Protesters dressed as lobsters crashed Victorian opposition leader Matthew Guy’s election campaign launch on Sunday.
The protesters stood outside the venue for the Liberal launch in Ivanhoe dancing to the song Rock Lobster and holding placards that read “This Guy is Drowning in a Sea of Scandal” and “You’ll Never Claw Your Way Back”. The protest was a reference to Guy dining at the exclusive Lobster Cave restaurant with Tony Madafferi in 2017. Madafferi has been referred to in court papers as an underworld figure. The meeting drew criticism, as Guy has been running a “tough on crime” policy platform.
Addressing supporters on Sunday, Guy reiterated his focus on law and order, promising to “make Victoria safe again” if elected as premier on 24 November.
“Jail will mean jail,” he said. “We will end the scourge of gangs; they will be jailed. We will stop the ice and heroin injecting rooms headed for every major suburb and town.”
He also pledged to cut taxes to help the regions. “A Liberal-Nationals government will cut the payroll tax to one per cent in regional Victoria,” he said.
The Liberal party leader also promised an independent judicial inquiry into Labor’s rorts-for-votes scandal, where Labor campaign organisers were salaried as casual electorate officers and partially paid out of MP staff allowances during the 2014 election campaign. Party rules stipulate parliamentary, taxpayer funds can’t be used for political campaigning purposes.
The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, ordered the Australian Labor party to pay back $388,000 in August. Victoria police have requested interviews with several MPs and ministers.
“I won’t let Labor get away with theft, I won’t let their corruption go uninvestigated,” Guy told party faithful.
He also promised to establish a population commission to target and curb Melbourne’s population growth, saying: “Currently we have the wrong growth, in the wrong places, at the wrong time.”
Meanwhile the federal Labor leader, Bill Shorten, got behind Andrews at the Labor party’s campaign launch at Monash University’s Clayton campus. Andrews promised to employ an extra 1,100 nurses at public hospitals and to employ more paramedics while funding 10 new community hospitals. His policy platform focused on education, health, and families.
Before a crowd of around 400 red-clad politicians, staff, volunteers and union members, Shorten praised Andrews for “leading the way” on family violence, mental health, public transport and reconciliation with Aboriginal Victorians.
Reinforcing the joint commitment to universal access to kindergarten for three-year-olds, Shorten said Andrews had made Victoria “the education state”.
“Education doesn’t just open doors; it doesn’t just lift people out of disadvantage,” Shorten said.
“It’s fundamental to a stronger, growing economy.”
After backing Andrews’ first term government’s record, he then took a swipe at the opposition, who last week revealed a new campaign slogan “get back in control”.
“I wondered if it was a message to their mates in Canberra,” Shorten said. “Get back out there and re-elect Dan Andrews and his great Labor government.”
Andrews told the crowd that Labor would establish a $50m Nursing and Midwifery Workforce Development Fund to retain, recruit and train more nurses and midwives. A re-elected Labor government would also deliver 500,000 more specialist appointments in regional communities over the next four years, he said.
“So many of my dad’s final days were spent away from home just to get the care he needed. He’s not alone in that, with thousands of regional patients forced to face the same heartache,” he said.
“That needs to change … Patients shouldn’t have to spend hundreds of dollars on private appointments or hours in the car away from loved ones.”
With Australian Associated Press
