You'd be hard placed to find a poll in this country that does not put the Liberal Party ahead of Labor as the party most trusted to handle the economy.

But it's time to abandon the rhetoric from the Liberals that they are the better economic managers, certainly in Victoria, where the handling of the East West Link shows they exposed taxpayers to greater financial risk than they needed to, ostensibly for political reasons. That's not good economic management, that's economic sabotage.

Illustration: Matt Golding Credit:Matt Golding

That's not to say the economy is in safer hands with Labor but there are perhaps two reasons for the belief the Liberals are better economic managers. The first is that the conservative side of politics has typically been more, well conservative, when it comes to managing spending and the budget, while on the other side of the ledger Labor has historically been linked to various blowouts and financial mishaps.

The second related reason has to do with branding. When he was federal treasurer, Peter Costello liked to suggest that handling the economy was like driving a finely calibrated race car. One missed cue, one corner taken a foot too wide - disaster. Former Victorian treasurer Michael O'Brien was cut from the same cloth, having worked as a senior adviser to Costello for five years.