New divide: How Scomo’s ‘deadly quiet army’ breached Sydney’s suburbs
An army of quiet, aspirational Australians delivered swings to the Coalition through swathes of Labor’s heartland while on only in trendy, affluent inner city seats did Labor benefit from modest swings as a new generation of voters carried Scott Morrison to election victory.
NSW
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An army of quiet, aspirational Australians delivered swings to the Coalition through swathes of Labor’s heartland, gifting Scott Morrison with a new generation of backers who rejected Bill Shorten’s radical tax grabs.
Many of Labor’s working-class voters deserted the party in suburbs and regions across the country in Saturday’s election.
Liberal strategists believe they have recaptured the famous “Howard battlers” — who were now Morrison’s “quiet Australians”.
Only in trendy, affluent inner city seats did Labor benefit from modest swings.
Sophisticated targeted campaigning pitched directly to over-65s on Labor’s franking credits grab and to mortgage-belt voters on negative gearing is believed to have been instrumental to the Coalition’s success story.
In NSW this pattern was manifested in a stunningly clear divide between seats to Sydney’s east, from Bennelong to the coastline, which swung to Labor, and seats to the west, from Watson to the Blue Mountains, where the Liberals boosted their vote.
“These are tradies, small business people, subcontractors — people aspiring to pay off mortgages, negatively gearing properties or wanting to — aspirational, hardworking folk who just want to get ahead and are looking forward to retirement,” one senior Liberal strategist said.
Recriminations are flying that Labor HQ — which was set up in Parramatta, where the party copped a 3.9 per cent swing against it — was overconfident.
Labor’s national campaign team was repeatedly warned by staff on the ground in key electorates that the party’s retiree tax and complex climate change policy was scaring away voters.
Despite the warnings, on the eve of the election Labor’s central campaign team were so confident of victory they went to dinner at a swish riverfront restaurant to pre-emptively celebrate.
“On Friday night while candidates in Lindsay and Macquarie were stressing about the impact of Chris Bowen’s new retiree tax and volunteers were setting up booths across Sydney, these people were in the middle of Western Sydney having a nice dinner by the river,” one Labor source said.
According to an invitation, seen by The Daily Telegraph, Labor Campaign Headquarter staff were asked to RSVP for the dinner at Sahra By The River in Parramatta by May 8 — more than a week out from the election.
The NSW Liberals ran targeted campaign strategies to capitalise on bad personal polling for Mr Shorten and a distrust of his policies on housing and retiree taxes.
NSW Liberal HQ capitalised on negative satisfaction rates for Mr Shorten personally and the Labor brand.
As Labor candidates tried to distance themselves from Mr Shorten in their electoral material, Liberal Party direct marketing warned voters that even if they liked their ALP candidate, a vote for them would make Mr Shorten PM.
Mr Shorten’s brand was so toxic in the seat of Lindsay Labor switched its how-to-vote cards at the last minute from ones with images of the leader to ones without.
Anti-Labor swings were recorded in Paul Keating’s former Western Sydney seat of Blaxland (3.9 per cent), Chifley (6.4 per cent) and Watson (3.3 per cent).
Penrith couple Nadim, 30, and Rema Al Khoury, 25, voted for winning Liberal candidate Melissa McIntosh on Saturday after concluding Labor’s policies put their financial future at risk.
“I used to always be Labor, Labor, Labor but I think this year they’ve just run themselves into the ground … this is my first time voting for the Liberals,” Mrs Al Khoury said.
Mr Al Khoury said Labor’s proposed changes to negative gearing could reduce house prices and drive down the value of their investment property at St Clair.
“The way Scott Morrison presented was more appealing,” he said.
Penrith couple Antonio, 30, and Anne-Marie Gerace, 30, were also worried about the property market.
“I work in the property development industry so for me negative gearing was an issue,” Mr Gerace said.
“We were surprised to see Scott Morrison win.”
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