Sharri Markson: Popular MP returns the crown jewel

A lot was at stake for residents in our electorate, the wealthiest in the country. Negative gearing, imputation dividend and capital gains tax reforms would hit thousands of families in this electorate

Dave Sharma was always going to win this election against Kerryn Phelps. Wentworth, a crown jewel in the Liberal Party since federation, was not destined to remain in the hands of an independent at a general election where Bill Shorten was campaigning to be prime minister.

A lot was at stake for residents in our electorate, the wealthiest in the country. Negative gearing, imputation dividend and capital gains tax reforms would hit thousands of families in this electorate. For this reason, the contest in Wentworth was not about Kerryn Phelps, a popular local figure, nor was it a love affair with Sharma.

No one else could have come as close to defeating the Liberal Party in this election as Phelps did.

Phelps’ win was historic and her time as Wentworth MP was significant. She was the first Jewish woman to be elected to the House of Representatives, and she stood up to the dysfunction in the Liberal Party that saw the overthrow of a prime minister. Phelps also more than delivered on her pledge to force the government’s hand on its treatment of asylum seekers, with her Medivac bill.

But this election was about Shorten and, specifically, halting him on his cocksure, audacious path to The Lodge.

It was a rejection of Labor; a repudiation of its policies.

Departing from the free-market, centrist policies of heavyweight former Labor prime ministers, Paul Keating and his mentor Bob Hawke, Shorten ran with a radical, far-left, redistributive agenda.

This policy platform corresponded with his own lack of personal appeal. He was an unpopular leader with an unpopular agenda; and, thus, Labor was shunned Australia-wide. Morrison will form a majority government — perhaps even a seat or two greater than what Malcolm Turnbull managed in 2016. It remains a slim majority, but that doesn’t mean that half of Australia sided with Labor.

The depth that ALP’s primary vote plunged at this election, to 33.8 per cent, was stunning, considering the expectations of a landslide victory to Shorten.

In Wentworth, this result was exaggerated. Tim Murray recorded 8410 votes and 10 per cent of the primary, at the time of printing. Phelps received 26,665 votes and 32 per cent of the primary while Sharma had 38,255 votes at 48 per cent.

In the October by-election, Mr Murray scored 8777, 11 per cent of the primary, Phelps finished with 22,219, 29 per cent of the primary and Sharma had 32,795, 43 per cent of the primary. After preferences, the count is 51.8 per cent to Sharma with 48.1 per cent to Phelps.

Phelps repeatedly rejected Shorten’s wealth redistribution measures, however her campaign was primarily urging action on climate change. From the time she first decided to run for parliament at the October by-election, her most stinging attacks were reserved for the Liberal Party. Crucially, she refused to say whether she’d support Shorten or Morrison in a hung- parliament. And in a difference to her campaign strategy at the by-election, she chose not to preference the Liberals, opting instead not to direct preferences.

All of these factors were problematic when asking voters in Wentworth to support her in a campaign against an unpopular Labor agenda. A key message was, ‘would you rather an independent MP or an opposition backbencher representing you in a Shorten government?’ But the presumption that voters were going to usher in a Shorten government was wrong.

And voters across the country acted to prevent that from happening. It wasn’t just Phelps whose ambitions were thwarted; independents suffered around the country. Liberal defector and Alex Turnbull beneficiary, Julia Banks, did not make it. Neither did Rob Oakeshott. Zali Steggal’s success in Warringah was under vastly different circumstances, where a determined electorate ejected Tony Abbott, encouraged by an aggressive and dirty campaign waged by GetUp. Wentworth had already told the Liberal party in clear terms never to take it for granted.

And it won’t be again.