If the Coalition wants to move on from this damaging fortnight, releasing policies which target cost-of-living pressures would help. | OPINION annikasmethurst
It’s been almost one year since Matthew Guy took back the leadership of the Victorian Liberal Party and some of his closest allies are starting to ask: what if he’d never challenged?
Had O’Brien gone on to win the state election, Guy would have become a senior minister of the Crown in his government. If the Coalition had lost, Guy would almost certainly be in the perfect position to take back the leadership without a messy mid-term leadership coup.Mitch Catlin resigned last week as chief of staff after it was revealed he had asked a Liberal donor to make more than $100,000 in payments to his marketing business.
It’s a tactic which relies on the old political theory that governments lose elections rather than oppositions win them. While it still holds true, this theory also requires a good opposition to help them to do so. Then there are the threadbare policy offerings from the Coalition. Pollsters believe the election can be won or lost on health as well as cost-of-living policies. But with 13 weeks until early voting centres open, the opposition has little to sell.
. So, when questions turned to how the Liberals and Nationals were going to halve that list – as promised – reporters were told to bide their time.“There are so many things that can be done, but we will be saying more about that closer to the election,” she said.