Liberals win by default in Victoria

"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.