Labor talks health, Coalition crime as both parties play in safe spaces

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The major parties have sought to play to their respective strengths as they enter the last two weeks of the state election campaign.

Labor and the Coalition have pivoted to their respective policy strengths in launching their election campaigns, with Premier Ben Carroll promising $1.2 billion for hospital wait lists while Jess Wilson pledged new stalking penalties six years after the murder of Melbourne woman Celeste Manno.

Carroll sought to inspire the Labor faithful to action in the face of dire polling, at a campaign launch in Moonee Ponds on Sunday, as a quarter of staff in party headquarters are sent out to assist local campaigns.

Wilson and senior Liberals received rock star welcomes from party faithful at Olympic Park, whereas the mood at the Labor launch was less buoyant. But senior Liberals said the Coalition couldn’t afford to get ahead of itself, and warned of a close election.

At the Labor event, Carroll promised $1.17 billion to deliver an extra 100,000 planned surgeries over the next four years, and $195 million for 500,000 more specialist appointments that facilitate these surgeries.

He sought to contrast the policy, which is for the public health system, with the Coalition’s $1.27 billion pledge to pay the private sector to deliver another 25,000 surgeries a year.

The Age revealed in October that the Coalition’s promise to fund its surgery commitment by winding up the state-owned investment company Breakthrough Victoria fell $880 million short of what the party had anticipated.

Carroll argued his scheme was $100 million cheaper than the Coalition’s plan and that the money was better spent going to the public system.

His wife, Fiona Rothville, sought to reinforce this message as she introduced the premier to the stage at Moonee Ponds.

She started by sharing the complications she experienced when pregnant with the couple’s daughter. Madeleine was underweight and spent a month in hospital after she was born.

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