In rival Victorian election campaign launches, Labor pledges $1.17bn for elective surgeries while Liberals say they will send young offenders to boot camp
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As Ben Carroll arrived at a Melbourne community centre to launch Labor’s Victorian election campaign, he had to squeeze his way through a crush of party faithful, clad in red and already a little sweaty.
The Kellaway community centre in Moonee Ponds in the city’s inner north-west was so packed on Sunday that some supporters were left waiting outside.
It was a far smaller venue than the theatre in Cranbourne where Daniel Andrews launched Labor’s 2022 campaign. It was also in the seat of Essendon – a traditionally safe Labor stronghold the party has held at all but one election since 1979 but which it fears it could lose at this month’s election, despite a 12.5% margin.
With polls showing Labor’s primary vote slumping into the low 20s, and one survey published last week putting it at just 18%, Carroll had the task of lifting the spirits of a party facing the prospect of a historic defeat.
He put public healthcare at the centre of the launch, leaning heavily on the party’s credentials as the “party of Medicare” and its commitment to a “first-class public health system”. He announced a $1.17bn commitment to perform an additional 100,000 elective surgeries in public hospitals and halve the waiting list, alongside more than $195m for 500,000 additional specialist appointments.
The announcement contrasts with the Coalition’s plan to spend $1.27bn paying private hospitals to perform procedures for public patients, which the opposition has said will come at no cost to patients.
“Labor believes in public healthcare, the Liberals don’t,” Carroll told the crowd of about 250 people. “As for One Nation, they don’t even believe we should have a health department.”
He accused the opposition of laying the groundwork for an “American-style health system”, warning: “It won’t cost you until it does.”
Carroll’s wife, Fiona Rothville, gave the crowd a personal account of the public hospital system’s role in saving their daughter Madeline’s life after she stopped growing in utero at 20 weeks and was born at 37 weeks weighing just 1.8kg.
“As for me, I developed pre-eclampsia and spent two and a half weeks in hospital on a different ward on a different floor,” she said. “These doctors and nurses saved the life of our daughter, and they saved my life too.”
Carroll promised that a re-elected Labor government would take Victoria in a “new direction”, make “tough decisions” on the state budget and ensure “every dollar counts”, with a focus on the issues he said mattered most to working people: health, education and cost-of-living relief.
But he was blunt about the challenge ahead, telling the crowd that Labor – which has been in power in the state for 12 years – has never won a fourth consecutive term in Victoria.
“Let’s go out and make history,” he said.
Much of the attack on the opposition was left to his deputy, Gabrielle Williams, who accused the Coalition of heading into the election “arrogant”. She claimed that the opposition would purse $40bn in cuts but was refusing to explain where the “axe would fall”.
“It’s dodgy and it’s weak,” she said.
Neither Andrews nor Jacinta Allan, whom Carroll challenged for the Labor leadership in July, attended the event, though the former premiers Steve Bracks and John Brumby and the deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, were present.
‘Make no mistake, this election will be close’
Across town, at Olympic Park, the Liberals were making their own pitch to supporters. About 500 people gathered for the party’s campaign launch on Sunday, including the former premiers Ted Baillieu, Denis Napthine and Jeff Kennett.
Arriving to a standing ovation, the opposition leader, Jess Wilson, urged her supporters in blue not to underestimate the challenge ahead. The Coalition, she said, had a “mountain to climb”, needing to win an additional 16 seats to form government. It had to take on the Labor party and its “union machine”, which she said was resorting to “scare campaigns and personal attacks”.
“Our team takes nothing for granted,” Wilson said. “The heightened media interest has seen much reporting but polls are headlines, not outcomes.
“Make no mistake, this election will be close. There is much that is unusual about this election, and with that comes great risk.”
Wilson used the launch to announce a $60m plan to give courts the power to send offenders aged 14 to 17 to boot camp, as an alternative to community corrections orders or other custodial sentences.
Inspired by Queensland’s Circuit Breaker program, the proposed boot camp would be established at the former Dhurringile prison and put young offenders through a “strict daily routine” of physical activity, farm work, cleaning, cooking and laundry, alongside skills and education programs.
“This is about instilling the discipline and respect that so many young offenders have not learned throughout their life, and crucially giving them the skills they need to get on the right path,” Wilson said.
Samantha Byrne, the Liberal candidate for Carroll’s seat of Niddrie, also spoke as the party becomes increasingly confident of its chances of ousting the premier.
Both the Greens and One Nation have launched their campaigns, with the leaders of all four parties preparing to face off in a debate hosted by News24 and the Herald Sun on Tuesday night. It will be the only leaders’ debate scheduled for the campaign after neither Carroll nor Wilson could agree to terms for Channel Nine or the ABC.
