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Saturday’s shock win for Labor at the Aston’s by-election looks to paint a grim picture for future of the Liberal party.
This comes as Anthony Albanese and his new trade unionist MP, Mary Doyle won the ALP another seat in the lower house. Melbourne’s aspirational eastern suburbs swung away from the once safe Liberal alternative by more than 6%.
This seat, recently vacated by the scandal-soaked Alan Tudge MP, was considered such a blue-ribbon seat for the Liberals that the biggest to them was thought to be a teal independent.
However, Labor won. By a lot. Marking the the first time a sitting government has won a seat at a by-election for over 100 years.
Prior to the weekend, the Liberals had only held just three seats in Melbourne: Aston, Deakin and Menzies. Each one was a considered marginal. Now they only have two, not even 6 months after Dan Andrews was returned to power in the state election with a landslide win of 56 seats – 11 more than required to actually form government.
A newspoll published on Monday has shown Albanese stretching his lead to 58% as the preferred leader, overlapping opposition leader Peter Dutton’s 26% support.
The state of the Liberal Party in the Southern state is terminal, with many political analysts expecting that the Victorian National MPs will be doing their best to chum up to the Labor Party – putting the entire concept of a ‘coalition’ at risk at both levels of government.
While the Federal Opposition can be congratulated for at least running a female candidate in Aston, it’s not yet clear as to whether or not the party’s executives understand that the mere image of Peter Dutton creates Labor voters out of once dyed in the wool Liberal voting Victorians.
Speaking to The Betoota Advocate today, prominent Victorian Liberal powerbroker, Angus Hopscotch-Thorley (22) has made it clear that the party will be taking a good look at themsleves after this potentially leader-ousting result.
“There’s a lot to be said about listening to the voters” said the promising Young Liberal turned political staffer.
“And I think we haven’t been doing that”
“This result tells us that voters want the Liberal Party to attack Trans people and stoke conflict with China”
“We’ve also greatly underestimated the electorate’s desire to see a glorious rehabilitation of the male breadwinner. Even pretending to entertain the most basic understanding of feminism is not worth the votes we are losing”
