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What's on the agenda: Victorian state election
Hi ,

This is the second of five newsletters released by The Agenda Group examining the week's developments in the Victorian state election 2014.

This week saw the Liberal campaign launch in Ballarat, complete with $4 billion in rail funding and a $100-payment to families with children in kindergarten. The ALP launched their road safety strategy on Monday, and The Age put the cost of the East West Link at $17.8 billion on Tuesday. This week the Premier promised $200 million for a Mordialloc bypass while the Opposition Leader announced a similar sum for a new women's and children's hospital at Sunshine. As the campaigns progress, they've started to hit the odd bump along the way, and there will surely be more distractions as election day draws near.

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The Agenda Group

Election promises: the list so far

There have been some big splash promises made in the campaign so far, and this week has been an expensive one: the Coalition promised $4 billion in rail funding at the Ballarat campaign launch, and both sides pledged $200 million - Labor to building a women's and children's hospital at the existing Sunshine Hospital site and the Coalition to building the Mordialloc bypass.

For a comprehensive list of campaign promises, click here

What the bookies think

If the bookies odds are to be believed, Labor has strengthened its electoral position in the first two weeks of the formal campaign.

The odds of the Government holding power, which varied a moderate amount between 3.50 and 4.75 ten days ago, reached a consensus yesterday - the Coalition was a 5.00 chance. The odds had reached 5.50 earlier in the week, prompting some backing for the Coalition.  However, as soon as news of the latest Age poll broke last night, Centrebet immediately lengthened the odds on a Coalition win to 6.00.

Centrebet has also now joined Sportsbet in offering odds on individual seats. Generally, the two firms’ odds are pretty similar, except in the seat of Mordialloc. There, by Thursday, the very odd situation had arisen where Labor were 2.50 at one and the Liberals were 2.75 at the other. Clearly different people had different perspectives on whether the Government’s Mordialloc bypass announcement was a vote-winner. One imagines that, by the time you read this, some savvy punters will have picked up the discrepancy and guaranteed themselves a profit.

Read more about the changing odds

One-term state governments: myth or occasional reality?

Some pundits are picking the Coalition to win the 2014 Victorian election on the basis that first-term governments simply don’t lose. History suggests otherwise.

In the first 45 years of federation, Australian politics was dominated by the growing pains of a new nation and dealing with two world wars and a global depression. One-term governments were a regular feature of state politics principally due to constantly shifting political alliances.

One-termers became less common after the Liberal Party became a unifying force for conservative interests, but the phenomenon didn’t disappear.

These governments were regularly distracted by continuous management of the often tense alliances that were fundamental to their parliamentary survival, sometimes within the context of an unpopular federal government.

These are frightening similarities for Victoria’s Coalition government.

Today, Denis Napthine has the polls to worry about, but his bigger concern might in fact be history – who would have thought?

Read more

A long two weeks to go ...

Two weeks after Labor launched its campaign, and ten days after writs were issued, the 2014 Victorian election campaign is about to get serious.

You may have thought you’d seen it all and heard it all – leaders kissing tourists, kicking footballs and campaigning with kith and kin. We’ve had attack ads, big spending initiatives, opinion polls and the odd campaign stumble.

All just a warm-up act for what lies ahead. 

The rise of uncommitted voters will accelerate the trend for campaigns to become increasingly negative in the final weeks. Expect to see a splurgemeter rolled out by the Government to illustrate how Labor can’t be trusted with money and a fierce tit for tat debate over election costings. 

The election can be won and lost in the last week of a campaign.

So in the next two weeks – right through to election day – expect to see more ads, receive more phone calls, hear more policy announcements and if you live in a marginal seat, there might be a little more pork coming your way.

Read more

 

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