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If every seat was like Fadden, Peter Dutton would be Australia’s prime minister in waiting today.
At Saturday’s byelection, the Liberal primary vote went up, the Greens vote fell spectacularly and none of it went to Labor which suffered a small drop in its vote. The result proved Queensland remains a black hole for Labor and should spike any complacency inside the Albanese government.
The Prime Minister for Queensland.Credit: John Shakespeare
Unfortunately for Liberals elated after holding a seat they were never going to lose, Fadden is a long way geographically and in many other ways from the seats Dutton needs to win if he is ever to get back into government.
In the heartland seats lost in 2022, independent MPs stepping up their campaigns for the referendum have found – apart from unsurprisingly strong support for the Voice– a hardening of sentiment against the Liberals. Not just over the referendum but also the pervasive negativity, the difficulty connecting with women and the failure to comprehend that robo-debt was tied to integrity – one of the three issues central to the success of the teals.
Three independent MPs I spoke to – Kate Chaney in Curtin, Helen Haines in Indi and Monique Ryan in Kooyong – all reported similar feedback.
Yet, the response from the Liberal hard right to the threat of a schism which 2022 portended has been a redoubling of efforts to purge moderates from the party by stripping them of their pre-selections.
According to senior Liberals, a potential challenger had been lined up against Julian Leeser in Berowra, as punishment for daring to back the Voice. That apparently collapsed after an eligibility issue emerged, however insiders say both deputy leader Sussan Ley in Farrer and Melissa McIntosh in Lindsay, are almost certain to lose to conservative challengers.
According to my sources, right-wing powerbroker Alex Dore has even discussed running Katherine Deves again in Warringah. Dore says this is not true.
Dutton’s demand for early pre-selections in NSW seats has been blamed for firing up the factional tensions. Through an intermediary, the NSW division will ask him to hold off on the teal seats, but there was little confidence he would agree. Dutton is seldom heard boasting about the beauteous broad church that is the Liberal Party.
He has shrugged off warnings from the NSW president, former MP Jason Falinski, that conducting all preselections before the redistribution will not attract the best candidates, or could mean some will have to be redone later if say Bradfield, held by frontbencher Paul Fletcher, is abolished.
Dutton has paraded his utter ruthlessness since he lost Aston. In the fight for Fadden no dollar was spared, no line went uncrossed.
He delivered cursory apologies on robo-debt while justifying tough action against welfare recipients because hardworking taxpayers wanted overpayments to be repaid. Yes, they do. But they don’t want governments running illegal operations which demonise then hound people – in some cases to their death – for money they do not owe, lie to defend the scheme or cover up, then escape penalties.
He skated over alleged criminal behaviour during the Coalition’s time to accuse the government of politicising the issue.
He smeared two highly respected senior public servants, Steven Kennedy and Jenny Wilkinson, for no good reason other than to politicise the government’s announcement that Michele Bullock would replace Philip Lowe as Reserve Bank Governor.
He warned Bunnings to stop donating to the Yes campaign and instead use the money to lower prices. Less than 24 hours later a racist, sexist, McCarthyist cartoon appeared featuring the head of Bunnings, Michael Chaney, with his daughter, Kate, sitting on his lap and Yes campaigner Thomas Mayo dancing for a fistful of dollars wearing a T-shirt adorned by a hammer and sickle. All designed to shame or bully them into backing off. Coincidence? Methinks not. Disgraceful? Undeniably.
Mayo says he has never been a member of the communist party as alleged by No campaigners. Anyways, better a communist than a racist I reckon.
Soon after, Kate Chaney held a public meeting with Mayo, the former chief justice of the High Court Robert French, and former Australian of the year Fiona Stanley, which attracted more than 600 people – more than any other gathering she has organised.
Chaney says she hopes the cartoon, which Warren Mundine thought was funny, marked a turning point and the No campaign now realises that such tactics don’t resonate with mainstream Australians.
Haines will host a sold-out meeting in Wodonga on July 25. Around 400 people have booked to hear Linda Burney and Dean Parkin argue for Yes.
“Dutton has picked the wrong fight to have if he is seeking to win back the independent seats,” Haines says. She warns if he continues as he has, voters in those seats will only get more “browned off”.
Ryan, with more than 200 volunteers – up from 12 six weeks ago – has doorknocked more than 6000 homes. She says they are on track to knock on every door in Kooyong well before the referendum, then will move into Liberal-held seats Menzies and Deakin.
Having gone out with her teams five times, Ryan reports increasing impatience with the Liberals’ ongoing negativity, disappointment and shame over robo-debt, concern about cost of living but still no real anger directed at Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Data collated from 2500 of the doors knocked shows 45.1 per cent strong support for the voice, 13.4 per cent simply supporting, 30.6 per cent neutral or unsure, 5.9 per cent opposing, and 5.4 per cent strongly opposing.
Obviously, this does not tell us what Australians elsewhere are thinking or if the referendum will succeed. It does show if Dutton continues to market himself as Prime Minister for Queensland chances of regaining the teal seats are slim to nothing. Unless Liberal candidates disconnect from their party and their leader.
Which poses an exquisitely delicate dilemma for Josh Frydenberg if – still a big if – he seeks to reclaim Kooyong in 2025. To have any chance of winning, Frydenberg would not only have to run against Monique Ryan, but Dutton too.
Niki Savva is a regular columnist.
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