The media’s tag of Guy 2.0 reflects a calmer, more confident, and focused version of the Victorian opposition leader, Matthew Guy.
The 48-year-old regained the leadership of the Liberal Party in September. Former leader Michael O’Brien was unable to control what increasingly became a rabble, not a genuine opposition party.
“We now have focused ourselves on our opponent for the benefit of the state.”
Victorians are anguished with lockdowns, however jarring Twitter attacks such as, ‘Dictator Dan’ by opposition members like Tim Smith offered no confidence. Other than align them to anti-lockdown protesters.
Guy has distanced himself and says he does not like personal attacks.
“I know the personality of the government that I am against, they tried personality attacks, they used everything under the sun for the three weeks after I became the leader, I’ve seen it all before.”
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Guy says he is now focused on providing “an alternative, and we’ve done that.”
“We reset ourselves and we have put forward real alternatives over the last few weeks in relation to retail, hospitality, gyms, schools, and mental health.”
The opposition leader says the parliamentary party is in “a good space”, and now presents a “sensible and united alternative.”
“I think the people who got us into this mess are not the ones to get us out.”
People are fraying as Victoria edges out of the longest lockdowns in the world, a cumulative 265 days, and Guy knows that.
“We have vaccinations and rapid antigen testing, which they’ve been using in nursing home for many months, we could have bought our kids back to school quicker, we could have got retail open with sensible limits like one per four square metres, we could have done things sooner, which would have had a big impact on people’s mental health.”
In his mind Victoria has not followed the national plan framed in Canberra and agreed to by all states.
“The national road map was based on strong epidemiological advice, it was agreed to by every state with the federal leader, and by states of different political colours but we didn’t keep to most of that roadmap through this lock down and we should have, NSW has, it’s not a tale of two states.”
Sydney is the most obvious comparison to Melbourne for Guy, and he points to our “similar size” and “similar ethnic composition.”
He rejects the suggestion that Dan Andrews has made a virtue of saying that Victoria is following the national plan and says, “they deviated in several areas.”
Guy takes some “credit”, at least “solace”, that Andrews now follows the national cabinet plan.
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“We have been talking of the national cabinet plan for the last month, and stunningly the state government is now starting to talk about national plan, over a month ago they dissed the national cabinet plan and were openly saying so.”
Guy is keen to see small business back and says that if he was in there tomorrow “people would be coming back into retail in a one to four square metre ratio.”
“We have got to get people back to work, and that is part of the increased issue with mental health, particularly in immigrant communities, who are overwhelmingly represented in small business.
“People are sitting at home suffering economic stress, and the fact that they are not working, people need to work, small business do not want welfare, they want to work.”
Victoria’s quarantine disaster in 2020 sparked an outbreak that led to 800 deaths (150 Greek elderly), and an inquiry led by Justice Coates. Then followed the resignations of the health minister Jenny Mikakos, Victoria’s top bureaucrat Chris Eccles and top health bureaucrat Kym Peake.
Guy accepts that he “can’t predict what it would not happen” but points to an obvious policy difference, he would have brought in the Australian Defence Force (ADF) to guard hotel quarantine just like South Australia and NSW.
“Eight hundred people died, that is more than those that died in our Vietnam War contribution, it’s twice as many who passed away in the Black Saturday fires, so to bring in the Australian Defence Force would’ve been a very different policy and would have done that straight away.”
The Ukrainian Australian laughs when told that some in the DHHS refused to use the ADF because they were fearful that multicultural communities would be triggered by armed guards.
“It is ridiculous given all multicultural groups are so used to guns when they visit their homelands, there are machine guns all through their airports back home.
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“Frankly what would be more triggering to see armed guards in front of quarantine or see their parents dragged off to hospital because they got COVID?”
Guy says it took the government over a year to use multicultural media to communicate COVIDSafe messaging with Victoria’s large multicultural community.
“It took till September 2021 to have a coordinated state government multicultural media campaign, the government employed half a dozen ambassadors, now as you and I know that’s not going to work. You need to use the most powerful tools available multicultural communities and that is ethnic media.”
Guy is also critical of the lack of cohesion between states, Labor and Liberal ones.
“My criticism isn’t just with Labor states, I criticise Liberal states too, that is why I think it was important to keep to the national plan, everyone’s agreed to it, for goodness’ sake just keep to it.”
He calls the Western Australian border closures to the rest of the country crazy and asks, “Why can’t Western Australia have a passenger train go from Sydney to Perth if everyone on the train is fully vaxxed?”
“People are travelling all over Europe and the United States.”
The Western Australian government “is not keeping to the national plan from Commonwealth cabinet nor is the Tasmanian government.”
“We have put forward many initiatives over the last month based on that national plan, to get people back to work, and to get kids back into school.”
On the economic front Guy accepts the need for stimulus and supports “building bigger projects for our economy”.
He is critical of the Andrews’ government he says for “major cost blowouts.”
“We’ve got every major project in the state blown out, Northeast Link has blown out dramatically; the level crossing removal is out by 70 per cent; the metro tunnel out by 50 percent and the Westgate tunnel is now stalled because it’s so far over – everything they touch blows out, this government couldn’t manage a chook raffle.”
The AMA recently produced a report with dire warnings that public health systems across Australia are in crisis, a lack of beds, delayed operations, and much more.
“Labor has been in government for 18 of the last 22 years and still our hospital system is in crisis.”
Guy says that if the Coalition win government that he “will redirect the millions of dollars being wasted on ill managed government projects to where it needs to be spent – building a health system that Victorians can rely on – and be proud of.
“Labor’s years of waste and mismanagement need to end so we can rebuild our hospitals and our health system.”
Guy last led the Coalition in the 2018 Victorian elections and the Coalition lost eighteen seats. His unfortunate adherence to federal Coalition narratives ‘African gangs’ did not play out well in a largely left oriented and moderate Victoria.
Guy says the experience and his years in the wilderness taught him much, he has had time to “reflect and think deeply”. The next state election is over a year away and a year in politics especially at a time of crisis is a very long time.
“Victoria will be a different place in a year’s time when elections are due,” Guy admits.
“We are a genuine alternative government, we put forward sensible and genuine policy alternatives, and I think that’s what people want.”
Guy recognises the sentiment, he can feel it as we all do, that “the people want to reopen the state and to do it sensibly.”
The last Liberal leader to win an election was Ted Bailleu and he never lost one. There is no doubt that Guy 2.0 is actively pursuing the government with “reasonable and sensible policies”, most of them crafted and agreed to by the Andrews government in the national plan. There is also no question the government looks tired. It is like its citizens, worn down by excessive lockdowns.
However, agoraphobia, Stockholm Syndrome, and the power of the incumbent, may work against collective memory. Clearly this is a different Guy.