queensland election result, political experts are still grappling with what went wrong for the Coalition in Victoria last November.   

Speaking at the Lessons from the Victorian Election on Friday night, a forum hosted by The Taxpayers’ Alliance, The Australian’s political journalist Christian Kerr said he thought the former Liberal Government was “utterly obsessed with internal party politics” and only lasted one term because it got the “politics wrong from the word go”.

Mr Kerr said when first elected in 2010, the then Baillieu Government was more interested in themselves than helping the people that put them there.

He questioned why the Liberal Party launched its campaign in Ballarat instead of in the sand belt suburbs, where the marginal seats were.

HAVE YOUR SAY: Why do you think the Coalition lost? Tell us below

“(It) came across as a bunch of country boys that didn’t really understand Melbourne,” he said.

Institute of Public Affairs executive director John Roskam told the forum the Liberal Government never defined Labor as its opponent from day one.

“I would have had a royal commission into the desalination plant on the Sunday,” Mr Roskam said.

“The numerous failures of the previous Labor governments have never been identified in the public’s mind.”

He said the government also failed in explaining the importance of having a balanced budget.

Former Federal Liberal Senator Helen Kroger went even further in explaining the Liberal election loss.

She described it as an “unmitigated disaster” and blamed it on the party not being able to get its policies across as well as leadership issues and the way the campaign was run.

Ms Kroger said the party was unable to make tough decisions in relation to former Frankston MP Geoff Shaw and even though the party spent more than $10 million on its campaign, the party still lost “in such spectacular style”.   

“Something was catastrophically wrong with our campaign if we won only one of nine marginal seats. It’s an absolute disgrace, total disgrace,” she said.

“We were going to lose this, regardless of what happened federally, although that didn’t help.”

Professor Sinclair Davidson from the School of Economics, Finance and Marketing at RMIT echoed what the other panellists had already spoken about.

“The Victorian Liberals were unable to articulate any good reason why they should hold office,” Prof Davidson said.

He gave a few examples, including the controversial ambulance pay dispute.

“The ambulance drivers campaign was an absolute disgrace. They should have adopted a hard line, no graffiti policy.”

Prof Davidson said public servants should not have been allowed to campaign against the government in their uniforms.

Young Liberals president Jess Wilson said there was a drop in volunteers campaigning last election because “the party’s beliefs were lacking, were not being pursued”.

Ms Wilson was optimistic, however, adding that she hoped the party would learn from the election loss.

How dare they speak against the ochlocratic Collective...

St George of the Garden wrote on Feb 3^rd, 2015 at 9:38am:


Now Georgie don't go being an ochlocratic collectivist..... 

The problem with the Liberals is they have drifted too far to the right, but still want to sell themselves as a centre-right party. The "hard line" remarks are a case in point. Unless the Liberals figure it out and stop their right-wing "hard line" rubbish, the Liberals are in for a great deal of pain in the next few years as voters swing to Labor in election after election.

Voters all around the country are waking up to the Liberals and are rejecting them. The Liberals haven't figured out why yet. As long as the Liberals keep thinking in terms of "hard line" and "not selling the message", they will fail, again and again. It's not the sales job, the voters don't like the message. They snuck into office without sufficient scrutiny of policy - what few policies they had - and now that they are revealing their policies in office, the voters are rejecting them. It's brought on the biggest case of voters' remorse this country has seen for decades.

NSW, ACT and NT are due for elections in the next year or so. NSW will swing heavily to Labor but that is understandable; the Coalition have a huge majority and Labor will regain seats they wouldn't have lost in a more normal election result. The Country Liberals in the NT are doomed. They have replaced two Chief Ministers in the past two years, and they haven't a hope of winning another term. The ACT - usually pro-Labor - will swing further to Labor.

Then there's the Federal election due in late 2016. If things do not change, the next Federal election will be a bloodbath for the Coalition and they would be lucky not to lose half their seats. By the time the next Federal election is done, the Coalition could have lost a combined 100 seats right around the country since the 2013 Federal election. They probably won't get to 100 only because the ailing Coalition WA government is not due for an election until 2017.

Bam wrote on Feb 3^rd, 2015 at 10:09am:


The WA punters will be pissed when they find out MH370 was next to buswells fleet car all along .....

The problem is the Lib policies, not the selling thereof.

St George of the Garden wrote on Feb 3^rd, 2015 at 11:43am:


.....tell that to the grandkids when they are choking on 50% marginal tax rates to pay you and and a large percentage of the population's aged care bills in 20 years time

Swagman wrote on Feb 3^rd, 2015 at 12:04pm:
the only thing Ginas grandkids will be choking on  is too much of our money.