By Corey Everitt
With his federal party receiving one of the worst results in its history, state opposition leader Brad Battin has fended off implications to his future campaign, saying voters “know the difference” between state and federal.
After Saturday’s election, the Federal Coalition may only hold enough seats to count on one hand in Victoria, after receiving a devastating result.
The Coalition sought to bank on opposition toward Jacinta Allan to feed support for Peter Dutton, by linking the Premier to Prime Minister Albanese.
After the result that saw many Melbourne seats wiped from the Coalition, Allan was quick to assert the link with the Prime Minister, but now as vindication for leadership in Victoria.
“It demonstrates very clearly that federal and state Labor share the same values,” Allan told reporters on Sunday.
On ABC Melbourne on Monday, Liberal MP for La Trobe Jason Wood said the Allan/Albanese connection did not work.
“Our policy was more double trouble with Albo and Allan, and it just didn’t cut through at all,” he said.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Battin assured the difference between state and federal, and pushed back against significant changes to his direction.
“I went through a process of watching the election from afar, I stayed in contact with the federal counterparts as we went through, there are elements of that we can learn, that we can always learn from,” he said.
“We already knew the issues happening here in Victoria, we know that crime and cost-of-living are two of the biggest things that are impacting people in our state.
“We said that before the election, we say it after and we will continue down that path.”
Closer to home, the results were not ideal, not only for the Victorian Liberals but for Battin himself.
Split between the seats of Bruce and La Trobe, Berwick voting booths returned large swings against both new candidate Zahid Safi and longtime MP Jason Wood.
Voting in Battin’s own backyard returned swings of 10 to as high as 17 percent against the Liberal Party in some booths.
“People in my electorate, as much as they do across the state, totally know the difference between state and federal issues,” Battin said.
“I assure you, when I was doing the pub test or the club test, speaking to many different people in my community like I always do, they are looking forward to the next state election.”
Much like Allan, Battin kept the federal election campaign at arm’s length and even strayed away from publicly backing the introduction of nuclear power, a key policy in Dutton’s campaign.
Dutton also announced his commitment to pull over $4 billion of federal funding from the Suburban Rail Loop (SRL) to fund other projects if he were elected.
Around the same time, Battin called for the state government to cancel the SRL after a damaging report questioned its viability.
Yet, the opposition to the SRL did not return results for the federal Coalition. In the eastern suburbs, where SRL East is currently under construction, the Liberal Party lost seats.
“Four elections now – it has been backed time and time again by the Victorian community,” Premier Allan said after the federal election.
Battin rejected this assertion and the Premier’s attempts at vindication.
“If she seriously thinks it’s because of her that they won the election, she would have been out campaigning with them,” he said.
“To say it was a vote for the SRL, when the federal government wouldn’t commit to any further funding, I think is kidding themselves.”
Head of Politics at Monash University, Dr Zareh Ghazarian said both parties are dealing with voters moving away this election and the state parties will have to assess how they can recapture them in 2026.
“There is still volatility in the electorate and people are open to supporting non-major party candidates,” he said.
“I think it’s demonstrated that people need to do the hard yards when it comes to devising and talking about their policies.
“The Coalition in Victoria, really has to start talking about what sort of policies, what sort of approaches they will take if they were to win government, if they were to attract voters who may be thinking of not voting for Labor.”
One local Labor source said the federal election result should hopefully see a new direction from Battin.
“I woke up this morning, thinking, oh god, we are going to have a year of that negative approach that Liberals tend to take on absolutely everything, we are going to have that until the next state election,” they said.
“I would like to see a different approach from the Liberal Party.”
