You know an election campaign is going poorly when nearly all the images of your Party Leader on Getty are from a funeral where he was a background extra.

This is the struggle I face on the rare occasion someone writes an article about the Victorian Liberals (which, to be fair, isn’t very often).

Even die-hard conservatives admit that there’s not much worth salvaging in the Southern state. Most of their MPs (with a few notable exceptions that write for this publication) are mistaken for members of the Greens when they wander into New South Wales – such is the ideological drift in Victoria.

Serving largely as a cheer squad for Daniel Andrews’ Net Zero vision, the Victorian Liberals employ two doomed strategies: support the climate cult and remain invisible on everything else. They are excelling at the latter.

Just like the near-extinct Western Australian Liberals, everything Labor can do on electric vehicles, batteries, and renewables – the Liberals can do better. They will out-green-Greta in their pledge to save the world (instead of Victoria). The only difference between the two parties is that Labor knows it’s lying.

What’s the point of an Opposition that boasts less strength, charisma, competency, and vision than their wicked predecessors? As far as voters are concerned, there isn’t one. People will always vote for strength, even the tyrannical kind, over wilting platitudes. Your average street cat could win an election against the depraved, dictatorial, abusive, wasteful, and – on occasion – seditious Labor government. But the Liberals are filter-feeders, not predators, and that’s a problem.

After supporting Daniel Andrews throughout the power-hungry Covid years, the Liberals have nothing to run on. Sure, they opposed (weakly) the expansion of a literal dictatorship, but they remained silent on the worst violations of basic ethics carried out under their noses.

Had they shown a backbone and risked public backlash in favour of supporting human rights, liberty, and small government when it was difficult – they’d be cruising along today, vindicated and secure in their ideology. Instead, the slogans on their website have been rendered meaningless. The booing at CPAC should serve as a hint to pro-Covid tyranny Liberal MPs that betrayal is election poison that requires scalps, not apologies, to mend.

Victoria’s political situation went viral on the world stage when Labor’s cruelty became a topic of conversation. The Liberals didn’t make it onto those broadcasts because they were too frightened of being associated with the likes of Rebel News, Clive Palmer, the Liberal Democrats, and One Nation. Preserving their (assumed) dignified stance as a ‘serious’ party has led them to the brink of annihilation.

The fate of Matthew (Matt) Guy, Leader of the Liberal Party in Victoria, is that of a lobster tapping on the glass in a Chinese restaurant. Though the waters are murky and his shell is covered in aquatic plants, there are enough people ordering lunch to allow us to predict his future.

When it comes to Covid vaccines – one of the biggest political storms – Guy kept quiet until he was positive that it was ‘safe’ to dissent from the original health advice.

In October of 2021, he was still gracing our screens calling for broad vaccine campaigns. ‘Victorians need to go and get vaccinated – for all of us – that’s our way out.’ Guy was part of the mindless herd of politicians falsely stating that vaccination protected others – using collective guilt to motivate otherwise hesitant people. During that interview, Guy objected to young children wearing masks at school – a moment of clarity – but in the next breath said that ‘we accept it for those 12 and over’ and threw his weight behind RAT testing kids.

It wasn’t until February 2022, when worldwide objection to mandated vaccination was well and truly underway, that Guy raised his voice in opposition to mandating a third vaccine shot.

‘Professor Sutton’s comments yesterday show that the Premier himself has subjected Victorians to the con of the decade, claiming all his decisions are based on health advice – they are not.’

His statement was ruined seconds later when he followed it up with the same guilt-tripping employed by the Andrews’ regime. ‘Victorians will do the right thing if they get the right information.’ Guy’s words clearly implied that you were ‘doing the wrong thing’ if you decided against a second booster shot.

You won’t see any Victorian politicians rushing out to apologise to all those seriously harmed or ‘coincidentally dead’ due to Covid vaccination. Guy’s lack of courage while people were being victimised by the government has cemented one truth: the Liberals cannot be trusted to save Victorians from tyranny.

Similarly, when Guy briefly (and boldly) demanded an end to all lockdowns, he was forced to crawl out from under his rock moments later and correct himself, insisting that he’d only meant ‘end the curfew’.

When Labor broke every agreed-upon law regarding coercion and threats for vaccination, insisting that the ‘vaccinated economy’ would be continued through to 2022 with the unvaccinated refused entry to venues, events, and workplaces – did Guy come out in a fury, condemning the Big State and championing human rights?

‘What the government says applies at 90 per cent should apply at 80 per cent.’

Is there a clearer way to say ‘slightly better than Labor’?

Guy is never going to be that guy riding into battle on a horse shouting, ‘Freedom!’ Everything he says looks better in print, because the moment you hear it uttered live you are reminded of his passive, apologetic, try-hard exterior of a crustacean praying it’ll be the last one plucked from the tank if only it can keep its head down.

Where was he when 1.25 million Victorian workers were given two weeks to ‘get vaccinated or be sacked’? He’s campaigning to end mandated vaccination for the transport industry today, but he is two years too late. Those workers have either lost their jobs or been bullied into vaccination.

Now that it’s acceptable to remember that human rights exist, Guy has ‘no vaccine mandates’ stuck to his policy portfolio. And this is the problem. ‘Liberals of Convenience’ are not a species that win elections. They want ‘pleasant’ press conferences and a peaceful atmosphere. Well, they have it because Labor doesn’t see Guy as a problem worth addressing.

The first positive advertising we’ve seen from the Opposition leader promised to waste taxpayer money on school lunches (would you trust the government not to slip in a few bugs?) which is an admission that Victorian parents can’t afford to feed their children. Australians don’t want the state creating breadlines for kids – they want politicians to lower taxes, stop wasting money, fix the energy grid, get out of their lives, and return all those fines issued to innocent people during the pandemic.

Guy and the current Liberal team have been in the crock-pot for too long – stewing in prior failures while losing any discernible features that separate them from Labor.

Conservatives want them to win. There is no question that even a weak Liberal government is less dangerous than the Andrews regime, but it’s not the party faithful the Opposition needs to reach – it’s everyone else and they’re never going to manage it until they stand in front of the fish tank and see their current leadership for what it is…

As the November state election draws near, there’s a strong scent of bisque wafting from Victoria with Guy’s little tail poking out of the bowl and an empty tank in the corner.

Alexandra Marshall is an independent writer. If you would like to support her work, shout her a coffee over at donor-box.