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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

The first major election since a wave of Green and Teal changed the federal map is set for this Saturday.

The Victorian election is about a lot of things, including being a reflection on Dan Andrews and his Premiership.

But the election could also tell us more about how the electoral forces in Australia are shifting, and how alternatives to the major parties are rising.

Today, election analyst Ben Raue, on tomorrow’s election, the fate of Dan Andrews, and the redrawing of the electoral map.

It’s Friday, November 25.

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RUBY:

Ben I thought we should start by talking about the current Premier, Dan Andrews and his Labor government, who are hoping to return to power in Victoria for a third term. So how are they going about trying to achieve that - what is the pitch?

Archival tape -- Daniel Andrews:

“Right now, we have 13 days. 13 days that will determine what happens in our state for the next four years.”

BEN:

I mean, a lot of the policy agenda is around infrastructure, transport, infrastructure, health spending. Those kinds of issues, we've been seeing a lot in that. The suburban rail loop is a big one that the state government has promised that this kind of huge, long term multistage train line that will kind of loop the mid to outer suburbs of Melbourne together. They've also announced a revamp of the State Electricity Commission, which was a thing that used to exist in Victoria, sort of a partnership with private industry to invest in semi-publicly owned electricity infrastructure as well.

So there's a lot of stuff in that sort of area about spending on building things.

Archival tape -- Daniel Andrews:

“That’s why on the 26th of November, we need your support. I'm asking you to vote Labor because only Labor is doing what matters.”

BEN:

He's been premier now for eight years. This is him attempting to win a third term. He's a divisive figure. COVID-19 probably was a much bigger deal in Victoria than most other states. Melbourne was locked down a lot longer than any other city and so I think for some people he's quite popular. But for those people who don't like Andrews, they really don't like him. And that's come out in some kind of things that kind of verges on the conspiratorial. In particular, The Herald Sun ran a story, the front page was just a picture of the stairs that Daniel Andrews fell down at the holiday house that caused his injury.

Archival tape -- News Host:

“Good evening. Daniel Andrews has laughed off fresh newspaper speculation about the fall that broke his back at a Sorrento holiday house…”

Archival tape -- Daniel Andrews:

“Can any of you tell me what the point of this story is? I genuinely don't know. I genuinely don't know what the point of this story is. Can any of you explain it to me? I don't know, what you're going to interview the stairs next?”

BEN:

They didn't really have anything in the news story about like why this was newsworthy, but just sort of throwing out a bit of innuendo about what might have really happened. And they've had a few issues where there's been draft reports at the state's anti-corruption investigator, IBAC, that have come up and haven't really been resolved yet, but are kind of looming on the horizon.

Archival tape -- News Host:

“Victoria’s Premier has brushed off questions about the prospect of a fresh corruption probe into the red shirts rorts saga...”

Archival tape -- Daniel Andrews:

“What IBAC is or isn’t doing, who they have or haven’t spoken to, is a matter for them.”

RUBY:

And putting aside, I suppose, the more kind of fringe elements of the right and the things that they've said in and about Dan Andrews. Isn't there an argument that this election is always going to be somewhat about Dan Andrews response to the pandemic? Because whatever your view is on whether the right decisions were made or not at the time that the management of the pandemic really hangs over the last few years of his Premiership, doesn't it?

BEN:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, COVID-19 has been probably the biggest political issue in every election for the last three years. But I think it's extra true in Victoria. A lot of the Victorian response was seen as tied up with Andrews personally. So yeah, I think it's a referendum on his leadership, on his Government's role in tackling the lockdowns. Do you see it as success that they got things under control for as long as I did? Or do you see it as a failure that it turned into such a big crisis that it required dramatic gestures to solve it? What you see is it's not just in discussion about health spending, but the COVID response appears all through the campaign. You know, the split in the minor parties is mostly between those parties that kind of sided with the Government and helped the Government pass its pandemic legislation and those that didn't. You know, that's kind of the main dividing line amongst the cross-benchers is you've got the left and the right, and that's the main issue that they split on. And it's also been a difficult one for the Coalition because they're obviously critical of the Andrews Government but don't want to go out onto the fringe of it.

So, I think the polls do say there is a minority who are very, very unhappy about how it was handled and there's a majority who think it was handled about as well as it could be. If that's true, then probably Andrews gets re-elected. But it’s, as I said before, it's very divisive. Like you're not going to be seeing any consensus coming out of this election.

RUBY:

But despite that, it doesn't seem that the Victorian Opposition, the Liberals under Matthew Guy have really managed to cut through to present themselves as a better alternative than the Andrews Government. So can you talk to me a bit about that and about how the Liberals are positioning themselves right now and and whether much of what they're saying seems to be landing with voters?

BEN:

I mean, Andrews is consistently kind of more personally popular than Matthew Guy, who led the Liberal Party to a pretty severe defeat in 2018, left the job and then kind of came back last year after his successor wasn't really cutting it.

Archival tape -- Matthew Guy:

“Ladies and gentlemen, this really is the most important election in Victoria's history. It really is. Not just the last 30 years…”

BEN:

So, you know, he's trying to reinvent himself. They’re in a bit of an awkward position where the Victorian Liberal Party is pretty conservative. It's a pretty right wing Liberal Party and they did quite badly in their kind of inner south eastern heartland electorates in 2018. And it kind of was a bit of a preview of what we saw at the federal election this year. And so he's trying to present himself as a bit of a moderate to win back those voters. But a lot of the actual people involved in the party are very conservative.

Archival tape -- News Host:

“Matthew Guy has faced a series of internal and external party challenges as he tries to gain some clear air, seven days out from the election…”

BEN:

There's been a few scandals around their candidate for the marginal seat of Narre Warren North, who has said some things anti-Indigenous Australians during a speech in his electorate opposed to First Nations recognition and said that, you know, nuclear waste should be dumped in Alice Springs and things like that.

Archival tape -- News Host (ABC Radio):

“The Liberal candidate for Narre Warren North, Timothy Dragan, had to apologise after comments of his were made public in which he railed against Indigenous people and about abortion. And Liberal upper-house candidate Renee Heath was told she won’t sit in the party room…”

BEN:

Guy actually disendorsed the candidate Renee Heath about a week ago who's running in the Upper House in like a 100% safe seat. She's the first candidate for the Liberal Party in that region. She will definitely get elected, but when she gets elected he claims that she won't be able to sit with them.

Archival tape -- Matthew Guy:

“It’s too late to disendorse candidates, and she won’t be disendorsed as a candidate as a result.”

Archival tape -- News Reporter:

“Matthew Guy made that call this morning, seven days from the election, in the shadow of a looming 60 Minutes exposé…”

BEN:

So they've had a few of these issues. Her one was a bit of a thing around her involvement in a particularly conservative church.

Archival tape -- News Reporter:

“Renee Heath, described as a weapon of a church that considers homosexuality and abortion demonic, is all but guaranteed to win a seat in state parliament…”

BEN:

Matthew Guy and his chief of staff have also been referred to IBAC in the lead up to the election for an issue around election funding. So IBAC has kind of come up in the election in terms of both Andrews and Guy, but none of these inquiries have come to this resolution yet. You know, these sorts of things are hanging around going and probably make it a bit hard for him to push his agenda.

RUBY:

Okay. So it sounds like there are significant controversies then, which would be clouding the minds of voters more than either party or other political leader would like. So given that, how tight is the race between them and what do you think are the likely outcomes from this weekend?

BEN:

Well, we don't have as many polls as I would like personally, but the polls we do have the Labor Government has been winning every single one of them, some by more than others, but they've they've pretty consistently been winning. The most recent poll we saw at the time of recording was 53 per cent, two-party preferred to Labor in the resolved poll.
That's not a massive victory. I mean Labor got about 57 per cent in 2018, but it's still a kind of comfortable win. So kind of the most likely outcomes look like something where Labor probably loses some ground but still wins the election, seems like the most likely outcome. The Coalition would need to win a lot of seats in order to form government.

But like in the federal election, we are seeing evidence that there's an increasing trend of support for minor parties and independents that could really play out in these results.

RUBY:

We'll be back in a moment.

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RUBY:

Ben, to what extent do you think that what we saw in the federal election - this kind of splintering of the vote and the rise in minor parties and independents, is a trend that will show up in Victoria?

Is the way that elections in this country are decided, changing?

BEN:

Yeah, there's been this long term trend in dropping support for the major parties and increasing support from minors and independents. I think probably we'll see that record broken again at this election. In the Lower House, there's a bunch of independents who are running quite credible campaigns in that kind of the Teal-belt, some of them running in Labor seats like Hawthorn. But it seems like it's quite a strong independent running in Kew, and the Greens look on track to do quite well.

The Greens are benefiting from the Liberal Party preferencing them in the inner city this time, which is the first time that's happened since the 2010 federal election that the Victorian Liberal Party has done this. The Liberal Party in general around the country doesn't like to preference Labor or the Greens, but the voting system means they have to do one or the other. And so for the last decade or so they've preferenced Labor and that's really helped Labor in some of these close races. Now that they're preferencing the Greens, I think what we'll see is the Greens will hold onto their three seats and I think they have a really good chance of picking up another two. It means that it's not enough for Andrews to just win more seats than the Coalition to form a majority Government. He needs to win enough extra seats to kind of overcome that crossbench as well. So the independents and minor parties are looking strong.

But if Andrews is re-elected, that's a pretty strong, resounding success for his Government. You know, like he's been in power now for eight years. That would easily put him up to at least ten years if he wants to stick around for a little while. It's also been an opportunity for the Labor Party to renew their leadership. Apart from Andrew's, a lot of their other members have retired and been replaced by other people. And I think there will be some real lessons to learn for the Coalition that Victoria's quite a progressive state, but the Victorian Coalition is quite a conservative party, you know, they're much more right wing than, say, the New South Wales Liberal Party. And does that make it harder for them to win, that there's this minority in Victoria who are very angry about COVID lockdowns and blame Daniel Andrews, and they have a lot of energy, but I don't think they ultimately are in the majority. And so, if you're part of a movement like the Liberal Party that gets tainted with that a little bit that probably doesn't help you. So I think if Andrews is re-elected, Labor will be pleased with that result.

But I think like in the Federal election where the Labor Party won power with the lowest vote that they'd ever had, win or loss for many, many decades. They're winning not because they are directly super popular, but in part because the opposition is not popular.

And then there's the Upper House, which is an even more complicated thing.

RUBY:

Tell me a bit about that - what's happening in the Upper House?

BEN:

Yeah. So Victoria is the only state that still uses the group voting ticket method, which is where if you vote above the line, the party that gets your number one vote, they decide on where your preferences flow, which makes it prone to manipulation.

It means that parties can do deals behind the scenes that wouldn't really be practical if they had to rely on voters to kind of follow their instructions. And it means the party, sometimes minor parties, can win from a really low vote.

RUBY:

Mm. And are there any particular electorates to be looking at on Saturday?

BEN:

I'm really interested in Hawthorn, Hawthorn, John Pesutto, who was a prominent Liberal frontbencher and lost his seat live on TV four years ago, is seen as a potential leader of the party in the future if he can win his seat back. There's also a reasonably strong independent running there as well, so that's going to be one I really want to watch. I'm really interested in Melton.

I don't think Melton is going to be like a bellwether of what happens in the rest of the state. I think it's quite likely Melton won't look like the rest of the state, but it's an outer suburban seat that has always voted strongly Labor. And at the last election Melton swung to the Liberal Party while the rest of the state was swinging to the left. It's one of the seats that was hit hard by lockdown. There's a lot of anger in that seat. And you know, for the Greens as well, I would be interested in seeing what happens in a place like Northcote where the Greens did previously win that seat, but probably it would have been out of reach without the benefit of Liberal preferences. But right now it looks really competitive. So those are three seats I would be watching.

RUBY:

And Andrews now has the chance to be one of the longest serving Labor leaders in Australian history. So if that happens, what are the lessons here for Labor nationally from the way that Andrews has approached government?

BEN:

Yeah, I mean Labor's now been in power in Victoria for all but one term since 1999, so that's 17 out of 21 years. So if they win this election, that's going to be an even longer legacy. I think sometimes they've been quite a moderate, centrist Government, but have been willing to be quite rhetorically radical. Andrews has been very good at presenting the Government as being a progressive, action-oriented Government. I think that's a lesson. I think you do see other Labor politicians kind of copying his style, the way that he writes things on social media and that kind of stuff.

As a country, we don't tend to really like leaders who are that charismatic. We elect a lot of people who are the nerds who dig into the policy and don't really jump out. We kind of shy away from the people who are really flashy. You think about people like John Howard, Bob Carr, Gladys Berejiklian for a little while. Dan Andrews is definitely in that category, and I think Australians don't like, at least for their Premiers and Prime Ministers, they like someone who gets down and does the work. I mean Anthony Albanese is in that model too, so I think Andrews is presented as a government that's quite progressive, but to him as someone who presents, as someone that at least if you agree with his policy agenda, someone you can trust.

RUBY:

Hmm. Well, then, thank you so much for your time.

BEN:

Thank you for having me.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today…

Legislation to establish a federal anti-corruption body has passed the Lower House of the Parliament.

After a session where amendments from the Coalition and independents were voted down, the anti-corruption body, a key election promise from Labor, is now heading to the Senate.

And also in Parliament yesterday, the controversial speaker Jordan Peterson addressed a room full of Coalition and One Nation MPs after receiving an invitation from Nationals Senator Matt Canavan.

Peterson originally rose to prominence for opposing transgender rights, opposing the curriculum at universities as too progressive, and has advocated for a meat-only diet.

7am is a daily show from The Monthly and The Saturday Paper. It’s produced by
Kara Jensen-Mackinnon, Alex Tighe, Zoltan Fecso, and Cheyne Anderson.

Our technical producer is Atticus Bastow.

Brian Campeau mixes the show, our editor is Scott Mitchell. Erik Jensen is our editor-in-chief.

Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of Envelope Audio.

I'm Ruby Jones. See you next week.

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