It's been a really bizarre approach by the Liberals tbh. Victoria has been a fairly progressive state for the best part of twenty years now, and that has been evident in both our Labor and our Liberal governments. As far as I understand it, but Baillieu and Napthine were well and truly moderate Liberals, and so was Guy at one point too. There's been a general shift in the Victorian Liberal party to the Right, largely because of Kroger and Bastiaan playing funny buggers in the party. Perhaps that's pushed Guy in that direction? Either way, it's a moronic idea.
Thought the Liberals might have got a good run out of the Bourke St attack but it appears not to have paid dividends for them.
Has also been a dreadful week for the Greens, who have been in a more realistic position to cause trouble for Labor than the Liberals have. Personally, I expected that the Greens would pick up more seats this weekend and potentially be rewarded with the balance of power if Labor didn't see a reasonable swing. The way they've handled the issues surrounding their candidate for Footscray (tl;dr he rapped about beating women and they were all like yeah nah that's ok people change) is mindboggling. For all my whinging about the Greens here, they've always been ahead of the curve as far as DV is concerned and in terms of women's rights (you could argue too much at times, seeing as the fact they're using their near total absence of male MPs as a positive), so I just can't fathom how a party built on that kind of core could vacate the space so cravenly when one of their candidates pulls a stunt like that. Compounding their problems last night are allegations that their candidate for Sandringham raped someone (he has been stood down).
Also, an aside on shoring up the base. The fact that that argument has currency in the Liberal party, and to a lesser extent in the Labor party (v Greens), really highlights just how moronic politicians can be at times. Shoring up the base is only useful insofar as it encourages people to get out and vote, which works fantastically well in the US where voting is optional, but not so much here when everyone has to vote anyway. The secondary argument that it is necessary to pander to the base to retain support that would otherwise go to One Nation is also absurd. One Nation isn't in a realistic position to take any seats in the Lower House (federally or Vic) and therefore the Liberals could expect those who defect to One Nation to come back to the Liberals by preferences in droves, making perhaps the most minute of contributions to the outcome. Meanwhile, the abundance of votes in the centre, that would otherwise end up with the Labor party are ignored.
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