Senior Liberals fear party warfare could cost key seats - Sydney Morning Herald

Liberal Party federal vice-president Teena McQueen has delivered a withering assessment of the party’s chances in two must-hold seats, suggesting sitting MPs Trent Zimmerman and Katie Allen could lose but “with a couple of lefties gone we can get back to our core philosophy”.

With the Prime Minister widely expected to announce the May election date on Sunday, doubts about the Coalition’s prospects in key seats have also been aired by another senior Liberal.

Liberal Party federal vice president Teena McQueen.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The party’s NSW president, Philip Ruddock – who served in John Howard’s cabinet – conceded extraordinary delays to preselections in 12 NSW seats could make victory harder for the federal Coalition.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison spent Saturday with his family at Kirribilli House in Sydney. He is expected to visit the Governor-General on Sunday to formally request election writs.

The most likely date for the election is May 21, though a shorter campaign ending on May 14 also remains an option.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese has claimed underdog status on the eve of the campaign and said his opponent had an “enormous advantage” as the incumbent. Both leaders released campaign advertisements.

Late last week Coalition staff in the ministerial wing were clearing out offices, with several confirming they were flying to the party’s campaign headquarters in Brisbane on Saturday or Sunday.

Flight tracking of the three planes operated by the RAAF for the Prime Minister and government has been disabled, making it more difficult to track the Prime Minister’s movements.

Dr Allen holds her seat of Higgins in Melbourne’s inner south-east with a margin of 3.7 per cent and will be challenged by Labor, while Mr Zimmerman holds North Sydney with a margin of 9.4 per cent and faces a fight with independent Kylea Tink.

Ms McQueen, who has courted controversy in the past, said Mr Morrison “is travelling very well” and that she was optimistic the Coalition could win marginal seats including Dobell, Paterson and Shortland and even Eden-Monaro in NSW, but she foreshadowed losses elsewhere.

Hornsby Shire mayor and NSW Liberal Party president Philip Ruddock.Credit:Mick Tsikas

“There are seats that we will have to compensate for. I think Trent Zimmerman may be in a lot of trouble ... I think in Victoria Katie Allen will have problems too, but we will do well with regional areas in Victoria.”

She added that “until Labor gets back in we haven’t got a chance in Warringah”, referring to the once blue ribbon Liberal seat held by Tony Abbott who lost it to independent Zali Steggall in 2019, and acknowledged widespread anger within the NSW division.

“Certainly there are party members with grievances [about NSW preselections], I too have grievances. But at this particular time I urge all members to support their candidates,” she said.

Mr Ruddock, who last week flagged the NSW branch’s constitution would be reviewed after the election because of the bitter factional fight over preselections that ultimately was taken to the High Court, acknowledged the impact of the preselection delays on the coming election fight.

“I think it’s perfectly obvious that if you have the opportunity to be [campaigning] on the ground, if you are not particularly well known locally [as a candidate], that it may enhance your prospects of success,” he said.

Asked whether the factional infighting, public attacks on Mr Morrison – including by Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, NSW state MP Catherine Cusack and former Liberal candidate Michael Towke – and delays to preselecting candidates meant NSW no longer offered a pathway to victory, Mr Ruddock said: “I’ve never been a commentator on these sorts of issues, but I never say never”.

Coalition strategists have targeted NSW as the state the federal Coalition is most likely to win seats in, with as many as 10 Labor-held seats in the party’s sights since last year, while looking to firewall 23 of 30 seats it holds in Queensland and 11 of 16 in Western Australia (though one is being abolished in a redistribution).

In Victoria, the government hopes to hold the ultra-marginal seat of Chisholm while some in the party believe Geelong-centred Corangamite and McEwen in outer suburban Melbourne, could be within striking distance because of disaffection with the Victorian state government.

The Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age have spoken to 11 members of the parliamentary Liberal Party from across the country in the past week to gauge concern over whether the factional infighting has harmed the party’s election chances.

The MPs, who all asked not to be named so they could speak freely, were roughly evenly split between those who said the dispute would hurt their chances and those who believed it would be forgotten by polling day.

One downbeat assessment from a NSW MP was that Mr Morrison was now “very, very unpopular” in Sydney and that Treasurer Josh Frydenberg was much more popular than the Prime Minister.

The MP said Mr Frydenberg – facing a fight to hold his Victorian seat of Kooyong from so-called teal independent Monique Ryan – would be needed to sandbag inner-city seats such as Mr Zimmerman’s and Wentworth, held by Dave Sharma, from independents too.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

There were four consequences of the NSW factional war, the MP added: “First, it’s harder to overcome Morrison’s unpopularity. Second, it makes it harder to man booths [with volunteers]. Third, it’s harder to raise money and fourth is the Bob Hawke principle – if you can’t govern yourselves, you can’t govern the country.”

The contrary view among MPs, though, is that while the High Court challenge to preselections and free-ranging character assessments had been damaging for the party, they were far from fatal.

“The factional stuff hasn’t been helpful. People are perplexed by it, but it will be overtaken by issues in the campaign. I just don’t think people will be raising it in six weeks time,” the MP said.

A third MP said that “at the moment the election is a referendum about Morrison and we lose every day of the week if it’s about him. The sooner we can shift from that to him versus Albo or team versus team the better.”

To that end, the MP said Mr Frydenberg, campaign spokespeople and senior ministers Simon Birmingham and Anne Ruston (who is expected to replace Greg Hunt as Health Minister), Defence Minister Peter Dutton and Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews would have to be deployed in a campaign much less presidential compared to 2019.

The government starts with a notional 76 seats at this election (assuming the return of Hughes from United Australia Party), which is the barest of majorities at a time when national polls are suggesting a sizeable swing against the government.

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2022-04-09 19:00:00Z
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