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In an election campaign, you never know what’s waiting for you on the other side of a front door. It might open to a warm smile and an invitation to share a cup of tea. It might open to cold indifference.
People running for office on November 28 have in recent weeks shared stories of being abused, threatened and, in one instance, spat upon. On the doors, as they call it, can be a lonely place.
One Labor MP said her most confronting recent experience door-knocking constituents was when a resident opened their door, recognised her, and put a consoling arm on her shoulder as if to say, “there, there luv, everything’s alright”.
When you have been in government for 12 years and are staring down a long, dark tunnel towards electoral oblivion, this is not what you want to hear.
With a little over five weeks to go before polling day, an eerie calm has descended upon the Victorian ALP. There is a certain point when the music stops for all governments. Standing here tonight, like Jeremy Irons’ character in Margin Call but in a much cheaper suit, I’m afraid that I don’t ... hear ... a ... thing.
When Labor’s state secretary Steve Staikos last week addressed cabinet and gave them an unvarnished assessment about the government’s prospects of staying in power, no minister took issue with the outlook presented.
There was no gnashing of teeth or angry phone calls to journalists. Not even to The Australian. Labor is past all that. They know what is coming.
They know that barring a miraculous change of political fortune over the next six weeks, you can stick a fork in them. According to successive Resolve Political Monitor surveys published by this masthead, support for Labor is flatlining on an unwinnable, 25 per cent share of the primary vote.
One place to get a better understanding of this is Melbourne’s west.
Resolve founder Jim Reed last week conducted a focus group with residents of Sydenham, an electorate on the north-west fringe of greater Melbourne that has never voted for a party other than Labor.
The focus group is part of qualitative and quantitative research Reed is conducting for The Age to inform our coverage of the state election and give us a better sense of Victoria’s mood.
In Sydenham, the mood was mutinous. The session went for 90 minutes but produced enough political gristle to chew on for a week.
Sydenham is one of 11 lower house seats, all held by Labor, which make up the great red sea of Melbourne’s west. For 38 years, Sydenham and its forerunner electorate Keilor have voted Labor. Its local MP for the past 16 years, Natalie Hutchins, served as a minister throughout the life of the Andrews, Allan and Carroll governments.
Hutchins is retired from parliament and Sydenham is now at the crossroads of anti-Labor sentiment coursing through Melbourne’s west.
The issue of greatest concern voiced within the focus group was crime. Sydenham is a part of Melbourne where people don’t need to quote crime statistics or tell you about awful stuff they have read in the paper – they can recite the number of times burglars have tried to knock off their place and violent crimes they have witnessed with their own eyes.
Everyone in the group had a story to tell about crime. Every one of them says they will vote for the party or candidate with the most credible policies to combat crime. None of them thinks this will be Labor.
They spoke of Labor’s mismanagement – a catch-all that covers money lost to corruption on Big Build projects and policy choices that prioritise electorally marginal suburbs in the east ahead of working-class postcodes in the west.
Health services were another sore point. One participant spoke about her dad on two occasions calling an ambulance and waiting in vain for paramedics who never arrived. Another has twin granddaughters and said their parents gave up trying to find a maternal health nurse for them through the public system.
The overarching grievance across the group was that Sydenham, having stuck with Labor for decades, is coming unstuck as a place to live. Hard-working people feel neglected and used. This is expressed as frustration, disillusionment, and a loss of faith. These are lifelong Labor supporters rejecting their own tribe.
“I have always been a Labor voter,” said one. “I don’t know who to turn to right now.”
The other clear message from this group is that they see Premier Ben Carroll as part of an old problem, not a new fix. When factional bosses finally convinced caucus to move against Jacinta Allan three months ago, they dropped the big one. In Sydenham, it has landed like a dud.
Over the past few days, the government has announced a $30 weekly cap on road tolls and public transport fares. They are promises that, if kept, would make a material difference to people commuting from Sydenham, which is 30 kilometres from the city.
A policy announcement is only as good as the willingness of voters to listen to it. Within the group, there was cynicism and mistrust towards anything Carroll and Labor are promising.
“This is probably the first time I have ever seen Labor in a position where they are scrambling and are desperate,” one woman said. “I am hoping that in 10 minutes the election is over, it is done.”
If places like Sydenham are done with Labor, then Labor is done with governing in Victoria, at least for a while.
No one understands this better than your local Labor parliamentarian. If you’ve ever wanted a genuinely honest conversation with this government, now is the time. All you have to do is open the door and put the kettle on.
Chip Le Grand is state political editor.
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