The Victorian Liberals were out-gunned by Labor's political machine and focused too much on crime at the last state election, party members have been told.
More than six months after the party's crushing defeat under former leader Matthew Guy, Liberal luminary Tony Nutt gave the annual state council his preliminary election review report.
In it, Mr Nutt told the Liberals they needed to acknowledge what Premier Daniel Andrews and Labor were good at if they were going to stand a chance against him.
Despite a first term peppered with controversies including rorting MPs, Mr Andrews managed to drive through to voters that he was delivering practical measures that helped their lives, Mr Nutt said.
"Whether people like Daniel Andrews, like his policies or his personnel, like some of the union mates, he's politically effective," he said.
The party needed to appeal beyond the rusted-on Liberal voters, do frequent, effective market research and employ a dedicated campaign director.
Too much time was spent on campaigning on crime when it was not going to resonate at the ballot box, more investigations needed to be done into candidates and the party needed to cave less often to factional pressures, Mr Nutt said.
"The parade of electorally embarrassing candidates who have had to be replaced in recent state and federal elections - for whatever local reasons, for whatever procedural reasons - undermines the wider electorate's confidence in the Liberal Party's capacity to govern sensibly," Mr Nutt said.
"It disrupts election campaigns, wastes the time and effort of people who need to be doing other things, compromises the leader's capacity to get out key messages, and demotivates all the other hard working and effective candidates, members of parliament and their teams."
New parliamentary leader Michael O'Brien acknowledged the party needed to campaign better and smarter.
"We had policies to make Victoria stronger, fairer, safer and more livable," he told the event.
"But if the voters didn't know about the policies, if the campaign didn't tell them, then that's on us, not the electorate."
The new leader acknowledged his predecessor Mr Guy, who was in the audience, to a standing ovation.
He also announced the first of his opposition's policies - tougher road policing measures of 1000 extra drug driving tests each week, increased the penalties for drug driving to be in line with drink driving and establish a speed camera commissioner to help determine placing.
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