Blame the Nationals for the coalition’s Eden-Monaro fail
Pre-poll votes and Liberal overconfidence all played a part in the Eden-Monaro defeat, but the lack of leadership from their coalition partners sealed their fate, writes Alan Jones.
Opinion
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There will be embarrassment and anger within the Liberal Party over the Eden-Monaro by-election.
Put simply, the Liberals were responsible for the greatest mistake of all in politics.
They believed, with the Prime Minister’s approval at stratospheric levels, they were over the line.
They allocated almost a million dollars to fight the campaign.
Workers on the ground don’t know where the money was spent.
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Add to that the assumption that the postal votes and absentee votes would go to the Liberals as they had in the past.
Put simply, the Labor Party out-manoeuvred the Coalition on pre-polling.
Just on this issue of pre-polling.
There were 43,000 pre-poll votes cast in Eden-Monaro, an increase of 15.5 per cent on last year’s Federal election.
This nonsense surely has to stop.
There are very specific rules in relation to voting early.
None of them seem to be enforced.
The Electoral Commission argues you can only vote early if, on election day, one of these applies:
* you are outside the electorate where you’re enrolled to vote
* you are more than 8 kilometres from a polling place
* you are travelling
* you are unable to leave your workplace
* you are seriously ill, infirm or due to give birth or are caring for someone who is
* you are a patient in hospital and can’t vote at the hospital
* you have religious beliefs that prevent you from attending a polling place
* you are in prison serving a sentence of less than three years or otherwise detained
* you have a reasonable fear for your safety.
How on earth do 43,000 people fit into that category?
Then of course there’s the question of voter identification.
If Vladimir Putin had to provide proof of identification before the recent constitutional vote in Russia, why on earth can’t this happen here?
But given the general view that the personal vote of the former Labor Member, Dr Mike Kelly, was worth two to three per cent; and given the margin by which Labor held the seat was 0.9 per cent, how on earth could the Liberal Party lose?
After all, their Federal leader has been front and centre on every media outlet for months talking coronavirus.
Add to that, a Labor Party with allegations of branch-stacking in Victoria and ASIO raids on the home of a NSW Labor MP.
Yet, in the end, former Bega Mayor, Kristy McBain, may well finish up with a better two-party preferred vote than did Mike Kelly.
The voting patterns on Saturday were erratic.
The swings to Labor on the South Coast were larger than in other areas.
This was the area ravaged by bushfires.
Was Canberra believed to be absent in their hour of need?
The Liberals didn’t win a single booth in Merimbula.
Yet Queanbeyan, which had been a stronghold for Dr Kelly, but virtually owned by John Barilaro at the State level saw the Liberal vote increase.
There is a wider issue at work here which the Federal Coalition Government ignores at its peril.
It is the total absence of credible leadership within the Federal National Party.
For months it’s been clear that genuine National Party supporters will not vote for a party led by Michael McCormack.
Gladys Berejiklian saw this at the last State election.
The National Party in the seat of Murray had a swing against it of 26.2 per cent.
In the seat of Barwon, 19.5 per cent.
At the last Federal election, Calare, blue-ribbon National, had a massive swing of 17 per cent to the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers.
In the Victorian seat of Mallee, the Nationals won it with a primary vote of 27.9 per cent with a swing against them of 28 per cent.
Parkes, in western NSW had to go to preferences for the first time in living memory.
These figures don’t lie.
The issue is McCormack’s leadership and the Prime Minister’s determination to support it.
It has the potential to cost the Government the next Federal election.
Let’s face it, we may not agree with Scott Morrison putting the economy into a coma as a result of the coronavirus, but one thing is undeniable.
At the last Federal election and during all this coronavirus alarmism, the Prime Minister has worked night and day.
What does he have to show for it today - an embarrassing defeat in Eden-Monaro.
Many believe Barilaro could have won the seat for the Coalition.
Did Scott Morrison want Barilaro in the Federal Parliament or does he prefer the invisible and transparently incompetent McCormack?
Did the coterie of National MPs who supported McCormack in the leadership challenge earlier this year, in return for jobs, know that if Barilaro hit the scenes in Canberra, their cars and indulgent salaries might go for the high jump along with McCormack’s leadership?
In the wake of what happened on Saturday, there is still far too much focus on Anthony Albanese.
The last Newspoll had the Coalition in front of Labor 51-49.
This in spite of the fact that many of Labor’s policies are totally unacceptable to the electorate, as they were at the last election.
So how can Eden-Monaro be explained?
Well, if you’re going to look at the scoreboard, the scoreboard in Eden-Monaro tells you that these people, many of whom have never seen coronavirus, have suffered under drought, bushfire, floods and now freezing temperatures.
People are still living in borrowed homes, wearing borrowed clothes and spending borrowed money.
This was a Federal by-election and more than 50 per cent of the electorate believe that they’re being taken for granted.
The National Party is facing a political nightmare under the current federal leadership and that means a political nightmare for a Prime Minister who holds government by two seats.
The Coalition, and this includes Scott Morrison, will not face political reality.
The reality is that the National Party are shot and if they can’t hold seats at the next election, Scott Morrison can’t win.
There’s only one question to ask about the Opposition Leader.
If he was going to an election would he rather fight it against McCormack or Barnaby Joyce; against McCormack or Barilaro; against McCormack or Matt Canavan?
Answer that question and you’ll find the principal answer to the loss in Eden-Monaro.