Liberal heavyweights including Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu, party president David Kemp and state director Tony Nutt last night resolved to ''put the Greens last'' in all 88 lower house seats. Got a question for Brumby or Baillieu? We'll ask it for you The Liberals were angry to discover the Greens had been negotiating a substantial preference deal with Labor, under which the minor party has agreed to buttress the government's vote in 13 of the 15 most-marginal seats in the lower house and Labor will preference the Greens ahead of the Coalition in all upper house seats. The Liberals say their decision is in the best interests of stable government for Victoria, because the state will be spared the sort of instability that followed the August federal election. The preferences bombshell came just hours after Mr Baillieu unveiled a $1.4 billion blueprint to fix Melbourne's trouble-plagued public transport system as the centrepiece of his official campaign launch.

The money will be spent on 40 new trains for Melbourne over eight years, with just seven to be delivered in the first term of a Baillieu government. The remaining 33 would be built should the Coalition be re-elected in 2014. The Age can reveal that Mr Baillieu will today reinforce his transport pitch by pledging to begin developing an airport rail link if he wins on Saturday week. The government slammed Mr Baillieu's transport policy as reckless spending. ''He is taking Victorians for a ride,'' Treasurer John Lenders said. He said the Coalition's ''hollow'' transport solution was to copy Labor's $38 billion, 12-year transport plan but put another layer of bureaucracy on top.

Addressing an audience of more than 700 Liberal faithful, Mr Baillieu declared his Liberal-National Coalition could win the election. Repeating his mantra ''more of the same or a change for the better'', Mr Baillieu railed against the government's record on transport, street violence, hospital waiting lists and a ''rancid culture'' of political thuggery. The Coalition's transport plan includes: ■ An independent transport body - the Victorian Public Transport Development Authority - to oversee existing organisations such as Metlink, the public transport safety authority and the ticketing authority. ■ New railway stations at Southland at a cost of $13 million and Grovedale in Geelong costing $25 million.

■ An extra $100 million rail maintenance fund. ■ An aspiration to return direct passenger rail links between Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo. A disappointed Greens MP Greg Barber acknowledged last night's Liberal preference decision made it harder for his party to win the lower house seats it had been eyeing. ''Because the Greens are progressive and serious about what we are doing there would always be a day when the major parties close ranks against us,'' he said. ''It's all over to the voters now.'' The decision means Labor is almost certain to retain Melbourne (held by Education Minister Bronwyn Pike), Richmond (Housing Minister Richard Wynne), Brunswick (being contested for the ALP by Yarra mayor Jane Garrett) and Northcote (parliamentary secretary Fiona Richardson).

Mr Baillieu's campaign director, Mr Nutt, said the Liberals' preference decision meant voters now had a clear choice: ''Stability, or a Labor-Green alliance where the interests of all Victorians is seriously compromised in favour of deals and fixes, just like in the Australian Parliament earlier this year and in Tasmania and the ACT [where the Greens hold the balance of power].'' The Liberal decision comes after the Greens said they would not preference the Coalition anywhere. But the Labor-Greens arrangement is not comprehensive. In a Greens revenge attack on Labor for doing a preference deal with the conservative Country Alliance, the minor party has resolved not to preference Labor in the Bendigo East seat of minister and rising star Jacinta Allan and the outer-suburban Melbourne seat of Gembrook, held by backbencher Tammy Lobato. Loading The ALP will preference the Country Alliance before the Greens in two upper house regions, and the Sex Party before the Greens in another.

With CLAY LUCAS