It was Jess Wilson’s campaign bus — the “Jess Express” — that crashed into a shop awning in Victoria on Friday, a common campaign mishap that nevertheless caused the Liberal leader to “grimace”.
But it’s Ben Carroll’s campaign that is starting to look like a slow-motion car crash, two weeks ahead of the election, with Labor’s Victorian primary vote hitting new lows in the polls — 18% according to DemosAU this week, down 7% since September, in what might become a “wipeout” result. It’s believed Carroll could even lose his own seat of Niddrie, as he moves to defend once-safe Labor territory like Kororoit, in a campaign that is perceived to be about “saving the furniture”, and may not even manage to do that.
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It was me who grimaced when I saw the Ben Bus drive past on Saturday. “New premier, new direction” it says on the back, alongside a picture of Carroll and a wooden smile.
No wonder the best his own friends could come up with when asked to sing his praises by The Age was a “backhanded compliment”, in one of the more brutal political headlines of the year (with friends like these, etc). Carroll has a difficult role here, taking over the leadership of a tired and scandal-plagued government four months before an election. But far from “saving the furniture”, Labor’s vote seems to drop further the more Victorians get to know him.
The past fortnight has seen key unions turn on Labor, with the Australian Services Union running ads claiming “Ben Lied” (over an agreement he tore up to lift a cap on council rates and therefore staff wages). The Electrical Trades Union is diverting campaign funds to instead support witnesses to the royal commission into the Big Build scandal, called by Carroll upon taking office, with the ETU citing polling that put Labor in a worse position than under former premier Jacinta Allan. The public sector, education and firefighters’ unions have also withdrawn support, with the latter in fact urging Victorians to “put Labor last”.
That royal commission has just commenced its first block of public hearings — Carroll had no control over the timing — thrusting allegations of corruption back into the political spotlight. Nine journalist Nick McKenzie, who broke many of the stories related to the Big Build, told 3AW that the premier will “likely regret” calling the royal commission, though others might regret not calling it sooner, given that it would be better to have this done and dusted.
Yesterday, the Liberals revealed that they will preference One Nation above Labor in most seats, a decision that could see One Nation leapfrog Labor in seats where the Libs come third, including Carroll’s own Niddrie (though it may help Labor in other areas, if it drives voters horrified by One Nation to punish the Libs). And yet Labor has pissed off progressives by running an open ticket in inner-city Prahran, a Liberal-Greens contest where Labor preferences play an important role — presumably in return for something from the Libs.
Those Labor preferences might play less of a role than usual, given those polling numbers, which suggest the Coalition may now reach a majority in their own right (blunting Labor warnings about a Liberal-One Nation government, and perhaps even encouraging people to back the Libs). The Demos poll implies that voters are abandoning Labor for the Coalition (up three points to 33%), One Nation (up one to 21%) and the Greens (up three to 17%), prompting leader David Shoebridge to claim the “blunami is turning Green” (it’s also very much staying blue).
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Perhaps most tellingly, Carroll’s net positivity score dropped 16 points from September to -30% (47% negative, 17% positive; Wilson’s was up five points to 13%). Leader satisfaction scores aren’t everything; voters never seem overly satisfied with any of their leaders. But it’s telling that the unknown who prided himself on not being Daniel Andrews or Jacinta Allan has only seen his approval fall. The more that Victorians see of Carroll — a man I’ve overheard being referred to as “that other guy” — the less they like him, and the further Labor’s support craters.
Could it be that distancing himself from the government he spent the last decade being part of was not a sound strategy? In eschewing his predecessors, Carroll has eschewed everything Victorian Labor did over the last 12 years, good or bad, costing him the support of some who might still have backed them, such as the unions. “Not being Andrews or Allan” doesn’t actually seem to have won him any votes. Rather than trying to be everything to everyone, Carroll has tried to be nothing to no one, and it shows.
The deputy premier was quick to throw his boss under the bus back in July, making sure Allan wore the blame for everything that went down with the Big Build. But as the Jess Express reminded us on Friday, buses are dangerous beasts. Wilson’s may have taken out a shop awning. But Carroll’s might just be taking out more of the furniture, and the sooner it’s taken off the road, the better.
