In an astonishing coup for Premier John Brumby and his ALP strategists led by Stephen Newnham, the Greens party have been humiliated in a spectacular by-election double disaster.
CRUNCH THOSE NUMBERS
Consider this analysis after looking at the booth by booth numbers [XLS].
If you distribute the Liberal vote from 2006 (assuming the Liberal preferences between Labor and Green were the same as they were in the four state seats where they were distributed in 2006 election - the only data available on this phenomenon), Albert Park was an ALP 52-53% 2PP seat against the Greens on the 2006 numbers.
The by-election results yesterday had Labor on 57.2% against the Greens. So an astounding 5% swing away from the trendy lefty Greens in a very affluent trendy left area full of Saab owners, Age readers and lefty latte sippers. On a recent visit down to Bridport Street Albert Park, I spied Steve Vizard holding court at Brown's bakery while former ALP branch member now Hulls appointed President of the Victorian Court of Appeal Chris Maxwell strolled by with his shopping in hand. Albert Park's coolness will long survive any of the hot air hooey about global warming. When I stopped for a latte of my own, I overheard endless talk of "scripts in development", "arts grants" and holistic medicine whatever that is. A 5% swing in an area like that to an outer suburban and regional Victorian dominated Labor moderate government that's been in office for eight years. Excuse me? How is this possible?
Distributing Liberal preferences in Williamstown would take Labor's vote to 69% on 2006 numbers and is just over 64% in the by-election. There was much less of an energetic contest in Williamstown as it was regarded as a very safe Labor seat by both sides. No doubt if the Greens were subject to the same campaign in Williamstown they would have suffered the same consequences.
AMAZING 5% SWING AWAY FROM GREENS FROM 2006 RESULTS
All the serious feudin' and the left-on-left violence we love so much was in Albert Park. And the results were indeed amazing.
Labor got this amazing result by doing one thing: holding their opponents in the Greens party to account for their occasionally extremist policies and the conduct of their MPs. Yes, they ran a nice message about the government's strengths but what really focused the mind in a way that only so-called "negative campaigning" can was what the differences were between Labor and the Greens.
Their policies on the environment are extreme but are usually accepted by many voters who should know better. But on a range of economic and social issues, the Greens have an ultra-left agenda imposed by the former communists and socialists in their ranks and high command.
So, John Brumby's first election test has seen his leadership endorsed emphatically against an alternative of Greens extremism and hypocrisy, exposed in a stunningly successful ALP campaign of accountability and scrutiny of the Greens manifesto and their parliamentary conduct.
Led by patriot Stephen Newnham despite savage resistance from the Gavin Jennings part of the Socialist Left faction and other cranks like Henk van Leeuwen, ALP Head Office rolled out the best government by-election result in living memory. Not since 1982 has a state government had as favourable a result, Labor insiders told the OC.
GOING THE GREENS
It was an unorthodox yet clearly thoroughly researched strategy that attracted the criticism of many leftards in the ALP who basically believe that it's better to lose seats to the Greens than dare criticise them in any way.
The Greens party had adopted the right tactics initially in response to being criticised which was not to do anything that drew further attention to the criticism.
GREGGY SNAPPED, CRACKLED AND POPPED
But something snapped in Greens de facto leader Greg Barber who has been dubbed "Mini-Me" to the "Dr Evils in the Liberal Party" in a highly successful billboard campaign across inner-city Melbourne.
He suddenly summoned all television networks out to one of the amusing billboards that reminded voters of the fact that he and his comrades were voting 68% of the time with the Liberal Party. Ironically, when the billboard was launched, one channel made mention of it. When Barber attacked it, it was publicised on every news broadcast into Melbourne that night.
It was nothing less than crazy. And this from a guy who bludgeons dissenters in the Greens by implying everyone else is stupid because he does "data-driven analysis" suggesting that others don't.
The bizarre tactic was an attempt to muddy the waters about his and the Greens party voting record but it backfired horrendously because it provoked even more analysis and discussion of why they were voting with the Liberals so often. Clearly ideological differences were being ignored for cynical political reasons. And equally clearly, fickle and fussy Greens party voters didn't like it all.
Greens insiders tell the OC that the already highly negative reaction to what the Greens MLC's had been up to intensified to a frenzy after Barber's stunt as he had inadvertently reinforced Labor's message.
Not to be outdone, he then went on a jihad about an ALP direct mail piece from a Mac.Robertson Girls High School alumnus who just happened to work for a company that once did some work for the ALP.
GREG PUNK'D
Greggy Barber googled her name, excitedly discovered she worked for the ALP's pollster and then rang over a dozen journalists (some of them four times) to get the word out about Labor's direct mail. Paul Austin, Josephine his wife and Jon Faine didn't need four calls, they were straight into making it the biggest issue of the campaign. Even The Age ran a leader article saying it was enough to justify voting Greens.
One problem. The direct mail was about the undeniable fact that Greens policy would lead to a school - the best performing one in the state - being closed. And that school was in the Albert Park electorate.
It went from being an issue Labor was trying to get traction on into a firestorm of attention and analysis. Why were the Greens trying to shut the school? What did their policy say? Did Greg Barber deny it? Was Labor playing dirty by drawing attention to Greens party policies on axing selective entry government schools that offer gifted students a programme uniquely suited to them?
DENY, DENY, DENY
Barber denied it all. But even one of the Greens' three media stooges, Jon Faine on the ABC, stood him up and confronted him on it.
The exchange, much to Barber and Faine's horror, was partly reproduced in a full colour ALP persuasion mail piece that was produced in what must have been record time on the Tuesday to have been printed and arrived in Thursday morning's mail. It was a brutal and entirely accurate summary of Greens Party policy on selective schools like Mac.Robertson Girls High.
BRING ENOUGH GUN TO GET THE JOB DONE
In the world of political hunting, one must bring enough gun to get the job done. And that clever little mailing was the final blast that killed the Greens campaign stone dead.
Distractions like who get the second last preference on an ALP ticket where the preferences were never going to be distributed and the Henk the Crank email that was leaked by a prominent member of the Socialist Left from the Jennings sub-faction, never really got a look in. The twin towers of the Greens 68% Liberal voting record and the Greens policy of shuttering the government's best performing school emerged very clearly as the two dominant issues on the horizon through the low level dust of candidate-it is, Greens party whining and left-wing press beat-ups.
It was an incredibly poor performance from the Greens party, as their cheer squad member Paul Austin in The Age noted on Saturday:
And the downside of the Victorian Greens' policy of no leader was exposed as they struggled to present a clear and concise response to Labor.
HOW THE GREENS COULD HAVE ROLLED
They had at least two great issues to motivate voters about and did very little with them. The Port Phillip Bay dredging and the prospect of a night Grand Prix. If Greg Barber had the political smarts he thinks he has, the by-election in Albert Park would have been dominated by these issues. Instead, he consciously chose to amplify the ALP's message by attacking the messenger, by claiming any scrutiny of the Greens party was somehow a "dirty trick."
Bizarre.
And the result, a total repudiation of the Victorian Greens by electors in an area where high incomes and a high incidence of trendy left views gave them the perfect opportunity to win.
As we discussed earlier, with the Libs not running, in Albert Park, they needed a 2-3% swing on 2006 figures to win. Instead they went backwards by 5%. At a time when there was a highly public parliamentary inquiry into the awarding of the state's lottery monopoly and the role of an ALP connected lobbyist. At a time when the government had clocked up nearly eight years in office. At a time when voters had every reason to be annoyed with their local MP who'd only been elected on a four year term less than a year ago.
And despite all that, the Greens went backwards!
WHAT WENT WRONG
Greens de facto leader Greg Barber, desperate to spin the disaster, said informal votes and poor turnout was to blame.
The hopeless and hapless property tycoon Greens party candidate John Middleton was at least honest and admitted that Labor's campaign of scrutiny and accountability on the Greens had finished him:
But Greens candidate John Middleton said the main issue had been ALP tactics.
"The biggest issue has been the fact that the ALP has made themselves the issue with their negative campaigning — it has overshadowed the real issues," he said. Was he reading from ALP Head Office talking points?
We seldom make predictions but we'd be willing to punt they won't be wheeling out this old clown again any time soon as a candidate. H
DEVASTATION IN GREENS RANKS
The Victorian Greens are - contrary to Barber's statements - privately devastated by the results, particularly in Albert Park. They had the wrong candidate, who was too old, with a track record in office tower property development he was desperate to hide. Greens scrutineers and booth workers were subdued and in some cases ashen faced according to observers as it became obvious from the voters initially then the ballot papers that their plans of winning Albert Park turning to non-recycled sewerage.
From the triumph of getting three candidates elected in the upper house in 2006 to the disaster of effectively having a swing against them in 2007 in a by-election that they should have won is a very long distance indeed.
The bottom line of this should be very clear: the Greens party emperor has no clothes. When subjected to beautifully executed scrutiny of the kind unleashed by the ALP head office's increasingly dynamic duo of Stephen Newnham and Kosmos Samaras (painful to admit in the latter's case) they were exposed for all the world to see for exactly what they are:
■Politically inept;
■Ideologically extreme; and
■Glass-jawed hypocrites.
SWEET SUNDAY
Sundays are always good. But for Liberal and Labor patriots across the nation who looked at this battle with great interest, there should be an extra spring in your step today. In a struggle where there were many tensions beneath the surface, freedom confronted evil hippy indulgence and humbug and walked away holding the prize of victory. It's a big message to people like Red Ted who've been playing footsie with the Greens party.
For once when stalking the Greens prey, despite a few nervous nellies begging for kid gloves, Labor finally brought enough gun to get the job done. And look at the results. On the subject of the Greens party we could self evidently write for many thousands of words and speak for many boring hours. But in this case, it's all in the numbers. A 5% swing away from a trendy left enviro party to an eight-year old state government in a trendy left enviro friendly seat.
Perhaps Labor's true believers think their 1993 federal election result was the "sweetest victory of all" but for Labor moderates who had to fight very hard internally to really be able to take the fight to the Greens, this must be surely be their sweetest and most thoroughly deserved victory of all.
Game on.
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What would have once been unimaginable, the wholesale clearing out of every Greens party candidate now occurs with barely a whimper of protest from his victims. Darth Barber is happy to exercise power with more brute force than even the most blood-thirsty of Labor numbers-men. 
