SHARE
What explains Victoria’s stubborn tendency to vote Labor in state and federal elections?
The prolific psephologist Peter Brent recently asked why, in electoral terms, Victoria is different from the other states. He cited Labor’s dominance of the state’s two-party-preferred vote in every federal election since 1990 – even in the comprehensive defeat of 2013 – and was puzzled that premier Denis Napthine had failed to regain ground in the opinion polls. Flippantly, he identified former Liberal premier Jeff Kennett and the current prime minister, Tony Abbott, as the likely culprits. More likely, though, it was “just something about Victorian voters.”
Brent could have gone further in documenting the Labor dominance of Victoria since the early 1980s. Labor has governed Victoria for two-thirds of that period, a stunning record for a party that sat on the opposition benches continuously from 1955 to 1982. Combined with the federal voting pattern, this suggests something more than transient hostility to particular individuals or even the influence of great policy battles. It points to a matter of political culture…
Photo: Julian Frost/ Flickr
