Liberals begin to point the finger in Western Sydney as loss hits home

DUMPED Macarthur MP Russell Matheson says he warned NSW Liberal headquarters weeks ago that the “Mediscare” issue was seriously biting at booths but no-one paid any attention.

DUMPED Macarthur MP Russell Matheson says he warned NSW Liberal headquarters and Liberal State Director Chris Stone more than a fortnight ago on day one of prepoll voting that the “Medicare” issue was seriously biting at booths but to no avail.

Mr Matheson’s revelation comes with some internal Liberal critics questioning why resources were poured into the lost causes of Greenway and Werriwa in an attempt to win seats off Labor when the Libs should have been defending their own territory.

Showing how wrong Liberal national office got the potential result, Mr Turnbull even mentioned Werriwa as a chance during his National Press Club speech in the final week.

Member for Macarthur, Russell Mathieson who has just lost his seat in the recent Federal Election. Pictured at The Macarthur Tavern in Campbelltown. Picture: Jonathan Ng

But the Liberals got nowhere near snatching Greenway or Werriwa and got soundly defeated in the Western Sydney seats they held; Macquarie, Macarthur and Lindsay instead — possibly forcing them into a hung parliament situation.

Mr Matheson says a “soft” television advertising campaign by the Coalition did not help him.

“The big thing for me was we didn’t run hard enough. We were a bit soft in our messages,” Mr Matheson said.

“They had unions on every one of my booths, three or four of them.

“I told them in week one of pre poll day one, the votes were four to one against me, everyone was talking about Medicare.

“I told Liberal HQ and I told [state director] Chris Stone.”

Mr Stone confirmed the conversation with Mr Matheson last night and said: “We recognised the ‘Medicare campaign’ and the unions were putting significant resources behind it and we did any number of things to address the issue through direct mail and a whole range of other things.”

Werriwa Liberal candidate Ned Mannoun, who ended up suffering a 1.5 per cent swing against him, also blamed a lack of a comeback at the false Medicare privatisation scare.

Liberal candidate for Werriwa Ned Mannoun with his wife Tina Mannoun. Picture: Richard dobson

“That Medicare thing hit hard. We had no comeback to it,” Mr Mannoun said.

“I think obviously now looking at it, we should have gone hard on it.”

In a sign of how volatile it was during the eight week campaign, Labor sources say they also spent more money in Greenway and Werriwa than normal in the weeks leading up, believing those seats were at risk.

One Labor source said they had never seen as many resources in a seat as the Liberals put in Greenway and Labor was responding to that.

Young Liberals controlled by Centre Right factional heavyweight Alex Hawke are said to have worked in Greenway on Saturday rather than help out in seats like Lindsay.

Pru Goward’s daughter Penny Fischer, a Camden shire councillor who is on the party state executive, campaigned in Greenway, instead of Macarthur, her home seat, because, she said, she had a friend in Yvonne Keane running there.

Liberal sources claimed volunteers were taken out of the seat to Greenway where Mr Hawke was and claimed as many as 50 volunteers could have been deployed to Lindsay instead and claimed this was because Lindsay candidate Fiona Scott was a moderate.

“I don’t think anyone got the polling right, do you?” Ms Fischer said.

“I’m sorry if I got it wrong and thought we had a chance of winning the seat.”

Penny Fischer and her mother politician Pru Goward.

Ms Fischer said she was disappointed for Mr Matheson, who ended up losing with a 12.6 per cent swing against him.

Mr Hawke denied there were excessive resources in Greenway, his duty seat.

The party also decided not to inflame matters by having Tony Abbott’s Warringah conference volunteers in Lindsay, as had occurred at the last election, amid stories Ms Scott had voted for Malcolm Turnbull against Tony Abbott last year. Volunteers from the seat of Bradfield went there instead.

But Liberal sources said that in all seats, particularly during prepolls, the number of union volunteers ensured Labor had greater numbers in NSW.

In another clear mistake, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull did not even visit the seat of Macquarie except for the Sky News debate early in the campaign.

Former state Liberal MP John Ryan posted on Facebook: “The near disappearance of Liberal Party representation in Western Sydney is a huge blow to the viability of the Liberal Party.

“While the Labor scare campaign that Medicare would be privatised was outrageous, the Government decision to freeze rebates for GPs and introduce co-payments for pathology lent credibility to idea that “Medicare had to be saved”.

Many believe Malcolm Turnbull played the election wrong. Picture: Jason Edwards

“On my booth Labor also had a unionist whose sole job was to repeat endlessly, “save Medicare, put the Liberals last”. It worked, and all my efforts to shut that down were in vain.

“The other thing is that Labor still do the mechanics of election campaigning better than us. The scare campaign was executed with ruthless efficiency, with third party TV ads before the election to a polling day strategy like the one I described earlier.”

One senior Liberal source said: “Clearly there was a problem with the Liberal Party polling, the campaign was a shemozzle from start to finish. There was no clear messaging. We didn’t go after the unions. We didn’t go after [Labor on] border protection.”

Premier Mike Baird, who would find the result in Western Sydney concerning for his future prospect, declined to be drawn on the result in his first post-result comments yesterday.

“Obviously the federal election was a difficult time for the federal government. there were swings across the nation,” Mr Baird said.

“It was a reminder for everyone to never take any votes or any communities for granted.

“The focus we have is to continue to build the infrastructure we’re building.”