Former ALP president Warren Mundine says Liberals the true party of the working class

Despite anger within the Liberal Party about PM Scott Morrison’s captain’s call in parachuting Warren Mundine into the South Coast seat of Gilmore, the new candidate got straight to work, slamming the ALP and Bill Shorten. Read the story and Anna Caldwell’s comment on the controversial appointment.

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Prime Minister Scott Morrison has cast the parachuting of Warren Mundine into the crucial seat of Gilmore as a slapdown of bullying tactics in the party.

Mr Morrison mounted a defence of his captain’s call for the knife-edge South Coast seat as he received a glowing endorsement from indigenous leader Mr Mundine, who told The Daily Telegraph he now saw the Liberals as the true party of the working class.

It can also be revealed Mr Mundine will support the development of nuclear energy in Australia, but said this did not mean a nuclear plant at a place like Jervis Bay.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Liberal candidate for Gilmore Warren Mundine spoke glowingly of each other yesterday. Picture: Jonathan Ng

The indigenous leader and former Labor Party president made his debut as Liberal candidate for Gilmore yesterday alongside the PM in Nowra, where the party has cast aside Grant Shultz who was locally endorsed to contest the seat and will now run as an independent after blasting the tactics.

Local South Coast Liberal members have privately expressed anger over Mr Morrison’s intervention, and the Nationals are expected to nominate for the seat as well.

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Mr Morrison told The Daily Telegraph “everything’s gone right here”, and that it was necessary to have a “clean break” and bring Mr Mundine in “fresh” after sitting MP Ann Sudmalis made accusations of bullying last year.

“I have been around the Liberal Party a long time and his decision to do what he has done yesterday, I think just says the NSW state executive got it dead right,” Mr Morrison said. “You don’t get to bully your way into a seat in the Liberal Party, that is not how it works.”

Grant Schultz will now run as an independent.

Mr Schultz, a retired police officer and the son of the late former Liberal Hume MP Alby Schultz, staunchly refuted the allegations saying he had “simply exercised my democratic right to and for preselection of the Liberal Party” and was “standing up for my community”.

Mr Mundine, who had to explain his previous allegiance to the Labor Party, said he could no long tolerate Bill Shorten’s policies, saying they were restricting the working class from flourishing.

He said his priority was pushing for jobs in the region and supporting the elderly, who he said were at risk from Labor’s tax policies.

Asked about the fact he did not live in the seat, Mr Mundine said he had been househunting in Nowra yesterday morning and expected to buy imminently. He said he had wanted desperately to represent a regional electorate, saying he saw nothing more important than helping the regions build jobs.

He also pointed to his indigenous ancestral links to the South Coast and said he believed he would use these connections to win indigenous voters who might “traditionally vote Labor”.

“This is about the policies Labor is driving,” Mr Mundine told The Daily Telegraph. “The difference between Bill and Scott is very simple. I’ve watched Scott for a while and he’s a bloke who can talk to a boilermaker and talk to a banker.”

Mr Mundine says Bill Shorten’s policies are restricting the working class from flourishing. Picture: Jonathan Ng

He said voting for Labor had been in his family’s “DNA”, but he believed Mr Shorten’s policies on negative gearing, capital gains tax and franking credits would hurt everyday Australians.

He also said that although he believed the date of Australia Day should be changed — at odds with Mr Morrison’s position — it was not a high priority for him.

INFIGHTING SET TO OVERSHADOW STAR PICK

A bid by respected indigenous leader Warren Mundine to seek out a seat in our nation’s capital should be a purely good day for the Liberal Party.

Instead, the story has been marred by dirty subplots of internal ructions, bullying and a controversial captain’s call by the Prime Minister.

Mundine issued powerful praise for Scott Morrison and a swift take-down of Bill Shorten’s policies yesterday.

As words from the mouth of a former Labor Party president, it is the stuff campaign ads should be made of.

He praised Morrison as a bloke who can talk to a boilermaker as easily as he can talk to a banker.

Then-opposition Leader Kim Beazley (left to right), Craig Emerson, Warren Mundine and Julia Gillard in 2006, when Mr Mundine was newly elected president of the Labor Party.

While some will criticise Mundine for formerly being a Shorten supporter and Labor Party president, Morrison is right to say that his defection is a huge vote of confidence.

Here is a man who says voting Labor has been in his family’s DNA but that he no longer sees the party as the domain of the working class.

High praise indeed.

But at a time when the Liberal Party has been dogged over infighting, there is a risk that the strength of Mundine will be overshadowed by ongoing party drama.

Mundine wanted a regional seat — he wanted to fight for a place where working-class types fought for jobs and fought to make a life for themselves.

History tells us star candidates can be risky.

Mundine will battle mud from Labor that is expected to raise the spectre of a section 44 risk because of previous contract work for the government.

But that will be nothing compared to the risk of the Liberal Party tearing itself apart.