MELBOURNE: State Opposition Leader Matthew Guy had made an impassioned plea for the state’s media to stop picking on Premier Daniel Andrews and his Labor Government and get stuck into his side of politics instead.

“I know you all mean well,” Mr Guy said on the steps of Parliament House in Spring Street earlier this morning, “but do you want me to end up with even less seats in the next Parliament than the Liberals hold in the Western Australian lower house?”

Mr Guy’s plea came after the results of the latest Roy Morgan poll (at top) showed the two-term Andrews government had stretched its two-party preferred lead over the Opposition to 60 per cent to the L-NP on 40 percent, a four per cent turn around. The ALP primary vote is 42 per cent (up 5.5 since August) with the L-NP languishing on 28 per cent.

His voice wavering with emotion, Guy said that while he appreciated the efforts the Herald Sun, The Age, Neil Mitchell and others at 3AW and a fair swag at the ABC were making to drag the Premier and his government down “they simply are not working”.

“I desperately need all of you to change tactics and get stuck into me as hard as you can.

“I appreciate there’s a good chance that Victorian voters have simply woken up to the fact that your constant attacks on the Andrews government over a long time now have been totally unfair, completely unjustified and an absolute affront to the basic tenets of journalism.

“And that if you start picking on me, they might see that as totally justified and reasonable given the way I and my team have been performing.

“But we’ve got to try something, for fuck’s sake, and the Opposition’s only hope now is for voters to feel even more sorry for us than they already do,” he said.