Daniel Wills: Voters in Mayo could get two elections in a year — Sharkie’s best shot is the first time around

LUCKY Adelaide Hills voters. You’re going to have to vote twice in one year. And Rebekha Sharkie has a better chance the first time around, writes Daniel Wills.

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THE by-election announced for the Adelaide Hills seat of Mayo in July has voters in the blue-ribbon electorate facing the prospect of two contests within a year in very different climates.

A buoyant Liberal Party is preparing to throw everything at winning the seat from former Nick Xenophon MP Rebekha Sharkie, the latest casualty of the dual citizenship fiasco. It has chosen the daughter of Liberal aristocrat Alexander Downer as her opponent.

As Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull rebuilds in the polls and the SA Liberal branch luxuriates in new-found confidence after grabbing power at the state election, there’s quiet confidence that Georgina Downer can send Ms Sharkie packing for good.

But by-elections are notoriously difficult for governments to win. The media dynamics are completely different, as far more focus falls on local candidates and local issues than in a general election.

Liberal candidate for Mayo, Georgina Downer. Picture: AAP / Kelly Barnes

Most importantly, they seldom have an impact on who’ll end up running the country and let voters express protest without real consequence. This is Ms Sharkie’s great advantage in the July by-election. If she wins, it could be the first showdown against Ms Downer. It could also become her biggest weakness if they meet again at the next federal election.

Recent state and federal elections have given enormous insight into the sophistication of Adelaide Hills voters.

A highly educated and politically engaged group, they’re Liberal-leaning but independently minded. Clearly, they place a high value on their vote.

At the last federal election in 2016, the Adelaide Hills made a very calculating call amid immense local frustration and disappointment with the Liberal MP of the time, Jamie Briggs.

The high-profile fallout of his late-night venture to a Hong Kong bar compounded countless stories of local people being dismissed or ignored at community events. It became a cocktail of discontent that created a chance for change.

Liberals say polling at the time showed that while their party brand remained strong through Mayo support collapsed when Mr Briggs’ name was thrown in the mix as the candidate.

In Ms Sharkie, soft Liberal supporters found a place to put their frustration.

And they did so after detecting Mr Turnbull had enough of a buffer to win government without taking Mayo.

For thoughtful voters of the Hills, the result was the best of both worlds.

They got the local MP they wanted, and the prime minister they preferred. At the state election in March, the same sophisticated thinking led to the completely opposite result.

Early campaign polling showed Hills voters were toying with the idea of sending a swag of candidates running under former senator Nick Xenophon’s SA Best banner to State Parliament.

Their independent streak was excited by the idea of upsetting the apple cart. In time, the flirtation faded and Mr Xenophon finished with doughnuts.

Hills voters saw that they couldn’t have a harmless protest. In a cold calculation, they decided it was time to change the government and couldn’t gamble on SA Best to deliver that.

Ms Downer is a star candidate, but not without negatives that could hurt in the hothouse of a by-election.

Having previously sought preselection in Victoria gives opponents an easy attack on Ms Downer as a opportunistic blow-in. Ms Sharkie, by all reports, has been very locally active and visible since being elected two years ago.

As a former research fellow at the free-market Institute of Public Affairs, Ms Downer is also on record with comments easily painted as against SA’s interests.

And Labor appears willing to dust her up, as Ms Sharkie stays clean.

Former state minister Leon Bignell last week told SA Parliament Ms Downer had been reported as saying she “hadn’t lived in the serial killing capital of the world since before Snowtown was on the map”.

Ms Downer categorically denies it was ever said, and the source article makes the line read like the artistic licence of gossip columns.

But it’s an early sign that Labor is ready to get involved in the by-election, dragging the Liberals down to Ms Sharkie’s advantage. Together, there are the building blocks for a result that has the “true local” beating a high-profile candidate who’s been battered with negative attacks on all sides as the Hills again sends Mr Turnbull a message they think he still has more work to do.

One Liberal MP told The Advertiser this week: “If a vote were held today, we would lose. It’s a question of whether the ‘new and improved’ campaign machine, which is now more a sniper than a shotgun, can get it done.”

If Ms Downer can’t get the job done at the by-election, her chances could dramatically improve should Mr Turnbull call a national vote in the first half of next years, as he says is planned.

In that federal election there is a very real chance of Labor leader Bill Shorten taking the Lodge. Every seat could decide the winner, and Hills voters have proven themselves discerning enough to know that difference.

At the by-election, a naturally conservative area gets the option of having the cake while eating it too. At the general, they’ll have a hard choice between going home or betting the house.