State of Uncertainty no more as Brumby concedes

Sunday:
Victoria is facing days of political uncertainty under a caretaker government after an inconclusive state election which left neither side with the clear majority needed to govern in its own right.

Labor has leaked first-preference votes to the Coalition, suffering a 6 per cent drop in its primary vote, and the ABC election computer is predicting the Coalition will form government.

But with heavy rain and the threat of flash floods keeping the turnout under 60 per cent in some seats, and more than half a million pre-poll votes yet to be factored in, the official result is still too close to call.

Premier John Brumby said his Government would continue in a caretaker mode until the official result was declared.

But Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu said Mr Brumby had lost the authority to govern and said he stood ready to lead his Liberal/Nationals Coalition into government.

And Mr Baillieu’s Coalition partner, Nationals leader Peter Ryan, accused Mr Brumby of being in denial about the scale of Labor’s defeat.

Addressing the Labor faithful at Broadmeadows Town Hall late on Saturday night, Mr Brumby said Victorians were “most likely” looking at a hung parliament.

Admitting his government had been punished by voters, he asked for another chance to lead the state.

Full article HERE

First published: 2010-11-28 04:27 PM

Victorian Labor leader John Brumby has fronted the media and conceded defeat following Saturday’s state election that gave a narrow win to the Coalition led by Ted Baillieu.

His family and many of his former cabinet colleagues were present for the announcement.

Mr Brumby’s office had earlier said he would make no statement on his future until all the votes were counted in the south-east Melbourne seat of Bentleigh.

But he now says it will be almost impossible for Labor to take the seat on current count trends.

Mr Brumby says he called Mr Baillieu before the media conference to pass on his congratulations.

“The electorate has spoken and we must accept their verdict no matter how close the result,” he said.

Mr Brumby blamed the baggage of 11 years in office as the main reason for his downfall.

“The people of Victoria felt it was time to give another team a chance,” he said.

“Not glossing over issues raised in the campaign… governments seeking to serve a mandate in excess of a decade face a seriously difficult time.

“Often it has been a bridge too far.

“Victors have the right to write history, but I believe Victoria is a stronger, better, fairer place than we found it 11 years ago.”

Mr Brumby became premier in 2007 after Steve Bracks retired.

He leaves without having received the people’s endorsement.

He also did not say whether he will stay on as Labor leader.

Victory in Bentleigh gives the Liberal/National Coalition the 45 seats it needs to form government.

Mr Baillieu will visit Government House this evening.

Full story HERE

Crikey analysis:

Ever since the election of the Rudd government three years ago — indeed, since before then, for it was not an unexpected event — there’s been a view around that it would mean the end of Labor’s domination at state level. Peter Brent has been a particularly persuasive advocate, although I was sceptical at first.

But now there can be no doubt. An undistinguished but better-than-average state Labor government has been turfed out in a swing of about 6%, only three months after Labor had improved its federal position in Victoria. It really looks as if the unpopularity of John Howard had artificially depressed the Liberal vote in the states.

This is a good result for the Liberal Party, and not just in the obvious sense. It demonstrates that the party has an alternative to the Howard-Abbott model of hard-right populism. Ted Baillieu has consciously branded himself as a social liberal, and even those who held no brief for the Liberal Party have wished him well in the hope of preserving that strain in the party’s heritage.

Witness Leslie Cannold in The Age last week, who said a Baillieu defeat would “risk confining him and his small-l brand of liberalism to history’s dustbin.” More generally, it’s hard to believe that view did not contribute to The Age’s jihad against the Brumby government over the past year or two.

Baillieu has been an opposition leader rather in the mold of Kim Beazley — someone who never looked comfortable in opposition, but could be quite effective when luck ran his way and always gave the impression that if he could pull off a win he might be able to make a success of government. Beazley never got that chance: now Baillieu will.

But the magnitude of his task should not be underestimated. The Victorian Liberal Party is still a deeply conservative institution, and its parliamentary talent is patently thin. Nor is it improving much: of the 16 or so new Liberal MPs, only three or four — Clem Newton-Brown, David Southwick, maybe one or two others — look like ministerial material.

Tim Wilson, a strong Baillieu supporter, touched on the problem this morning when he said “the Liberal Party also needs to start thinking strategically about its plans to renew its parliamentary ranks”. He was too diplomatic to add that this is what it has conspicuously failed to do over the past 10 years, as the amount of dead wood cluttering up the back bench (and even the front bench) amply testifies.

It’s also not a problem unique to Victoria, or to the Liberal Party.

Fewer and fewer people of talent seem to be entering state politics; Labor is increasingly stocked with interchangeable apparatchiks (the new opposition front bench, after the inevitable early retirements, will not be an inspiring sight), while the Liberals recruit mainly from the class of bored small businesspeople wanting to try something different.

Baillieu’s problem is mitigated by the fact that the Liberals don’t have to fill the ministry on their own: coalition with the National Party — a much more cut-throat operation, where fewer duds survive — has brought an infusion of extra talent, but also of course its own problems.

This has been an excellent result for the Nationals. They won 10 lower house seats, their highest representation since the mid-1980s, and the balance of power for the first time in 60 years. They have done so, of course, partly through at the gift of the Liberal Party, but that in itself is an achievement: the Nationals had become so strong that they had to be bought off.

Four years ago, I put the issue like this: “The Nationals cannot be just wished away … Either both sides need to swallow their pride and hammer out a coalition agreement, or the Liberals need to say firmly that there will be no coalition, and that in the event of the Nationals holding the balance of power the Liberals will form a minority government and dare them to vote with the ALP.”

Understandably enough, Baillieu went for the first option. It cost the Liberals a senate seat among other things, but today he probably thinks the price was worth paying.

Even so, he should keep in mind that the second option remains live. The Nationals’ balance-of-power position is more apparent than real; it would be electoral suicide for them to vote with Labor to bring down the government. The Liberals need to remember that in case the Nationals should get inflated ideas of their own importance.

And one of the worst flaws in the Liberal Party’s make-up, its mindless worship of success at all costs, will now count in Baillieu’s favour.

Much to the displeasure of a large section of the party apparatus, he has pulled off a win against the odds, and the membership will be strongly inclined to let him do what he wants with it.

For his sake as well as Victoria’s, let’s hope he uses that power wisely.

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