Tony Abbott was absent from the Victorian Coalition launch in Ballarat on Sunday – his name wasn’t mentioned once. The day before, Abbott stood with the premier, Denis Napthine, and declared the Victorian election a referendum on the giant road and tunnel project, the East West Link.
That was another awkward federal-state moment. Napthine doesn’t want this election to be all about the controversial link. Indeed, the big announcement at the launch was an acknowledgment of the government’s vulnerability to the perception that it is too focused on roads in an era when the community demands investment in mass transit.
On Sunday, nobody seemed to mind that Abbott – who has said he will not help fund state public transport projects – was on his way to China and couldn’t make it to Ballarat.
The premier promised $3.9bn for 75 new trains for Melbourne, 75 new trams and 24 new rail cars for the V/Line network.
“This is the biggest order in public transport rolling stock in more than 30 years,” Napthine said. “We will purchase one train per month, every month, for the next 10 years.”
It would create thousands of jobs and local businesses would get priority for the work.
Labor has promised to buy 30 new trains and 20 carriages from Victorian-based manufacturers.
The challenge for the government – and Labor – is credibility on this and other issues. At the last election, the Coalition was bullish about public transport promises, many of which have not been delivered.
It said nothing about the cross-city East West Link at that election, but made it the centrepiece of its transport program in 2012.
Labor is opposed to the link, saying it will not honour contracts signed just a few weeks ago because it does not believe they are valid.
The Coalition’s official launch came just 20 days before the election, with opinion polls consistently showing the government is facing a humiliating defeat after a single term in office.
There were several new announcements, including a $100 kindergarten rebate for parents of four-year-olds and a $75m youth employment strategy that will offer employers $2,000 to help them offset the costs of hiring young people who had been out of work for at least six months.
Apart from the promises, there were two broad themes: that only the conservatives can be trusted to responsibly manage the economy and major projects, and that only the Coalition has Denis Napthine.
The launch tried to balance the positives and the negatives, but there was a strong attack on Labor’s record in government and its ads were relentlessly negative. We Remember You was the song played through one ad, with sepia pictures of Labor premiers going back decades overlaid with headlines about cost blow-outs on major projects and the party’s links to unions.
The election was a choice, Napthine said, between a government that could deliver services and infrastructure because it managed the economy and the budget well, and “a Labor party which has a track record of reckless spending, chronic mismanagement of major projects, that is promising to tear up contracts and destroy jobs and business confidence”.
Napthine consistently rates as the preferred premier, even if his government lags in the two-party-preferred vote. The 62-year-old former vet has a daggy charm and is a small l liberal on social issues.
His son, Tom, provided the personal introduction, highlighting his father’s willingness to do just about anything including “jumping into a pen with a sheep wearing just wool underwear”. When a ‘little old lady’ was going into a nursing home and was worried about her dog, “dad adopts the dog”.
Napthine spoke of his own childhood as one of 10 children raised on a modest sheep farm in Winchelsea, south-west of Melbourne.
Towards the end of the launch, Napthine put his arms out wide, as he has a habit of doing. The crowd roared and began a chant that you don’t hear everyday. “DE-NIS, DE-NIS, DE-NIS.”
He was in friendly company and the public may not be so kind. Before the launch, a rowdy crowd outside the venue protested the government’s health record and its two-year dispute with paramedics. They struck up a different chant of “Backdoor Denis” as the premier avoided them to enter the venue.
Napthine may be well regarded, but his government carries baggage, and there is little time left to convince Victorians it deserves a second chance.
