PAUL MURRAY: Preferential pickle and the spectre of Daniel Andrews

Victorians go to the polls in two weeks for an election which will be in part a belated referendum on the pernicious nine-year reign of former Labor premier Daniel Andrews and his pandemic-era repression.

It will also serve to feel the pulse of the Liberal Party nationally for signs of life and test the resurgence of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation for proof of substance, not just grievance.

There might also be a message buried in the result about the vulnerability of tired governments that have not kept their promises, broken them or failed to live up to expectations — especially of propriety.

Jess Wilson is a fresh face for the Liberals in Victoria after years of moribund leadership and debilitating infighting that recklessly damaged a political brand which is also under enormous pressure at the Federal level and in most States.

It seems impossible for Labor to extend its 12-year tenure unless the contest between One Nation and the coalition of Liberals and Nationals works to fragment and disrupt the anti-government vote.

Much of the uncertainty around the outcome in Victoria has centred on whether coalition voters will decide to preference One Nation — and vice versa — to ensure that a bad government is sent packing.

Or whether the conservative parties prefer to fight among themselves.

While the major non-Labor parties up to this week had been coy about the desirability of a collaborative deal, it is in some ways immaterial because One Nation voters — especially those who are ALP refugees — have a long track record of spraying their preferences.

And many blue-blood Liberals would never countenance any form of support for Hanson regardless of its party’s how-to-vote card directions.

The ever-pragmatic Nationals face a big threat from One Nation to their nine Victorian Lower House seats, but will preference it ahead of Labor anyway.

For all the political bluster and moralising about preference deals, no matter what the parties say, the eventual decision in the ballot box is solely up to the voter.

Polling history shows conservative voters are not as disciplined in following how-to-vote cards as Labor and Greens voters.

So with only a fortnight to go, the stakes are high and the atmosphere has become febrile — especially around the preferences issue.

Labor on the attack can be a pretty ruthless and effective electoral machine. But when it’s in retreat, it’s a very different animal.

Facing a potential rout for which he will be held responsible after toppling Andrews’ chosen successor, Jacinta Allan, new Labor Premier Ben Carroll is grasping at straws.

Reacting to news on Monday that the coalition parties and One Nation had been meeting to discuss preference strategies — mainly whether they would put Labor or the Greens last on their tickets — Carroll went full-on Halloween, using Hanson’s hand-picked Victorian party leader, Warren Pickering, as his bogeyman.

“Jess Wilson, what deals have you done with One Nation,” Carroll asked, with more than a hint of desperation. “Is Warren Pickering going to be the Treasurer in a future Wilson Liberal Government?”

That line was about as believable as the Australian bowlers caught in the sandpapergate scandal saying they didn’t know someone was tampering with the ball they were handed for each delivery.

“So you never once looked at the cherry during the game?” might have been one useful question for the Cricket Australia investigators. “Never noticed any unusual scruff marks?”

The question Carroll should have asked himself was whether anyone would ever cast a vote on the basis of who an incoming government’s Treasurer would be.

If his delivery was meant to have the power of a Mitchell Starc bouncer, it came out more like a suburban leg spinner looking for a dodgy pitch pothole to provide turn.

But don’t go mentioning potholes anywhere near him. They’re another peculiarity of this election that is causing Labor’s vote to plummet.

The reality is that most Victorians wouldn’t even know who Pickering is. One Nation is all about Hanson.

And opinion polls show many voters don’t know the name of any Treasurer in any government anyway. Until they become as notorious as Jim Chalmers.

A report in The Nightly this week demonstrated the level of desperation in one quote from a senior Labor source: “Jess Wilson should take a leaf out of her hero John Howard’s book, and preference Labor above One Nation.”

Which begs two simple questions: Doesn’t Labor always preference the Greens over the coalition parties? And hasn’t Labor depended for decades on Greens preferences to form government?

If Liberals are meant to hold their nose while preferencing One Nation, what’s needed when you rely so heavily on the absolute bottom feeders in the political pond?

It now appears all three conservative parties will recommend preferences seat-by-seat, depending on which one is in the most advantageous position, and put each other above Labor and the Greens.

Whether voters wanting to cast a ballot against Labor take any notice is another thing entirely.

They are probably more interested in a wrecked Victorian economy, the Big Build royal commission providing daily evidence of government-union corruption and the deteriorating state of their roads, which have become symbolic of both.

Overlaying everything is the ghost of Dan Andrews, who departed the political stage in 2023. The extent to which Victorians are willing to punish Labor for his sins at this first opportunity will make the national implications of the poll difficult to interpret.

Labor’s primary vote in Victoria has sunk to such a low ebb that the Greens — whose voters are highly disciplined in preferencing the ALP — are now much less able to save them from a richly-deserved day of reckoning.

The latest aggregate of six recent opinion polls released this week had the Coalition in Victoria on 30.8 per cent, Labor and One Nation locked on 21.8 and the Greens on 14.

However, that coalition figure can be misleading because it is diluted by the Nationals standing only in regional seats. Wilson has overseen a steady rise in the Liberal vote in recent months.

The One Nation figure is significantly below its Federal polling, currently down slightly at 28 per cent. Since hitting a high of 24 in February at the time of the South Australian election, the Victorian vote has been stuck around 20 per cent, even as the Labor vote slumped.

While Hanson struggles in Melbourne’s inner suburban seats, her party has strong patches of support elsewhere. It is believed to be polling on top in the outer suburban seats of Melton and Pakenham and the regional seats of Ripon and Morwell.

Top pollster Kos Samaras from Redbridge says One Nation needs a primary of 24 per cent to start winning Assembly seats.

But the big problem for Wilson is that in both Houses it might take more from the coalition parties than from Labor. As many as eight Liberal seats in outer metropolitan and regional areas and at least three held by the Nationals are seen as vulnerable to One Nation.

The magical number to form government in Victoria is 45 in an 88-seat Assembly. Labor holds 55, so can afford to shed only 10 before losing its majority.

The Greens, now with three seats, could provide a thin bulwark after that, but would likely only pick up any additional seats from Labor. The government holds four inner-Melbourne seats on margins under 4.4 per cent under challenge by the Greens.

The Liberals need to win 16 more seats to hit 45. So where are they? The Australian newspaper this week tracked the electorates in which Carroll and Wilson have been campaigning — and the results were fascinating.

The Opposition Leader has targeted 15 Labor-held electorates on an average margin of 8.4 per cent, but only Ripon is in the government’s 10 most marginal seats against the coalition parties.

They are Bass (0.2 per cent), Pakenham (0.4), Hastings (1.4), Ripon (3.0), Glen Waverley (3.3), Bayswater (4.2), South Barwon (4.4), Ashwood (5.0), Box Hill (5.5) and Narre Warren North (6.1).

So it appears the Liberals think those slim marginals are in the bag. That might be a mistake. One Nation lurks.

The Premier has visited 30 Labor-held seats in a band stretching up to an 18.4 per cent margin, clearly aimed at saving the furniture.

Fourteen of them were won in the 2022 pandemic landslide by Andrews, but now look very shaky. They include these seats outside the 10 most marginal: Ringwood, Bentleigh, Mordialloc, Carrum, Narre Warren South, Melton and Werribee.

That is where the fight is now concentrated and where government will be won and lost.

Since late October, pollster Samaras has tipped a Labor wipeout, falling to as low as 25 seats.

The most marginal seat visited by the Labor leader was Ripon, west of Ballarat, where he helped fill in a pothole in late October.

Perhaps a case of too little, too late.