Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Victoria
economy was also a factor, as many key education institutions leading this
development are based in or near the central business district.
Significant gentrification of the inner urban suburbs has created the conditions
for a Greens-voting constituency. Beyond the inner city the Greens vote falls away
and the party’s role in these lower house districts is confined to influencing the
outcome between the major parties by way of preference distribution. Notwithstanding
this, the Greens now rank alongside the major parties as participants in
the Legislative Assembly, thus providing grounds for describing Victorian politics
as a four-party system. This also has the potential to make for a very close contest
for the Assembly. In theory, single-member electoral systems should reward the
successful party or parties with a clear lower house majority. Since 1999, however,
Victoria has experienced minority government twice (1999 to 2002 and towards
the latter stages of the Coalition government between 2010 and 2014) and some
election outcomes have been very close.
The policy debate
Given the significant constitutional and administrative capacity state governments
have to make public policy, the list of potential policy controversies on the state
policy agenda is vast. However, in the case of Victoria, the policy record can be
usefully assessed under two broad headings: the provision of infrastructure (which
is of critical importance to the state’s approach to economic policy), and ‘social
policy’. In both cases, something of a major transition occurred in the Victorian
approach to both economic and social policy during the 1980s and 1990s. In the
case of infrastructure provision, Victoria enthusiastically embraced the neoliberal
argument about the desirability of a reduced role for government, particularly
in relation to the provision of services that could instead be provided by the
private sector. Social policy, meanwhile, underwent no less a significant change, the
consequence of which was to erase the state’s previous reputation for conservatism
and prohibition – an approach to policy that was known to an older generation of
Victorians as ‘wowserism’. 21
Infrastructure, economy and the state sector
Historically, the public sector has been a major presence in Victoria’s economy.
Until the 1990s, the Victorian economy comprised the private sector operating with
or through major state corporations providing energy, fresh water, transport, port
facilities and financial services.
21 Dunstan 1974.
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