ALP’s China crisis: Daley’s video leak put several seats in play for the Coalition
The Liberal candidate in Kogarah says he “capitalised” on Opposition Leader Michael Daley’s anti-migrant remarks to secure an 8.4 per swing in the primary vote in the Labor stronghold; Mr Daley takes the family to lunch; Bill Shorten says lessons must be learned; and, Labor women praise the Premier.
NSW
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The Liberal candidate in Kogarah says he “capitalised” on Opposition Leader Michael Daley’s anti-migrant remarks to secure an 8.4 per swing in the primary vote in the Labor stronghold.
Chinese-Australian Scott Yung, 26, said he used a social media platform popular with Chinese people to label Mr Daley and his party “racist”, helping him slash Labor’s margin in half to just 3 per cent in the seat held by frontbencher — and future leadership hopeful — Chris Minds.
Mr Daley’s comments also sent shockwaves through Oatley, where 15 per cent of the population have Chinese ancestry, and lessened the blow to Finance Minister Victor Dominello’s margin in Ryde.
Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten called the election result a “wake-up call” and refused to back Mr Daley’s future as head of the state ALP, simply saying it was a “matter for NSW”. “He’s (Michael Daley) the first to acknowledge his comments were wrong and I’ve certainly said that to him,” Mr Shorten said. “I think he paid a price for that.”
While Mr Yung said the Liberals had a larger presence on the ground than Labor, he also said he used a video of Mr Daley making xenophobic comments to his advantage.
Mr Daley has apologised after footage emerged of him saying Asian migrants with PhDs were taking the jobs of young Australians.
“I capitalised on it (the video) … I started creating my own articles on WeChat saying that Mike Daley and Labor are racist,” Mr Yung said.
“It wasn’t officially put out by me but it was put out by my channels locally.”
Almost a third of the people in the southern Sydney seat of Kogarah have some Chinese ancestry.
While Mr Daley’s comments affected voters there, they did not have an impact in Strathfield which has the second-highest Chinese vote in NSW. Results there showed a 3.2 per cent swing towards Labor’s Jodi McKay.
However, in the Liberal-held seat of Oatley, there was a 4.1 per cent swing away from Labor. The Liberals initially believed they could lose Ryde, where 23 per cent of people have a Chinese background, but there was only a 2.5 per cent swing against Mr Dominello.
Asian Australian Alliance founder Erin Chew said voters from “established” Chinese-Australian communities like Kogarah and Oatley were more likely to have been offended by Mr Daley’s comments. She said many people from the Strathfield Chinese community were new migrants who had a limited understanding of Australian politics.
And a senior NSW Labor source said older, wealthy voters of Chinese heritage in established communities like Ryde were far less forgiving, adding that “after the video … (they) just took a baseball bat to us”.
Daley takes family for lunch after defeat
As Michael Daley sat down at his local cafe to lick his wounds on Sunday the menu’s theme — Life’s A Beach — could not have been more apt.
After Labor’s disappointing defeat at the election, Mr Daley had some poor personal results in his own seat of Maroubra to digest with his breakfast.
Results showed an embarrassing 10.3 per cent swing against the Labor leader on first preference votes and a 3 per cent swing on the two-party-preferred vote in one of the ALP’s strongholds.
The figures undermined his assertion that he remains the “best person” to lead the Labor Party as he faces a possible leadership challenge by Labor frontbencher Chris Minns.
Mr Daley, whose margin in Maroubra has been cut to 7.8 per cent on the latest figures, defended the result, saying he was too busy campaigning in marginal seats to attend to his own.
But independent candidate and former Randwick mayor Noel D’Souza, who secured 15 per cent of the primary vote, said Mr Daley had taken constituents for granted.
“Morale was down … it was because their leader wasn’t leading. He never came to the polling booths, he never came to the prepoll booths … how can you lead from the rear?” he said.
Mr Daley has been the member for Maroubra since 2005, when he succeeded Bob Carr. He claimed Mr D’Souza and Liberal Pat Farmer had deliberately run a “strong campaign” designed to distract him from his tasks as Labor leader.
— Danielle Le Messurier
Horror last week put paid to Labor’s hopes
Preliminary voting results show support for Labor fell in the last week of the election campaign, with two-party preferred polling certain to end lower than the 51-49 win to the Coalition predicted on Saturday.
Before Labor Leader Michael Daley being accused of racism last Monday his party was running — neck and neck with the Coalition, with a YouGov Galaxy poll conducted for The Daily Telegraph showing 50-50.
On Saturday, The Weekend Australian’s Newspoll showed support for Labor had slipped to 49-51, after the derogatory Asian migrant comments and a poor performance from Mr Daley at Wednesday night’s debate.
With votes still being counted the final predicted two-party preferred figure is yet to be determined, but with Labor currently only picking up the seat of Coogee the projected two party figure will likely be lower than 49-51, perhaps even slipping to 47-53.
— Edward Boyd
‘We can’t take the voter for granted’
Bill Shorten believes Labor’s loss in the NSW election will not have many implications for his campaign to become Australia’s prime minister.
But the federal Opposition Leader said there are lessons he can learn from the NSW vote, including the importance of continually putting forward a vision for the future.
“People are hungry for vision. Politics as usual doesn’t cut it,” Mr Shorten said on Sunday. “I think it would be fair to say that there weren’t many federal implications.”
But he said there are still lessons he can learn from the growing electoral influence of smaller parties and independents.
“No major party can take the voter for granted,” Mr Shorten said.
“I actually think that the challenge, or the lesson, for me out of yesterday is to keep putting forward a long-term view of the nation.”
But the result has buoyed the spirits of the federal Coalition, ahead of the national poll expected to be called for May. Attorney-General Christian Porter said polls have not been favourable towards the Morrison government but it has always considered it can win the election.
Seeing the NSW government re-elected has firmed up that belief, as the federal government is similarly focused on delivering a stronger economy and using that to invest in services and infrastructure, Mr Porter said.
“This proves, if you like, the underlying confidence we’ve had. We believe this shows that the next election is absolutely winnable,” he said from Perth.
Nationals MP Darren Chester is also taking heart from the result — despite the NSW branch of his party losing at least one seat to the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party.
“The message out of NSW was, for the federal government in particular, for our election in six weeks … was don’t write us off,” he told ABC TV.
Acclaim from Labor women
Senior female Labor figures have congratulated Gladys Berejiklian on her victory, with federal Deputy Leader Tanya Plibersek calling it a “historically significant win”.
At a time when women in politics have been in focus, former prime minister Julia Gillard led the congratulations.
“In a world of far too few women leaders, I congratulate @GladysB on being the first woman to win a NSW state election,” Ms Gillard tweeted.
And Ms Plibersek also congratulated Ms Berejiklian: “It is a historically significant win to see the first elected female premier of NSW and I congratulate Premier Berejiklian personally for that victory.”
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