Off The Record: SA Liberals holster hi-tech election weapon, plus Cory Bernardi’s Socialist Alliance fundraiser
In this week’s Off the Record, Premier Steven Marshall’s Liberals holster their hi-tech secret weapon, a cricket legend and his political partner go to the heart of power in SA and Cory Bernardi’s Socialist Alliance fundraising mistake.
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In Off the Record this week, Premier Steven Marshall’s Liberals holster their hi-tech secret weapon, plus a cricket legend and his political partner go to the heart of power in South Australia and Cory Bernardi’s Socialist Alliance fundraising mistake.
Secret weapon holstered
IT was hailed as the hi-tech weapon that catapulted the South Australian Liberals to their first state election victory since 1998.
But the United State i360 platform has fallen out of favour across the country and its use has been suspended in both SA and Victoria.
The system, which costs about $1m to operate for a state election, harvests voters’ social media feeds and other publicly available records, pulling them together so candidates can more effectively woo voters.
Off the Record has been told i360 was not used in SA at the May federal election, although it was used by Georgina Downer’s campaign for the Mayo by-election in 2018.
Intriguingly, former prime minister Tony Abbott, pictured campaigning with daughter Bridget Abbott, is said to have shelled out for i360 in a failed bid to retain his Sydney seat of Warringah in May.
A review of the 2018 Victorian state election by Liberal elder statesman Tony Nutt, released last month, recommended i360 be reviewed “as to effectiveness, cost and longer term sustainability and benchmark it against alternatives”. It is understood a similar debate is occurring in SA, although the next state election is not until March 19, 2022.
The platform needs to be implemented some months in advance of the election date, to enable sufficient voter data to be gathered and trends assessed and interpreted.
For example, voters would be grouped into separate fields depending on whether they were undecided and according to their views of Premier Steven Marshall.
Off the Record reported in April that hopes of taking i360 national had been dashed because of an intergenerational rift within the party. The Liberals nationally were wedded to Feedback, a program developed in the 1990s by an arm of the party called Parakeelia.
Marshall, a former business executive who favours evidence-based data analysis, was said to have been enamoured by i360.
Sport and politics find the right mix
YES, that was former West Indies cricket captain Clive Lloyd taking in Question Time this week.
Before Question Time, Lloyd and partner Bertha Joseph had lunch in the state parliamentary dining room with Liberal MP Sam Duluk, Tourism Minister David Ridgway, SACA president Andrew Sinclair and SACA board member Caroline Rhodes. The surprising visit was instigated by Duluk, who ran into Lloyd at the Australia-Pakistan Test and invited the duo to North Tce. Joseph was a somewhat controversial politician in London a decade ago. A mayor and local councillor, she switched from Labour to the Conservatives and was deputy leader of the London Fire Authority under then-mayor now UK PM Boris Johnson. Joseph quit over allegations she had not declared gifts but was cleared. According to Duluk, Joseph is still a fan of “BoJo’’ and there was much talk of the British election at lunch. But it wasn’t all politics. “It was politics and cricket and the politics of cricket,’’ said Duluk, pictured between Lloyd and Joseph. It was a rowdy question time with multiple ejections of Labor MPs. “They witnessed Mr Speaker (Vincent Tarzia)” at his finest,’’ Duluk said.
Grinch spares BankSA
BANKSA staff appear to have escaped Westpac’s decision to cancel Christmas, with staff still encouraged to get together for end of year celebrations.
Brian “The Grinch” Hartzer, in one of his last moves as Westpac chief executive, reportedly told a meeting of execs last month that staff “whooping it up with alcohol” would be a bad look in light of the company’s AUSTRAC scandal, which involves an alleged 23 million breaches in transactions amounting to more than $11 billion. Serious concerns have been raised about transactions involved in money laundering and funding of child exploitation. But it should be a happier Christmas at BankSA, which has to date been a cleanskin in terms of scandals hitting the banking sector this year. But spare a thought for members of the fourth estate, whose traditional catch-up with the bank’s boss Nick Reade has been cancelled due to his increased workload as part of his expanded role within the group.
Lunch club
IT could be a stoush that kick starts the year. The SA Press Club has invited Premier Steven Marshall to debate Labor leader Peter Malinauskas in March to mark the halfway point between the last election and the next.
The Press Club is proposing both leaders speak for 12 minutes then take questions from the floor.
As is to be expected, Malinauskas has fired in his RSVP with a swift yes, while Marshall is still considering his options.
Deepest red
OUTGOING Senator Cory Bernardi departed politics with an equanimity at odds with his confrontational style. A highlight of his fond farewell speech was the story of the first political fundraiser he attended when he was 16. Strangely, it was for the Socialist Alliance. A Fully Stocked Fridge was an attraction. Sadly, it was “the name of a band’’. A life on the Right was born.
The race continues to replace him. As Off the Record said in August, the name of LegCo president Andrew McLachlan has been mentioned. As has Caroline Rhodes.
Bradmania
A BATTLE over the provenance of Australia’s most famous sporting identity, Sir Donald Bradman, has erupted in Federal Parliament.
Sturt MP James Stevens this week talked up his electorate’s sporting pedigree by claiming Bradman, who lived in Kensington Park. But NSW Labor MP Pat Conroy rightly pointed out that Bradman grew up in Bowral, in the Southern Highlands. Then fellow NSW MP John Alexander – better known for tennis – said Bradman was born in Cootamundra. We think Stevens was right.
