November 15, 2026 — 11:01pm
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.
“Ben is a rock. I was in hospital in a wheelchair and didn’t see Madeleine for days. I didn’t worry. I knew he was there for Madeleine,” Rothville said.
Carroll, who emerged after this story to cheers from those in the room, said his family had needed the public system because the private sector couldn’t always handle complex specialist requirements like theirs.
“Those doctors saved my family,” he said.
The mood in the room at Kellaway Avenue Neighbourhood Centre in Moonee Ponds was positive, but not as rapturous as Labor campaign events in previous election years.
The latest Resolve Political Monitor shows Labor is headed for defeat with a primary vote of 20 per cent, compared to 30 per cent for the Coalition and 23 per cent for One Nation.
Carroll on Sunday accused the Coalition of acting like it had already won the election and not revealing enough detail about its policies, including costings.
Labor national secretary Paul Erickson on Friday night gave a pep talk to staff at the Victorian campaign headquarters, which included party officials from interstate who are in Melbourne to inform their own approach to contests against One Nation.
One-quarter of staff at Labor headquarters have been sent to local campaigns as the centralised operation scales down. Early voting opens on Wednesday.
Over the weekend, Labor made nearly $3 billion in commitments in education and health, and accused the Coalition of preparing to cut these areas, where voters typically rate Labor higher.
Wilson has focused on the Coalition’s strength of crime and community safety.
On Monday, she will announce a suite of reforms to stalking laws, including a trial of round-the-clock monitoring of high-risk stalkers.
The use of GPS tracking will attempt to prevent stalkers entering exclusion zones around their victims’ homes and workplaces.
The reforms will also enable non-family violence stalking victims access to the same courtroom protections as victims of family violence. This would include allowing stalking victims to tender pre-recorded evidence, and prevent perpetrators from cross-examining victims.
The policy is named in recognition of Celeste Manno, a 23-year-old Melbourne woman who was stabbed to death by an obsessed colleague who broke into her family home six years ago.
Manno’s killer became infatuated with her, prompting Manno and her mother to report their concerns to police and take out an interim invervention order against him.
After her murder, Labor ordered a review by the Victorian Law Reform Commission, which in July 2021 made 46 recommendations, but most were never acted on. Manno’s mother, Aggie Di Mauro, has repeatedly criticised the lack of progress, and told the Herald Sun earlier this year that Labor was “doing nothing … it’s absolutely disgusting”.
On Sunday, Wilson said Manno’s case clearly identified that regardless of who a victim was being stalked by, they deserved the same legal protections.
“Celeste Manno should still be here today,” Wilson said. “Her death exposed gaps in our justice system that must be addressed.”
The Coalition is promising to implement all 46 recommendations from the review, introduce mandatory specialist stalking training for police, toughen laws against digital stalking, introduce perpetrator behaviour change programs, and improve victim support for regional and rural Victorians.
Former Liberal leader Brad Battin introduced Wilson to the launch as the “next premier of Victoria”, and all published polling suggests he will be proven right.
But Wilson and state president Brian Loughnane urged the room to take nothing for granted.
“Make no mistake, this election will be close,” Wilson said. “There is much that is unusual about this election, and with that comes great risk.”
Loughnane, who took up the role as state president at the request of Wilson and others, said the Liberals need a historic swing to win.
“This is a very complex election, much more so than the public commentary and the polls would suggest,” he said.
Without mentioning One Nation, Wilson acknowledged the anger in the electorate and positioned the Liberal Party as the solution, not Pauline Hanson.
“They are right to be frustrated,” Wilson said of voters. “They are right to be angry.”
But she added that while “anger and frustration are good at identifying problems … we need more than that”. “We need solutions.”
Addressing the crowd of party members, state MPs, candidates and federal MPs Jane Hume and Tim Wilson, Jess Wilson laid out the Coalition’s vision “to restore hope”.
This includes pledges to cut crime rates, pay down the state’s debt, repair pothole-riddled roads, increase infrastructure funding for regions and slash the surgery wait list.
Wilson also unveiled the Coalition’s $60 million policy which would enable judges to sentence some criminals aged 14-17 to a stint in bootcamp.
Labor has called the policy a “half-baked thought bubble”.
The surprise speaker at the Liberal event was Samantha Byrne, the party’s candidate for the seat of Niddrie, who is working to unseat the premier.
Internally, the Liberals believe Carroll’s seat is vulnerable, and Byrne said voters in her electorate felt taken for granted by Labor.
“I think it’s time to give Ben Carroll and Labor the wake-up call they deserve,” she said.
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Angus Delaney is a state political reporter at The Age. Email him at angus.delaney@theage.com.au or contact him securely on Signal at angusdelaney.31Connect via email.
Patrick Hatch is state politics reporter at The Age. Contact him at patrick.hatch@theage.com.au, or via Signal at @pwhatch.61Connect via X or email.