Ashton Hurn is the career politician the SA Liberals desperately need | David Penberthy
She looks like Margaret Thatcher crossed with Ronald Reagan compared to the SA Liberals’ other political tourists, writes David Penberthy.
It sounds tangential but the elevation of Aston Hurn to the Liberal leadership got me thinking this week about the When We Were Kings documentary of the 1974 heavyweight fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Zaire.
That extraordinary fight is boxing’s best example of what’s known as rope-a-dope where one of the fighters leans back against the ropes and absorbs repeated blows to tire out their opponent, only to spring back to life at the end and land the killer blows.
This is exactly how Ali beat Foreman in that fight. He had labelled Foreman “the mummy” and derided him in his famous pre-bout press conferences. Deep down, Ali was terrified of Foreman’s strength but figured if he could take the pain of repeated body shots he would leave Foreman so fatigued that he could jump him at the end.
Which brings us somehow to Ashton Hurn.
The SA Liberals have endured almost four years of rope-a-dope. Most of the blows have been self-inflicted, although Labor landed a couple of brutal haymakers too in the form of painful, historic victories in the Dunstan and Black by-elections. But for the Libs it’s been one long act of self-harm which can be traced back to that fateful night at the Robin Hood Hotel where after a brief concession speech outgoing Premier Steven Marshall muttered the immortal line to his staff: “Now get me the f*** out of here.”
It’s hard to blame Marshall for leaving in a huff. He was a decent premier and became the definitive victim of Covid, with SA’s handling of the pandemic making him a hero in the first instance then expendable in the second, the state divided over whether to open the borders or keep them closed, whether to ignore or embrace the directives of SA Health.
That is all history now. The more recent history of the Liberals has been vastly worse.
The 2022 result was by no means the most devastating result the SA Liberals have ever suffered.
But the subsequent loss of Dunstan and Black, its complete wipeout across the entirety of suburban Adelaide at the federal poll, and the continuing collapse of of its primary vote has the party in its worst position since the split when Steele Hall formed the Liberal Movement in the early 1970s.
The party’s standing is so low that it risks losing major party status at the election in March.
Remember - the polling which helped cook Vincent Tarzia’s goose has the Liberal primary vote in the 20s, meaning they would have held as few as two of the state’s 47 seats based on those dismal numbers.
Those figures are the cumulative result of three years of distracted and dithering leadership, set against a Labor centrist in Malinauskas whom many voters rate highly.
It is hard to describe just how badly the party has been led. David Speirs by his own admission was effectively self-medicating with cocaine, using occasional drug blowouts to cope with the horror of being leader, and then when Vincent Tarzia got the job he was like the dog who caught the car and didn’t know what to do with it.
And that’s where the rope-a-dope theory comes into play.
There is a view that Ashton Hurn has been handed the leadership too late in the piece. There is also a view that she has had the job thrust upon her not at a time of her choosing and risks being chewed up and spat out in record time at the grand old age of 34. Both of those things might be true.
What is also true is that compared to David Speirs and Vincent Tarzia, Ashton Hurn looks like John F Kennedy combined with Margaret Thatcher combined with Ronald Reagan.
Her presentation and focus and communication skills bare no comparison to the two men who preceded her.
It is chalk and cheese.
The Libs did such a good job of making themselves look completely hopeless that it doesn’t really matter for Ashton Hurn she is relatively good at her job or genuinely good at her job. Even on her bad days she will always present better than Speirs and Tarzia.
This is suddenly a tactical challenge for the Labor Party on election eve.
One of the benefits of working on radio is the real-time feedback you get.
When Hurn came on air for her first interview as leader this week, the text line was literally rolling like a ticker tape with overwhelmingly positive feedback.
The thing is, while the Liberal vote might be in the toilet, this state is home to many thousands of people who have historically voted Liberal but have turned off because they’re impressed by Mali, but also regard the Libs as such a rabble that they can no longer be taken seriously.
These are the people Hurn needs to energise.
One other thing - I have heard Hurn be described as a career politician, someone who went straight from uni to working as a junior advisor, then senior communications director, then pre-selected for a state seat.
News flash - politics is actually a career. People go into politics learning the art of solving problems for their communities, representing locals on issues of concern, learning how to write effective press releases, how to talk clearly in interviews, how to debate effectively and hammer key messages.
The Liberals have long suffered from a surfeit of tourists whereas Labor has benefitted from its cadre of SDA-trained right-wing warriors, people like Malinauskas, Stephen Mullighan and Tom Koutsantonis who are successful because they value discipline and organisation.
If you want to list political careerists - people who spent limited time in jobs outside of politics - names that come to mind include Playford, Hawke, Howard, Menzies, Keating, Carr, Beattie, Bolte, Court, Kennett, Wran, Bannon, Rann. Names synonymous with repeated election victories.
She might baulk at the tag but with career politician Ashton Hurn at the helm maybe the Liberals are now fighting fire with fire.
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