Baillieu, Brumby and the ghost of Steve Bracks

Despite the fact that Labor has been in government in Victoria for the past 11 years, neither of the government's two premiers, Steve Bracks and John Brumby are regarded as politicians of national stature. This may be unfair to Bracks in particular, given the transformation of the public service and the development of Melbourne as a cultural centre under Bracks, a transformation planned and implemented by his department head, Terry Moran who was lured away from Melbourne to Canberra by Kevin Rudd to head up Prime Minister and Cabinet when Rudd was elected prime minister in 2007.

Jeff Kennett was loathed by many Victorians, but even those who loathed him would agree that Kennett was the last Victorian premier who was a politician of national standing. Indeed, before John Howard became federal Liberal leader in the mid-nineties, taking over from the hapless and hopeless Alexander Downer, Kennett was urged by many Liberals to head for Canberra, take over the leadership of the federal Liberals, and save the party from oblivion.

Kennett was probably the last state premier who was urged to head for Canberra and 'save' his party. Bob Carr was premier of NSW for almost twice as long as Kennett in Victoria, but none of Carr's Labor colleagues in Canberra ever suggested Carr was prime minister material.

In many ways, when he stepped down, it was hard to see exactly how Carr had changed the state he had ruled for so long.

When Kennett became premier in 1992, Victoria was an economic basket case. The Cain/Kirner government had been utterly discredited. It had racked up billions in debts. Victoria's manufacturing base was shrinking. Melbourne was a depressed city, with Sydney clearly taking over as Australia's business, entertainment and media centre.

When he lost the 1999 election, Kennett had transformed the state. He had privatised public transport and public utilities and used the proceeds to pay off government debt, he had closed and sold off hundreds of state schools, he had radically re-drawn municipal boundaries, he had brought major events to Melbourne, including the Grand Prix, given the green light to the development of Crown Casino and had liberalised licensing laws. Jeff Kennett was one of the most radical, reforming premiers in Australian post-war history, up there with Don Dunstan in South Australia. He was not a conservative in any sense of the word; even on social issues, Kennett was to the left of much of the Labor Party.

By the time he lost the 1999 election, Victoria was no-longer Australia's basket case state and most Victorians had shrugged off the feeling that their state was in terminal decline. Melbourne had regained some of its civic pride, though major companies continued to move their headquarters to Sydney and the concentration of media headquarters in Sydney intensified. Most Melbournians did not much care about any of this. There was a sense that Melbourne was at the beginning of a cultural renaissance.

It is worth remembering all this as Victorians prepare to cast their votes.

More than one commentator has suggested that this 2010 election very much feels like the 1999 election when all the polls suggested Kennett was heading for victory and when the pundits all agreed he was a far more imposing politician than the 'nice' Steve Bracks.

To everyone's great surprise, Kennett lost the 1999 election, basically because the Liberal party lost most of its regional seats, including Geelong which it lost by 16 votes.

Labor needed to pick up 13 seats to defeat the Kennett government. Now the Coalition, led by the 'nice' Ted Baillieu needs 13 seats to defeat a Labor government led by a more experienced but more arrogant politician in John Brumby.

Most commentators – and the polls – suggest that Baillieu's team might pick up eight or nine, even 10 seats, some of them in regional Victoria, but not 13, not even close and with the Baillieu decision to put the Greens last on Liberal how to vote cards in all seats, the possibility of the Greens picking up more than one inner Melbourne seat and so force Labor into minority government is remote.

But Bracks was given no chance in 1999, and look what happened. The polls did not detect the swing against the Coalition in regional Victoria and the fact that Kennett was really on the nose in the regions where he was considered the premier of Melbourne, with no interest and no concern for Victorians who did not live in the big smoke. History could repeat this weekend, with Baillieu snatching a most improbable victory.

In fact, there is really no comparison between 1999 and 2010, even if Baillieu needs to win the same number of seats to become premier that Bracks needed to defeat Kennett 11 years ago. Kennett lost the 1999 election basically because Victorians were tired of his frenetic reforms and his style of government and because Kennett really was a premier who was focused on Melbourne and had no real feel for regional Victoria.

Victorians voted Kennett out of office because they wanted a break, a rest from relentless reform and Steve Bracks seemed to be offering them just that – indeed in some ways, that's what Bracks delivered, at least at the beginning of his premiership. Neither Bracks nor Brumby have had Kennett's obsession with change and reform.

What this means is that if the Brumby government is defeated, it will be because the government has been in power for 11 years and to vote for Labor is to vote for giving the government another four years, meaning it will been in power for 15 years by the time of the next poll.

This is not a turning-point election in Victoria. Victorians, unlike the people of NSW come next March, won't beat up on the Labor government. Labor might lose, but it won't suffer a landslide defeat. Brumby and Baillieu not only went to the same school – Melbourne Grammar – but are more or less bedmates in the political centre of Australian politics, Brumby of the Labor Right and Baillieu one of the last remaining Liberal leaders who can be regarded as a small 'l' liberal. There's hardly a major policy issue on which they disagree.

Brumby and Baillieu have offered up policies in health and education that are striking for their similarity. Brumby's proposal to fund a two week life training camp for all Year 9 students in state schools was interesting and different, but is unlikely to be an outcome decider. Baillieu's election promises will cost $7.5 billion; Brumby's $8.7 billion. Labor has promised savings of $600 million, the Coalition has promised to find savings of $1.57 billion. Baillieu has run hard on law and order which is a bread and butter issue at state level, but it's hard see that law and order could be a vote changer, especially in the regions where crime does not seem to be a major issue. And both Brumby and Baillieu are now committed to a new crime and corruption commission to replace the largely discredited Office of Police Integrity.

Brumby is a competent, experienced politician and despite the fact that his government has had some real failures – the Myki ticketing system for public transport has cost billions and is still not up and fully running – he has led an economically sound government.

Baillieu seems to be a decent and principled politician, not unintelligent and instinctively progressive on social issues and on social justice issues – a true son of the Victorian Liberal Party, its history and traditions. There is no reason to believe he would be anything but a competent premier. Neither Brumby nor Baillieu have won an election – Brumby was defeated by Kennett in 1996 and was replaced by Bracks before the 1999 election.

Increasingly, state governments are little more that services deliverers, services in the main funded by the federal government, which largely decides how these funds will be spent. State taxes—from gambling, payroll taxes and stamp duty—are either regressive or, like payroll tax, inhibit business investment. State governments, faced with ever-increasing demands for better services, simply cannot fund these demands without federal funding.

The Victorian election campaign started without most Victorians noticing, basically because Victoria has fixed four-year terms and everyone knew the election date. It ends after a campaign of less spin and mindless sloganeering than the federal election campaign just past and much more substance in terms of spending promises, but without any sense that the outcome of this election will be transformative for Victoria and Victorians.

State elections, more and more, have little impact on federal politics and offer up few lessons for federal politicians. The Greens will poll reasonably well, though probably not the 16 per cent predicted by the polls, but it's hard to see what this might mean for the Greens federally. For Julia Gillard, a Brumby victory will mean little, given that Labor won Victoria decisively in the federal election.

For the Liberal Party, a Ted Baillieu victory might be more significant. Baillieu is the last small 'l' Liberal leader in the country. If he wins, the sort of liberalism that was once characterised as 'wet', the liberalism of the party's founder, Robert Menzies, might not yet be dead. It might give heart to the few remaining small 'l' liberals in Canberra, including Malcolm Turnbull. If Baillieu loses, the Abbott ascendency in the party might well be complete, at least for the foreseeable future.