Any other government would be facing defeat, but Andrews will win anyway

If this were any other government it would be looking at an election defeat. Instead, Daniel Andrews’ Victorian Labor is going to win a third term and there’s almost nothing that can change it.

State governments lose elections when they mess up service delivery, when they get corrupt, when they make silly mistakes and when good talent goes and doesn’t get replaced.

Premier Daniel Andrews will lead the Victorian Labor Party to a third election in November.Credit:Wayne Taylor

By those measures, the facts on the ground look awful for Labor.

At least 33 people died waiting for ambulances. Andrews won in 2014 promising to fix a crisis in the ambulance service, and yet eight years, later children are dying because the phones are busy. The paramedics who wrote colourful anti-Liberal messages on their ambulance windows in 2014 may be too busy trying to save lives this time around to get their Textas out.

Victoria Police, fairly scandal-prone over the years themselves, have said they’re not responding to home invasions as first-priority calls. They’ve always been able to get whatever they want from the government, but apparently they’re struggling, too.

Even the firefighters’ union boss, Peter Marshall, is accusing Andrews of being a bully and kicking him out of the Socialist Left faction (the premier’s office has denied this). This is friendly fire from the union that did a controversial deal with the premier over pay and conditions, leading to the end of the MFB, the CFA as we knew it, Jane Garrett’s ministerial career, and the jobs of a bunch of top executives.

Premier Daniel Andrews and Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas visit Monash Children’s Hospital on Sunday.Credit:Paul Jeffers

Victorian hospitals are packed. COVID-19 has stretched the health system around the country, GPs are full and emergency departments are bearing the brunt. Schools are losing teachers and struggling to replace them. Two years of school closures and children studying from home have taken their toll on teachers and many are quitting the industry to chase less stressful jobs.

The lockdowns caused tremendous psychological damage to many Victorians. They saved lives – and they came at a cost. Even people who accept they were necessary can be upset about the arbitrary decisions, like closing playgrounds, that seemed unnecessarily cruel.

Those lockdowns radicalised some Victorians who will now never vote for Andrews, and also radicalised others into supporting every single decision he makes. A lot of Victorians placed their trust in Andrews to get them through COVID-19, and for many, that trust in him remains strong.

Power in the Victorian government is even more centred around the leader than ever before. The energetic guard of senior ministers who won in 2014 with Andrews is almost all gone.

James Merlino, Martin Foley, Lisa Neville and Martin Pakula.

Gavin Jennings, the long-time consigliere of the premier, quit in March 2020 after the pair fell out. James Merlino, Jill Hennessy, Martin Pakula, Richard Wynne, Lisa Neville and Martin Foley are gone or on the way out.

Adem Somyurek is gone over the branch-stacking scandal. Robin Scott, Marlene Kairouz, and Luke Donnellan went in that purge as well. Jenny Mikakos took the fall for whoever ordered the use of private security guards for hotel quarantine instead of Victoria Police officers. Jane Garrett died from cancer, aged 49, in July.

It’s unclear if the next group of MPs who owe their political careers to the premier can keep him in check. Who can tell him when he’s made a mistake, like he did renaming Maroondah Hospital after Queen Elizabeth II?

Angering the Indigenous community is an easy way to bleed votes to the Greens, but the premier doubled down anyway. And he’s still refusing to apologise for locking public housing towers down. Even the public service, stacked over the years with friendly faces, isn’t pushing back on the executive with frank and fearless advice.

In a weird parallel to the 2014 election campaign, the Victorian government is pushing ahead with a major project that has a business case that doesn’t appear to fully stack up.

The Suburban Rail Loop and the East West Link share that ignominy, and it could be argued at least the road project had more broad public support.

Opposition leader Matthew Guy has promised to axe the rail loop if he wins, but here’s the rub. He won’t.

From 2014 to 2018, Guy led a tight, disciplined ship in opposition. For four years, while the Victorian Liberal Party crumbled around him with hard-right factional battles and religious infiltration, the Liberal and National MPs mainly held the line and stayed on message.

It was all for nothing as Andrews dominated in 2018. The size of that result essentially ensured a Labor victory in 2022, too. And the opposition has not maintained the discipline it once had.

Guy returned to the leadership and has watched the end of Tim Smith’s parliamentary career, the expulsion of Bernie Finn, and the rise of the teal independents in Victoria, who are now threatening state Liberal seats.

The federal election saw the end of the Liberals as a force in inner Melbourne – the fear for Guy is that he will face the same fate.

There is hope for the opposition in the outer suburbs, where anti-lockdown sentiment has driven traditional voters away from Labor. Some candidates for Labor aren’t happy with how the campaign is being run and the lack of information they’re being given. The premier is throwing a lot of punches to make sure the Coalition doesn’t have a chance of clawing back ground.

But Andrews holds 55 of the 88 lower house seats. It’s a huge lead. The opposition was facing an impossible task if they were united and nailing it – they are neither.

Barring a major shock, Labor will win a third term, and the premier will start it with a long list of problems to clean up.

Angus Livingston covered Victorian politics from 2014 to 2017 and federal politics in Canberra from 2018 to 2022. He is now the Lifestyle Editor of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.

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