Dictator Dan and the Hillbilly Dictator have a lot in common

What kept Bjelke-Petersen in power was the lack of a decent alternative. The Liberal Party (between 1983 and 1989 on the cross-benches) was regarded as a milquetoast version of the Petersen’s Nationals, while the ALP was a group of boyos who’d become comfortable with Opposition and its spoils.

Andrews might be bad, but would swapping him for Guy have achieved anything for most voters? As the election was an unseemly auction with both sides promising dollars for votes, which side is more likely to pony up in reality? No contest – the ALP leads in credibility when it comes to spending.

In Queensland in 1989 the ALP fixed three major things. One, they recruited good candidates, like Wayne Goss, and two, they learned negative campaigning under the generalship of the other Wayne – Swan. Last they fixed their organisation with a reform faction forming around Dr Dennis Murphy who became party president. They also put a lot of work into policy, but policy doesn’t win elections, issues do.

If it wasn’t for this, the Fitzgerald Commission of Inquiry might have been a damp squib of the IBAC variety.

The result was a 7.8% swing, but only to 53.8% of the 2PP vote. More significantly they gained 60.67% of the seats, running a campaign which won votes where they had most effect to amplify their bare share of the mathematical tally.

If the Victorian Liberals want to win they could look to Goss Labor for inspiration.

The Vic Lib organisation needs a thorough cleaning out, and they need to strategically select good community candidates, not party hacks. Returning to Matthew Guy as leader is the best demonstration of the paucity of talent on their frontbenches.

Where they had good candidates they did well.

They also need to learn how to campaign. The hunger doesn’t appear to be there, nor the ability to bite and hold onto the government.

Right-of-centre parties of all stripes also need to adapt their game to the new media. I’m not just talking about Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tiktok, but Google. These days all of our interactions are polluted by partisan algorithms which push one-sided information at us.

When even the eponymous search engine is telling everyone to vote Labor or Greens you have a problem, and it is not solved by more tweets or posts. The ground game needs to be changed completely.

Undoubtedly the debate which will consume the Libs is whether they should move to the left or the right. The seats where they staved-off the Teals are emotionally important to them and winning back seats like Kooyong must seem like redeeming the family silver.