Vic: Election disaster continues for Liberals

AAP General News (Australia)
12-12-1999
Vic: Election disaster continues for Liberals

By Joanne Williamson

MELBOURNE, Dec 12 AAP - This time it really wasn't Jeff's fault.

The Liberal Party's disastrous showing in the former premier's Melbourne seat of Burwood
yesterday can be blamed on a number of factors - but the Kennett factor isn't the key
one.

Voters dumped Mr Kennett and his two-term government of no-names at the September 18
general election, tired after seven years of the cult of Jeff, his dominance, arrogance
and Melbourne-centred view.

But during the month-long campaign for the seat he held for 23 years, Jeff - bar one
street walk with Liberal candidate Lana McLean - was nowhere to be seen.

Labor's Bob Stensholt, who secured a small swing against Mr Kennett at the election,
did even better to win the ALP seat for the first time.

So who or what can the Liberals blame?

They blame the loss of a high-profile local member, the fact that a large part of Burwood
is in a marginal federal Labor seat, the mud-slinging which marred the campaign, the Bracks
government's honeymoon with the electorate.

But they can really only blame themselves.

Their candidate made an impact - but it was the wrong type.

On the first day of campaigning a frog peed on Ms McLean. Things didn't improve much
from then on.

In a particularly nasty campaign, both parties dished out the mud, but Ms McLean seemed
to fare worse than Mr Stensholt.

She came across as strident and argumentative, and was even called a abusive liar in
parliament by deputy premier John Thwaites.

She told Burwood-ites she grew up in the region.

But she had told voters in the Melbourne electorate, where she was the Liberals' candidate
in the general election, that she was raised there.

It was true in both cases, but it didn't matter. She also lives in trendy, inner-city
Prahran - a lifestyle away from the comfortable middle class of Burwood.

Then there was the Napthine-factor. Or lack of it.

The Liberals new leader, the mild-mannered country vet Denis Napthine, has made no
impression on the electorate post-Kennett. Most people don't even know how to pronounce
his name.

And with the mass exodus of experience at the state election, his frontbench is filled
with newchums.

Dr Napthine tonight acknowledged the problems the Liberal Party faces in clawing its
way back to power.

But it's going to be a long, hard haul - especially with the ALP's relatively smooth
start to government.

AAP jlw =

KEYWORD: BURWOOD (NEWS ANALYSIS) REPEATING

1999 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.