As vote counting in a few contested seats continued and the make-up of the new state parliament settled, there were strong conclusions to be drawn from the state election results, La Trobe University politics research fellow Ian Tulloch believes.
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Chief among them was the fact the negative campaign against the Premier had "completely failed", with the Labor Party on track for a result comparable to their record win in 2018.
"The interesting thing from my point of view is that all the beat-up hysteria against Daniel Andrews came to nothing in the end, so he was completely vindicated in the stance he took during the pandemic, and his style of leadership has been vindicated as well," Mr Tulloch said.
Labor had presented "a whole swag of really progressive policies", which the Liberals had tried to match early on in the campaign.
Mr Tulloch was confident the officially undecided seats of Ripon, Northcote and Preston had all been won by Labor, while Bass was still too close to call.
"I think Labor will get 54 or 55 seats, the Libs will get 29 or 30, and there are four Greens, so it's almost exactly the same [as last election]," he said.
While Bendigo MPs Jacinta Allan and Maree Edwards both recorded a swing against them in their seats, "a slight re-adjustment" was to be expected after the "Dan-slide" of 2018.
"That looks like it's happened in Bendigo East and Bendigo West but they're still extremely safe Labor seats and I think Jacinta and Maree should be congratulated," Mr Tulloch said.
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Meanwhile seven candidates who ran for minor parties or as independents across the two seats would not be getting their election deposits back.
"If you get more than four per cent of the primary vote, the deposit is refunded, but if not, it's forfeited," Mr Tulloch said.
Provisional results show that, in Bendigo East, Animal Justice Party candidate Vyonne McLelland-Howe (3.87 per cent), Family First's Evelyn Keetelaar (3.01 per cent) and Independent Laurie James (3.53 per cent) have failed to reach the benchmark.
In Bendigo West, the AJP's Victoria Maxwell (2.57 per cent), Independents Matt Bansemer (2.45 per cent) and Marilyn Nuske (0.87 per cent) and Freedom Party candidate Richard Woolley (1.51 per cent) look set to lose their deposits.
Bendigo East One Nation candidate Ben Mihail (5.75 per cent) and Bendigo West Family First candidate Steve Serpell (with 4.23 per cent) both just made it over the line.
On the statewide picture, it was clear the Liberals needed to completely renew the party in Victoria and stop its infiltration by fundamentalist churches, Mr Tulloch said.
He also shared the view of many commentators that the group voting ticket system in the parliament's upper house, which enables candidates to be elected with a very small share of the vote, needs to be reformed.
Overall, the election result had surprised everybody, the political observer said.
"I don't think anybody predicted the magnitude of this victory," Mr Tulloch said.
"I mean I thought [Labor] would win quite easily but not by that much. I thought they would lose a couple of marginal seats but they only lost one - Nepean - as well as losing Richmond to the Greens."
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