How SA’s Liberals got the Federal Election so wrong

SOUTH Australian Liberals again have managed to self-sabotage themselves at the federal election, potentially losing half their seats. Daniel Wills explains how it went so wrong.

• How urban sprawl torpedoed the Liberals in Mayo
• Who’s NXT? Threat looms for Weatherill, Marshall
• How Labor outfoxed the NXT factor, and Libs didn’t
• What went wrong for the Coalition

AS counting continues, the SA Liberals are at threat of being reduced to a rump of three members in the Federal Parliament out of 11 seats. Here’s where it all went wrong.

LESSONS IGNORED

After an election that made Senator Nick Xenophon one of the more powerful people in Australia, Premier Jay Weatherill went straight to where the new influence lies. The state leader yesterday set up a picture opportunity with him shoulder-to-shoulder with the potential kingmaker Senator, despite having been locked in fierce combat for the two months before. There are clear echoes from the crazy days after the 2014 state election that produced a hung parliament, when Mr Weatherill made a dash to Port Pirie for ham and pineapple pizza with crucial independent MP Geoff Brock and Liberal leader Steven Marshall waited for a call in Adelaide. Throughout the federal campaign proper, the Liberals showed a similar inability to learn.

SA Premier Jay Weatherill meets with Nick Xenophon for talks after the Federal Election. Pic: Tricia Watkinson

CANDIDATES

In the turbulent democracy that is the Liberal Party, local branches decide who will be their candidates for election. This can often lead to internal brawling and selection of people who appeal more to a small group of the party base than electorates they seek to represent. The selection of David Colovic in Adelaide appears to have hurt the Liberals. He went missing during campaign debates and Labor polling showed Mr Colovic was less popular in the electorate than Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and the Liberal brand generally. Damaged former Coalition minister Jamie Briggs in Mayo also appears to have been a drag on the Liberal brand, with party sources saying their underlying vote was as strong as 50 per cent or more. With Mr Briggs as the candidate, Mayo fell and the Liberals won just 38 per cent of the primary vote on election day. “In Mayo, we had more of a Jamie problem than a Liberal problem,” one insider said.

TIN EAR

South Australia was considered a political irrelevance to Canberra Liberals just three years ago. The high watermark for the Coalition of the 2013 election where Labor torpedoed its campaign with rolling leadership instability, delivered the SA Liberals only a one-seat gain. Soon after followed the exit of the car industry and a reversal on submarines. Later, the Whyalla steelworks was plunged into crisis and the state’s unemployment rate rose, with little explicit concern shown by the Government in Canberra. The emergence of the Nick Xenophon Team brought new political pressure and created dangerous three-corner races. This eventually triggered a late conversion on subs and offers to aid Whyalla. However, many Liberals feel the rescue mission was left too late. “There’s no doubt we’ve gone backwards,” one Liberal MP said. “All the $90 billion we spent on subs ended up doing was stopping a complete wipeout in SA.”

STAYING CLEAN

The MediScare run by Labor appears to have had a major impact across the country, perhaps even more so in SA than elsewhere. In addition, SA Labor went hard against the Nick Xenophon Team in raising concerns about his position on penalty rates and reinforcing a core brand value of their own. The Liberals largely refused to go negative on Senator Xenophon, instead raising doubts about his running mates and the dangers of a hung parliament. Party insiders lament that the argument was not matched with a cut-through campaign that specifically gave SA voters a reason to dump NXT for the Coalition. Labor also went negative with effect in key seats like Adelaide, tying the local candidate to key doubts about Mr Turnbull and being out of touch. “One of the big lessons here is that scares work,” a senior Liberal said. “Sad, but it’s true”.

GROUND GAME

Sturt MP Christopher Pyne casts his vote in the Federal Election. He was re-elected. Picture: Stephen Laffer

The Liberal campaign in SA was extremely patchy; there were standout campaigns in key seats and shockers in others. Senior federal Liberal MP Christopher Pyne had been at serious risk in his eastern suburbs seat of Sturt at various stages as the primary vote split three ways. As the commander of the state moderate faction, he was able to pull resources and some of the Liberals’ most skilled campaigners to assist him. The result was a clear victory. The Boothby campaign for Nicolle Flint was also able to secure significant local spending promises and held up strongly against the NXT threat. By contrast, Labor’s huge base of State Government staffers and union connections was marshalled to put pressure on in the places that mattered. It ran as a centralised campaign where bang for buck was leveraged in advertising, and at the grassroots.

PREFERENCES

Despite the urgings of some, the Liberals were unable to stitch up a preference deal with either NXT or Labor that could have aided it in key battlegrounds. This left the Liberals needing big primary votes in many seats to hold on, because voter support was being chopped up by both challengers. A deal with Labor would likely have kept Grey in Liberal hands, may have helped in Mayo and would have reduced the danger in other seats. In the wash-up, it appears the Liberals had most to lose from the NXT threat and little to offer either it or Labor in a swap. Many Liberals are determined to ensure the same does not occur at the next state election.

Originally published as How SA’s Liberals got the Federal Election so wrong