‘Change-or-die moment’: Victorian Liberals facing worst primary vote share in 70 years
Matthew Guy has announced he will step down as Victoria’s Liberal leader after a crushing loss at the state election, which may lead to the party’s primary vote falling below 30% for the first time since the 1950s.
In a statement on Sunday, Guy again congratulated the Labor party, which shrugged off a negative 3.3% statewide two-party-preferred swing to win a third consecutive term and a comfortable majority.
“As soon as it is clearer which Liberal party candidates will form the next parliamentary party room, I will call them together to elect their new leadership team,” Guy said. “I will not be a candidate for the position of leader.”
With about 70% of the vote counted, it is unclear if the Coalition will be able to improve on its 2018 tally of 27 seats in Victoria’s 88-seat parliament. While counting continues, they are on track to win 28 seats, although that includes three gains by the Nationals party.
The Liberal primary vote is sitting on 29.7% – its lowest result since the 1952 state election – although it has been growing slightly on Sunday since the addition of postal votes, which traditionally favour the Coalition. The 2018 result had been the party’s worst primary vote share since 1952, when it recorded 30.4% – a drop of six points on 2014.
The former tennis professional Sam Groth won the seat of Nepean, in Melbourne’s south-east, for the Liberals, and the party party also looked set to retain the seat of Kew, formerly held by the controversial MP Tim Smith, in the face of a strong teal challenge.
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But the party failed to pick up seats in the eastern and southern suburbs of Melbourne, which were crucial to it having any chance of forming government.
Labor was easily able to retain the seats of eastern seats of Ashwood, Box Hill and Ringwood, which it unexpectedly won from the Liberals in 2018.
The party is also on track to pick up Glen Waverley and retain Pakenham and Bayswater, the latter of which underwent a redistribution before the election that favoured the Liberals.
Asher Judah, who contested Ashwood for the Liberals, has urged the party to embark on major internal reform to become relevant to younger voters, describing the crushing loss as a “change-or-die moment”.
“If we do not change, we will die in Victoria,” Judah told Guardian Australia. “We will not be able to achieve a majority government and the federal result will become a guide to where we’re heading.
“A lot of the federal results have been mirrored last night and it’s because the brand is damaged. When the state team does not have a strong brand, doesn’t have that ballast, it gets blown around by federal shocks.”
Judah pointed to a review of the 2018 election campaign, which found the dumping of prime minister Malcolm Turnbull mere months before the poll was a contributing factor to the party’s loss.
He anticipates the federal Liberals also cost them votes at this election.
Judah said the Liberals needed to do more to attract millennials and gen Z voters, given they are now outnumbering baby boomers on the electoral roll.
“Our vote is shrinking at one end and our opponents’ votes are growing at the other end,” Judah said, pointing to the success of the Greens, who are hopeful of doubling the party’s representation in the lower house from three seats to six.
“Seats that have swung well for us have the high proportion of boomers and that’s great – I’m delighted by colleagues [who] have won – but that is not a pathway to majority government in Victoria, because it’s a shrinking demographic. We have to do a far better job amongst under 40s.”
Several Liberal MPs privately agreed with Judah, with one describing the result in the eastern suburbs as a “disaster”.
“Matthew can talk all he wants about swings towards us in safe Labor seats but that doesn’t get us onto the government benches. Marginal seats do,” one MP said.
Another pointed to the decision to frame the campaign around the shelving of the suburban rail loop, which was credited with turning the eastern suburbs red in 2018.
“If we wanted to mount a campaign based on the project we needed to spend years pointing out its shortcomings not months,” they said.
However, another Liberal MP put the blame squarely on the federal Liberals’ hawkish anti-China rhetoric, which they said cost it dearly in seats like Ashwood, Box Hill and Glen Waverley.
All three state seats overlap with the federal electorate of Chisholm, which has more Mandarin-speakers than any other electorate in Australia and swung towards Labor in May.
“There is a lot of healing that needs to be done to build that relationship back up with the Chinese community,” they said.