Population growth was barely an issue at the 2014 election. Now, it permeates almost every policy challenge

It is intriguing that the biggest issue at next month’s Victorian election is one that the state can do little about. Melbourne is staggering under unprecedented population growth, a boom rivalling the gold rush of the 1850s and the “populate or perish” era after the second world war.

Spring Street has scant influence on the net 2,400 people a week arriving in Melbourne or being born here – that’s 125,000 newcomers last year alone. Most of these people come from overseas as students or skilled migrants, and the state government has no control over those numbers. It can’t stop the more than 15,000 people who moved to Victoria from other states last year and it has limited say on how many babies we have.

New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian and Labor leader Luke Foley have called for fewer migrants to their state, but in Victoria, neither the Labor premier, Daniel Andrews, nor opposition leader, Matthew Guy, are lobbying Canberra to slash numbers, even temporarily.

Soaring population is one reason why the state is an economic powerhouse, with giant construction projects creating jobs, and stamp duty on the sale of houses alone boosting government revenue to an extent that both parties can afford billion-dollar promises.

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There are mixed feelings about all this. In one sense, there’s a giddiness about Melbourne in 2018, a satisfaction that the city is projected to overtake Sydney as the country’s biggest in a few years, retaking its place as the dominant city as well as Australia’s cultural capital.

But there’s unease about the price being paid. Population growth was barely an issue at the 2014 election. Now, it permeates almost every policy challenge, from the desperate need for new schools and hospitals, and the rush to improve infrastructure, especially public transport, after decades of neglect. The city’s transport system was fine for a city of 3 million people but not for the 5 million it is now, and certainly not for the 8 million or 9 million expected to live in Melbourne by mid-century.

The frustration at traffic congestion and long commute times, the crush of train and tram travel at peak hour, the high cost of housing, the divide between well-serviced inner-city suburbs and burgeoning outer suburbs crying out for transport and every kind of facility form the threads of this election, at least in the capital city.

For the political parties, the conversation is not about reducing population growth but managing it better than they have in the past. You can’t fault them for small thinking, with both major parties pledging eye-watering infrastructure projects.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, and the transport minister, Jacinta Allan, announce plans for the $50bn underground rail network. Photograph: Julian Smith/AAP

Guy has promised $19bn to rebuild the entire regional rail network in a decade, including introducing fast trains with speeds of up to 200km/h to all large regional cities. An express train from Melbourne to Geelong would take 32 minutes.

Guy, a 44-year-old former adviser to the former Liberal premier Jeff Kennett, articulates the bigger picture. “It’s a necessity,” he told ABC radio of his centrepiece promise. “We have to decentralise the state. Melbourne’s bursting. It is out of control at the moment – the roads, traffic, schools, hospitals, population growth is out of control and we need to get it under control by decentralising our population.”

Guy would appoint himself minister for population, establish a population commission to manage growth, a cap on new housing in booming suburbs that don’t have the infrastructure to cope and to work with the federal government to encourage migrants to rural and regional areas. He’s been helped along by the federal government’s announcement that it plans to steer more migrants away from Sydney and Melbourne and force them to settle in regional towns, using incentives and visa conditions to do it.

It is out of control at the moment – the roads, traffic, schools, hospitals. Matthew Guy

Plans to encourage decentralisation have been discussed for decades, and whether these latest ideas work when job opportunities are so concentrated in major cities is debatable. The details of Guy’s regional rail network remain scant, the practical difficulties as yet unanswered.

But it’s a big idea. Andrews has his own regional rail plan that would bring faster trains to Geelong and Ballarat, but his transport centrepiece is a $50b underground rail network to revolutionise the way Melburnians travel. This would be the “biggest public transport project in history”, include 90km of new tracks, 12 new stations and an airport link, and take 200,000 vehicles off congested roads.

So far, the government is committing $300m for engineering and planning work next year. There’s one hitch: it will be 2050 before it will be ready for its first passenger, providing funding can be secured. “2050 is not that far off,” said the transport minister, Jacinta Allan, with a straight face.

Some experts are sceptical that mega infrastructure projects are needed, with Marion Terrill, transport program director at the Grattan Institute, calling the Labor and Liberal proposals the “siren song of the desperate”, announced before any rigorous assessment of their net benefits were established.

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It is true that details are thin but Andrews has one advantage over Guy: his government has a record of getting infrastructure projects started, in contrast with the perceived neglect of the previous Coalition administration. As promised, it has removed dozens of level crossings – sites for accidents and congestion – and begun construction of the $11bn Metro rail tunnel that will provide five new underground stations.

The surprising thing, says Australian political scientist Paul Strangio, is that opinion polls have remained so close, although Labor has been consistently ahead of the coalition since the 2014 election. The most recent Fairfax ReachTel poll gave Labor a 52%-48% lead on a two-party-preferred basis, up from 51-49 in July.

A YouGov Galaxy poll for the Herald Sun in August had Labor with a 51-49 lead.

The Victorian economy is good, jobs are being created, it is spending billions on public transport, and it has managed state issues like education and health well, Strangio says.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Victorian opposition leader, Matthew Guy, and the prime minister, Scott Morrison, at Leawarra railway station in Frankston. Photograph: Daniel Pockett/AAP

As for social issues, he says you have to go back to John Cain’s government in the 1980s to see a more activist progressive mob. Labor has passed voluntary euthanasia laws, undertaken a royal commission into family violence, followed up with millions in new funding, recommitted to the Safe Schools anti-bullying program despite controversy, established Melbourne’s first safe injecting room to reduce drug overdoses and is forging ahead with a treaty for Indigenous Victorians.

Some of these issues are more popular than others but, no matter what it has done, Strangio says the government has “struggled to gain any real traction, some decisive margin in the polls”.

It may be because of its spectacular self-inflicted wounds, including the so-called red shirts affair, the exposure of Labor’s misuse of taxpayer funds to pay campaign staff, who wore red shirts, during the last election.

Andrews has one advantage over Guy: his government has a record of getting infrastructure projects started.

Labor goes to the election with a criminal investigation underway into this scandal, implicating several MPs including ministers. It has maintained that the breach of the rules was inadvertent and it has repaid the $388,000 of taxpayers’ money owed. It is no doubt hoping that all this will be delayed until after the 24 November poll.

The Coalition has had issues of its own, with Guy meeting long-time Liberal supporter Frank Lamattina and his cousin Tony Madafferi, who has been accused of being a high-level organised crime figure but has never been charged or convicted and strenuously denies any allegations. Guy says there was no wrongdoing.

Citizens may now expect such shenanigans from politicians, as trust in politics and institutions has frayed. Andrews, 46, won a historic victory at the last election, defeating a government after a single term for the first time in almost 60 years.

Guy is hoping voter volatility will benefit him this time.

“There’s an unforgiving attitude towards governments that’s become almost a contagion,” says Strangio, a lecturer in politics at Monash University. “It’s extraordinarily difficult to be a popular government or a popular leader.”

The Liberal-National coalition needs eight seats to achieve a majority government. Labor would lose its majority with the loss of just two, being forced into minority government with the support of the Greens, which now holds three lower house seats, or rural independents, who are chipping away in northern Victoria. A minority government is a real possibility, and Andrews has predictably said there will be “no deals” with the Greens, again threatening Labor in its inner-city heartland.

Strangio says state elections almost always revolve around bread and butter issues such as transport, education, health and crime. At this point, Labor is the favourite to win a second term, and it would be another sign of our skittish politics if it does not. But at least Labor has had a go, whatever you think of it. “Andrews is a premier who’s not going to die wondering,” he says.