There are important messages for Premier Gladys Berejiklian from the Victorian election at the weekend. They are mostly negative but there is also a positive.

The single biggest factor in state elections across Australia is the most overlooked. In the past generation voters have told us they prefer to alternate the party that runs their state parliament with the party that runs the Federal Parliament. Towards the end of Paul Keating’s term as PM every state (and even the two territories) had elected a Liberal government. When John Howard was PM the states were mostly Labor for most of the time and towards the end they were all Labor. Same thing happened when Julia Gillard was PM (except in South Australia and Tasmania).

The same trend goes back much further in the largest state, NSW. Students of political history know the Liberal Party was in government at a federal level for 23 years from 1949 to 1972, but far fewer know that in a largely overlapping period the ALP had unbroken control of Macquarie Street for a longer period (1941 to 1965).

This alternating pattern is exacerbated when the federal government has the wobbles. During the polling doldrums of the Gillard government, the Liberals in the NSW, QLD and WA state elections had crushing wins which were all bigger than Labor Premier Daniel Andrews' victory on Saturday.