Battle lines have been drawn three months out from the Victorian state election, with health, transport and integrity to form the foundation of the campaign.
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After a fortnight marred by a donor integrity scandal and senior staff departures, Liberal leader Matthew Guy - rebranded as "Matt" on social media - made his biggest policy call.
A coalition government would shelve Labor's signature multibillion-dollar Suburban Rail Loop project to redirect funding toward the embattled health system.
"It's clever politics to recast the political debate and try and move on from their internal problems," Monash University political scientist Zareh Ghazarian told AAP.
Dr Ghazarian sees some strategy parallels to the 2014 election when Labor, then in opposition, promised to dump the controversial East West Link and relaunched its leader to the masses as "Dan".
Asked if his rebrand was an imitation game to win government in his second go as leader, Mr Guy said he didn't mind what people called him.
"You can call me Matt or Matthew or whatever - hopefully premier," he told Nine News.
At the request of the opposition, the Parliamentary Budget Office crunched the numbers on the rail loop and found building its first two stages could set taxpayers back $125 billion, more than double previous estimates from Labor.
The entire project was said to cost up to $50 billion when first unveiled ahead of the 2018 election, then revised to a worse-case scenario of $50.5 billion for the first two sections as part of a business case released last year.
Only $2.3 billion has been budgeted for initial works on the eastern section. Unlike the cancelled East West Link, which cost taxpayers more than $1.1 billion, the coalition has vowed to honour those contracts.
Despite the latest costings, the Labor government is standing by the proposed 90km orbital rail line from the city's southeast to west via Melbourne Airport with the opposition's announcement eliciting a visceral response.
"You need to do more than one thing at a time," Premier Daniel Andrews said as ministers lined up to sing the project's praises on Wednesday.
The state of Victoria's public health system is something the opposition has been trying to get traction on since COVID-19 hit.
While the pandemic, with its six lockdowns and hotel quarantine bungles, sidetracked the government and established Mr Andrews as a polarising figure, polls suggest the coalition has struggled to land a blow.
A Roy Morgan SMS survey published on August 14 had the coalition trailing Labor 39.5 to 60.5 on a two-party preferred basis, while The Age's Resolve Political Monitor from April indicates Labor's primary vote has taken a hit from 43 per cent at the last election to 37 per cent.
"The Victorian Liberals continue to find themselves on the back foot and are going to find it difficult, based on these numbers, to form government," Dr Ghazarian said.
Both parties go into the election with integrity questions over their heads.
Labor has been subject to multiple investigations over branch stacking and misappropriating taxpayer money, while Mr Guy's chief of staff, Mitch Catlin, was exposed asking a party donor to pay more than $100,000 to his private marketing business, prompting his resignation.
Then there are the additional hurdles posed by independents and the Greens.
More than a third of Victorians did not vote for Labor or the coalition in the May federal election and Dr Ghazarian said that was evidence a swing away from the government could be bound for independents or minor parties.
A "teal bath", as seen nationally in May, from integrity and climate-focused independents threatens to wash out Liberals in heartland seats such as Caulfield, Brighton and Sandringham.
Labor may also be vulnerable to independent and Greens candidates in inner Melbourne seats such as Richmond, as well as the Liberals in outer urban electorates like Monbulk, after the retirement of five senior ministers.
Kos Samaras, director of political consultancy group RedBridge and a former Labor strategist, said the major parties' integrity issues could erode their votes in other seats including Hawthorn, Kew and Caulfield.
"It reaffirms in voters' minds ... the major parties are not learning from their mistakes and the only way the political system is going to be shaken up is if voters start opting for alternate options," he told ABC Radio Melbourne earlier this month.
Australian Associated Press
