Vote machine: How Dan Andrews won over Victoria

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“So in some ways, electoral success is not that mysterious.” Labor insiders say the same thing. The secret to Andrews' success isn't that surprising. In one person's words, did what he promised, but in the end, for Dan, what promised was fulfilled. Monash University politics lecturer Dr. Zareh Ghazarian says Andrews made clear from start that he would be an "uncompromising politician of faith" when he abandoned work on the East West Link road tunnel a week after winning December 2014 election that cost Victoria $1 billion. “There was a bit of Howard in Andrews; People might not like him, but ultimately they knew what he represented. It showed that having beliefs and implementing them will be respected by voters,” Ghazarian says. A policy unicorn Following Labour's election loss in 2010, Andrews embarked on the "Labour is listening tour", the duty of any new opposition leader who wants to show that his party plans to learn from a humiliating defeat. But while these were often for show, Andrews focused through this experience on the policies that secured Labor victory in 2014, 2018, 2022 and possibly beyond; The most significant commitment was the removal of 50 level crossings. metropolitan Melbourne. "Electoral transitions were the unicorn of politics," one of Labour's state communications advisers told AFR Weekend. Removing them will make people's lives noticeably better every day and they will know exactly who they have to thank. "'What is our level crossing policy?'" "It was a very common expression to ask the question," he says. “It wasn't just the policy itself, but the way they took that policy and got three to four years of positive voter appeal out of it.” Kos Samaras, former Labor Party strategist and pollster, says that as a former campaign official, Andrews could always sense vote winner. Samaras says banning puppy mills in 2017 and allowing UFC circus to revive by announcing before the 2014 election that it would lift ban on cage fighting in Victoria was political gold, like moving level crossings. But it wasn't just what Andrews had to offer that mattered; it was also the way he communicated it. The big headline number has often been left out of statements or relegated to the bottom of media releases. Instead, human benefits were elevated to the main theme. The slogan "We're removing level crossings to get you home safer and quicker" was tiresome. Even when Labor leased Port of Melbourne for $9.7 billion to cover level crossing costs, the message was largely same. Newspapers outside Given that traditional format of leaving stories to newspapers usually refers to when they are reported on evening news, "new perspective" was negative response, and Andrews' team changed tack. They often circulated in newspapers, changing the way the message was conveyed. Andrews would make announcements at morning press conferences, on FM radio and even on social media. state's biggest newspaper