Victorian election was lukewarm all round

Balancing budgets is not enough to win elections.

Neither is promising to build infrastructure. While there was support for the East West tunnel it mostly wasn't a vote changer. And there were plenty of positions voters could take that put them in favour of the tunnel, but opposed to some of the process around it – this was particularly true of Labor voters.

The union corruption issue was a factor in the judgements people made about Daniel Andrews, although it was not specifically mentioned as an election issue. There were 50 mentions of "unions" or "CFMEU" compared to only 20 for "Abbott". However, this was a totemic issue for Liberal voters and did not seem to concern swinging voters.

However, perceptions of corruption can cut both ways and the union link may only have evened-up the perception that the Liberals were doing deals for their mates and shifting public assets into private hands. This was accentuated by the construction boom occurring in Victoria with perceptions that developers were getting favours in return for donations.

Unemployment is not present as a conscious issue, but it is hard to think that with Victoria having some of the highest unemployment on the mainland it wouldn't have figured in voters' thinking.

Conclusion

It was a grudging result which doesn't give either side much credit. In a state that has recently been strong for Labor state and federal, and with a very lacklustre state government and a disliked federal government, Labor should have done much better.

That it didn't, and that neither party won even 40% of the vote, points to a basic lack of credibility for the major parties, and an inability to make an impression on voters.