Liberals win by default in Victoria

Newly elected Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu's plan to bring the parliament back for a week before Christmas to get his program going is an absolute imperative for him personally and for his party.

Contrary to the propaganda from the major parties and the Greens, no-one really did well in the last Victorian election.

Although Labor definitely lost it, the Liberals only fell into government by the merest of margins. Perhaps the Labor brand is "toxic" as alleged by Tony Abbott, but the Liberal brand could hardly be said to be ascendant.

So Baillieu needs to start working hard to imprint his personality on the process from day one.

The election was a vote against politicians, not for any of them.

One of the weaknesses in the Liberals campaign was Ted Baillieu which can be seen in this table below.

When you look at the "Neither approve nor disapprove" category, even amongst Liberals it is 37% rising to 42% with Greens and 43% with Nationals. And then look at the distribution of approve and disapprove where hardly any of the responses fall in the "Strongly approve" or "Strongly disapprove" categories.

Baillieu is a bit of a blancmange. He doesn't arouse strong passions. This can be a handicap when trying to win a campaign, or implement policy, because it means you can have difficulty carrying people with you.

But in an election like this one it was also probably a strength. Here is the same table for John Brumby.

Brumby's rating across the whole sample is about the same as Baillieu's, but the composition is entirely different. He owns his heartland vote with 80% of Labor voters "Approving" and only 15% "Neither approving nor disapproving". 30% of Labor voters "Strongly approve" while amongst Liberals and Nationals voters 43% "Strongly disapprove".

So Brumby galvanizes both supporters and opponents. In a climate where voters want to vote a particular party in, this can be an advantage. In an election where voters would be happy to vote all parties out, it works against you.

If Baillieu doesn't want to run a one-term government his public perception is an issue he has to fix. Undoubtedly as his government starts to implement policies, public opinion will harden, but when it does he wants it to harden in ways that support him.

So the relatively uncommitted view of voters gives him an opportunity. He can use the considerable resources of government in the honeymoon period to create an image of himself that will make voters want to re-elect him so that he does energise his base at the next election, and perhaps increase his majority.

He also needs to produce an honest appraisal of what the last election was about. Government shouldn't be based on myth because it ultimately leads to them living within the cocoon of partisan self-indulgence and falling quickly out of touch with the voters.

It wasn't a referendum on increases in the cost of living, as some Liberals were claiming during the week. Our polling respondents might be better-off than most, but you'd think someone would have mentioned rising prices if that was a determinant in how they would vote.

It doesn't mean that higher costs of living weren't making some voters grumpy, but it wasn't directly on their list of complaints. Rather the complaint was that Labor had been in for so long and had not achieved anything apart from mastering the art of spin.

This table shows you the issues that voters nominated unprompted as shaping their vote. Note that "Public transport" was the biggest one for Greens and Liberals, and that Liberals were also concerned about "Law and order".

Now, it's unlikely that most Liberal voters rely on public transport, but underlying the public transport issue was a problem with Myki, an electronic ticketing system that Labor has introduced where the implementation has been a public relations disaster.

So what I think we are seeing here is not so much an issue of public transport itself, but of managerial ability.

I certainly don't think that issues were that important in the result because when you asked people why they were voting for a particular party the reasons were very frequently negative about the alternative, not positive about their choice.

When asked why they were casting a first preference for either Labor or Greens, voters said things like:

"Completely disillusioned with both major parties" (Greens)

"Perhaps by voting for the Greens, or a minor part, it is the only way to get the message that both of the major political parties need to lift their game." (Greens)

"Although current Labor has lost its way I don't trust the Liberalsto enact socially needed policies" (Labor)

"I can't see any better option to Labor, except for Labor with a bit of a kicking. However, I'm not even sure they'll understand what it means." (Labor)

The negativity rises to 60% amongst Liberal voters:

"Baillieu stands for almost nothing but anything would be better than a Brumby Govt. This Bracks/Brumby Govt. is almost as corrupt and bad as the John Cain Govt." (Liberal)

"Labor has been in too long and has not fixed what they were originally voted in to govern and fix. Only during this election campaign have they suddenly 'discovered' that there are issues that need fixing" (Liberal).

(Note: responses are reproduced as they were typed into the survey, including typos).

But it was not a protest vote in the sense that voters accidentally elected Baillieu. It was a grudging change of government vote. One of the haulmarks of the protest vote is that swings are largest in safe seats and smallest in marginal ones. While that is often the case in this election, it is just as often not the case and there is no statistical correlation.

There does appear to be a geographical element to it, and you can see that by looking at this map on the Poll Bludger site.

What this analysis suggests is that Baillieu ought to continue to be "humble". He needs to explicitly and publicly acknowledge that Labor lost the election, the Liberals didn't win it. He needs to stress that a two-seat majority means that voters have given him a "P" plate, not an open licence.

And as he is doing, he needs to prove that he can actually manage.

What course of action does this result dictate for Labor and The Greens?

Labor has to stop thinking of itself as "just losing" and accept that a loss is a loss, and there were good reasons for it. Like Baillieu it also needs to be humble. As its biggest problem was a perceived failure to manage it needs to turn over some of its members because management is a personnel rather than a policy issue.

The fact of the matter is that Victoria is Australia's best run state which is because the two major parties basically agree on what needs to be done, and how to do it. There is therefore not a lot of room for ideological differentiation unless you want to pitch for a vote by ditching your adherence to good management, so personnel counts.

For the Greens the lesson is probably the hardest. They are a party caught up in their own myths. One of these is that people choose to vote Greens because they support Greens policies. Some voters do, but there is a significant component that is actually voting "Neither of the above" on the two majors.

When the Greens looked like a viable protest vote vehicle their vote swelled to 14 or 15 per cent. This is 50% higher than the result they ended-up achieving which was virtually identical to their 1996 vote. They appear to be in denial, with Melbourne MP Adam Bandt blaming the Liberals' allocation of preferences.

Well, the Liberals allocation did "suck the oxygen" out of his party's campaign, but why would he expect the Liberals to take friendly action? Bob Brown's answer is to have an open preferencing system, but as Greens voters don't pay much attention to their party's How-to-Vote cards, what difference would this make?

If the Greens are going to continue to prosper they have to think more strategically and understand that they are a protest vote vehicle, and at best a balance of power party in a de facto coalition with Labor.

That might well mean spending less time promoting gay marriage and a carbon tax and more time looking at public transport or education issues, for example, at the same time appealing to voters for their tactical, rather than ideological vote, and doing their best to keep out of the way of the Liberal Party.

They are dependent on Liberal Party preferences, but they can't control them, so they are in a difficult position.

There is also a message for Julia Gillard. While I don't think the Labor brand is "toxic" it's certainly not in great shape, and Labor governments that prove to be all talk and no action are likely to feel the wrath of the electorate.

After only three years the electorate had made that judgement on the Rudd government, which is how Gillard came to power. They're close to making that judgement on her government as well. If things don't improve quickly at the next election electors are not likely to vote to make it 9 years of indecision and mismanagement.

If you needed any confirmation of that judgement, then the Victorian election result says it all.