Alexander Downer explains why returning Mayo to the Liberal Party is good for the seat

FORMER Liberal leader Alexander Downer has spoken out about his daughter’s bid to secure his old seat of Mayo, contrasting her opponent Rebekha Sharkie’s “letter-writing” with a Liberal record of securing major projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

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FORMER Liberal leader Alexander Downer has spoken out about his daughter’s bid to secure his old seat of Mayo, contrasting her opponent Rebekha Sharkie’s “letter-writing” with a Liberal record of securing major projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

In a bid to erode Ms Sharkie’s substantial opinion poll lead over daughter Georgina, Mr Downer told The Advertiser he had played an integral role in securing funds for the South Eastern Freeway’s Heysen Tunnels as part of a $151 million upgrade opened in 2000.

He also praised Liberal successor in Mayo Jamie Briggs for delivering the $27 million Bald Hills Interchange — opened in 2016 as the first full Freeway interchange in almost 20 years — to ease congestion in and near Mt Barker.

Rejecting Ms Sharkie’s campaign slogan of “Making Mayo Matter”, Mr Downer said the seat carried more weight when he and Mr Briggs were ministers, particularly citing his role in campaigning in Cabinet for the $1.2 billion Alice Springs to Darwin railway and $6 billion air warfare destroyer project at Osborne’s naval shipyard in 2005.

“Rebekha Sharkie cannot point to any major projects at all in Mayo. She can point to a range of minor grants that have been given to the electorate,” Mr Downer told The Advertiser.

“We got a lot of those sort of grants in my time and Jamie Briggs’ time.

Long-time Mayo seat holder and former Liberal Party leader Alexander Downer campaigning with daughter and party candidate Georgina at Mt Barker earlier this week. AAP Image/David Mariuz

“She just writes letters to ministers — I used to get lots of letters every week.”

Ms Sharkie, the Centre Alliance candidate whose dual citizenship issues triggered Saturday’s by-election, said Mr Downer was talking about 20 years ago and a string of current ministers to visit Mayo would not have bothered to visit had she not won the seat in 2016.

But Mr Downer, who held Mayo from 1984 to 2008, said an MP needed to be a minister or have the ear of Cabinet to deliver big projects for their electorate.

His daughter, Georgina, has been earmarked as a Liberal Cabinet minister but is the by-election underdog, trailing 59-41 in two-party preferred support in a YouGov Galaxy-Advertiser poll published on Monday.

Mr Downer said he had been able to leverage a close relationship with the-then prime minister John Howard to gain funds for major projects for the state and electorate, along with smaller scale measures such as the Stirling Library and Goolwa wharf redevelopments.

Alexander Downer watching Centre Alliance candidate Rebekha Sharkie campaigning at Mt Barker earlier this week. She wrested Mayo away from the Liberal Party in 2016 — and is tipped to do it again.

“As a Cabinet minister, I was able to exercise a great deal of leverage on behalf of the electorate of Mayo and the state as well,” he said.

“All the Centre Alliance comes up with is building a bridge to Kangaroo Island at astronomical expense.”

“Somebody wrote a letter to The Advertiser working out the toll would be $4400 per car.”

Mr Downer was referring to a proposal for a 14km bridge, with an estimated price tag of up to $5 billion, produced by a consortium led by a former candidate for SA Best — the Centre Alliance’s state arm.

Ms Sharkie said she wanted to focus on the “here and now”, rather than issues of 20 years ago like Mr Downer was raising.

If Mayo was a safe Liberal seat, she said, no ministers would have graced electors with their presence during the campaign, just as they did not in 2016 until they realised she was a chance to defeat Mr Briggs.

Ms Sharkie, who worked as an adviser to former state Liberal leader Isobel Redmond, said her advocacy had convinced the Coalition government to stem a $3 million infrastructure shortfall on Kangaroo Island, with announcements including $750,0000 for a walking trail this month.

“I’ve worked with the Liberal Party and I know that safe seats get nothing. They don’t want to be coming here and opening up their chequebook,” she said.

“They’re doing this to try to buy the seat. I’m happy they’re coming — we have such a backlog of infrastructure.”

Ms Sharkie said the Liberals had not paid the same attention to other by-elections being held on Saturday, particularly the two seats in Western Australia where the party was not running a candidate.

“. Alexander Downer has been away from Australia for some period of time. He has been out of politics for some period of time,” she said.

“He can say as he pleases. However, I’m sure that the string of ministers that came here during this election campaign did not go to WA.”