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Weeks before the November 2010 Victoria State Election, I stood on the steps of Parliament House, Spring Street, Melbourne, with a few FamilyVoice supporters.

In a broad phalanx around us was every member of Victoria’s Liberal/National Coalition, led by Ted Baillieu - and every MP held a copy of FamilyVoice Australia’s Open Letter calling for the restoration of religious organisations’ right to employ people of the same ethos – a privilege removed by Brumby’s Labor government.

That day, the Coalition declared that, if elected, they would amend Equal Opportunity laws and restore religious rights. Soon after, Ted Baillieu announced that the Coalition would preference the Greens last.

These two factors swung conservative voters and provided the Liberal/Nationals with a narrow election win.

Contrast Matthew Guy’s 2022 election campaign and the Liberal Party’s devastating loss (again) to Labor. It was the Liberals’ election to lose. Daniel Andrews’ government had overseen the longest Covid lockdowns in the world, Hotel Quarantine failure and the loss of 801 lives, a bigger debt than NSW, Queensland and Tasmania combined, partial collapse of the health system, the Suburban Rail Loop declared an “extravagant waste of public money,” and four matters under investigation by IBAC (Anti-Corruption Commission).

Labor had shocked Christian conservatives with extreme abortion laws, euthanasia, removed faith-based organisations’ right to employ according to ethos, introduced gender change on birth certificates, criminalized counselling or prayer for those seeking gender or sexual help, and pushed ahead with gender and sexual ideology curriculum from kinder to year 12.

Matthew Guy, following the imprudent example of other Liberal parties also suffering crushing defeats in Western Australia, South Australia and federally, deserted conservatives.

He promised funding for legal aid to the LGBTIQ lobby, banned Renee Heath from the party room for her Christian beliefs, suggested to Islamic groups that he would revisit Equal Opportunity laws but failed to make it a policy announcement, and ejected staunch conservative Bernie Finn from the party.

Guy failed to hit back at the relentless Labor push to impose its socialist ideology agenda, laws suppressing religious organisations and the church, the “climate emergency” debacle and soaring energy prices, and life issues.

Liberals around Australia have become “Labor-lite” in a fruitless endeavor to build their support base among left-wing voters, failing to realize that left wing voters will always choose the real thing – Labor or the Greens.

There is some good news in Victoria: Family First Party, led by fearless Christian Lyle Shelton polled better than all other minor parties, and at least five, perhaps more, of the Christian upper house candidates strongly promoted by FamilyVoice are on track to be elected, doubling, or tripling the number of Christians in parliament.

One can only hope that the new Victorian Liberal leader, and Liberal leaders around the country realize that the only hope the Coalition have, to ever govern is to move significantly to the right.

Peter Stevens is FamilyVoice Victoria State Director