Joe Hildebrand on Wentworth, Warringah and wokeness: The new fight against the Libs

The election may well be a new kind of Independents Day after the downfall of Malcolm Turnbull’s seat. There is just one catch.

The first thing you need to know about politics is that virtually everything you need to know about politics can be found in the 1996 action masterpiece Independence Day.

As every self-respecting cinemagoer knows, the film depicts a world beset by a seemingly invincible fleet of giant flying saucers.

No single force can stop them but then one of the smartest humans — played by the uncannily handsome Jeff Goldblum — realises that a certain combination just might: If the mothership is internally compromised then it cannot protect the other ships from external attacks.

The plan is enacted and sure enough the first ship falls from the sky.

It is all the humans need.

“Let’s get on the wire,” barks a US general.

“Tell every squadron around the world how to shoot those f***ers down.”

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The same thing happened in Australian politics just a few months ago when Kerryn Phelps made history by winning the once unconquerable seat of Wentworth from the Liberal Party while it was stricken with internal division and disease.

Almost immediately there was a new game in town — literally in town.

While it was not uncommon for Coalition MPs to lose their seats to independents in the inherently parochial regions, now blue-blood Liberal seats in the cities were suddenly vulnerable.

And so at this election there is not one but now three prime ministerial seats under threat. Turnbull’s old eastern suburbs stomping ground, Tony Abbott’s north shore heartland of Warringah and Josh Frydenberg’s hallowed Melbourne seat of Kooyong which was for two decades the seat of Robert Menzies and thus arguably the very birthplace of the Liberal Party itself.

Dr Kerryn Phelps made history when she was elected in Wentworth following Malcolm Turnbull’s ousting. Picture: Brett Costello

On top of this the leadership aspirant Greg Hunt has become the hunted in the well-heeled Mornington Peninsula seat of Flinders, which history buffs may know was also the home of Australia’s eighth prime minister Stanley Bruce.

In short, May 18 may well be a new kind of Independents Day. Phelps’ extraordinary victory became a template for how to conquer once impenetrable Liberal fortresses and the people behind it — a loose coalition of progressives, Labor black-ops and small-l liberal types — wasted no time in telling every squadron in the country how to shoot the f***ers down.

There is just one catch: The wunderkind candidate who started it all, Phelps herself, might actually lose.

The problem with wresting Liberal seats off Liberals is that they are still, well, Liberal seats. It is one thing for voters to give a misbehaving government a smack on the bum — as the residents of Wentworth did after their local member was rolled as PM — it is quite another to ask them to commit treason, which is how lifelong conservatives would feel if they helped install a Labor government.

As it stands now the only independent with a sure-fire shot at winning is the only one who is taking on a former prime minister in the flesh: Zali Steggall in Warringah.

At face value this might seem to fly in the face of that wisdom but in fact it confirms it. For all the talk about GetUp aiding Steggall — and frankly after their moronic ad mocking life savers they have now done more to harm her — she is not receiving any direct support from the undergraduate activist group.

Why? Well for one thing she doesn’t need it.

According to my sources her campaign has been flooded with so much money that they have actually told people to stop because they already have more than they can possibly spend.

I cannot think of a single time in Australian political history in which this has happened before.

And, unsurprisingly, these profound amounts are not coming from bong-smoking Greens or blue-collar Labor voters. The money is coming from Liberal supporters who are furious at what they see as Abbott wrecking the party and tearing down Turnbull after he was torn down himself.

In other words, these people are far from proud lefties. They’re proud Libs who are punishing someone they see as a traitor for destroying the party they love.

And that is why Abbott is in for a world of pain come election day.

But on the other side of Sydney Harbour the Phelps campaign isn’t rolling in the same kind of hay. In fact some worry that it might soon be rolling in an early grave.

The fear is that because of Phelps’ early declaration that she would preference the Libs after Labor and her subsequent landmark “Medivac bill” enabling the transfer of asylum seekers off Nauru and Manus Island that she has been cast in the minds of too many voters as a progressive activist.

In short, the danger is that she is too left for Liberals and too woke for Wentworth.

This is despite the fact that she is well-liked in the electorate and greeted warmly almost everywhere she goes. Indeed, people want to vote for Phelps, they just don’t want to accidentally elect a Shorten government in doing so.

Little wonder this is precisely the attack strategy used by the Coalition: that a vote for Kerryn Phelps is a vote for Bill Shorten.

Phelps also had a safety net in her by-election campaign last year: While a victory for her would send the Coalition into minority government, it was never going to cost them government. Phelps even wisely assured her conservative electors that she would support the government in matters of confidence and supply.

And there was of course white-hot anger among moderate Libs about the toppling of Turnbull. The back-of-a-beer-coaster maths is that around one in five Liberal voters went over to her to get her over the line — but if just half of them go back to the Libs this time around she is cactus.

The Coalition’s attack strategy is simple: a vote for Kerryn Phelps is a vote for Bill Shorten. Picture: Gary Ramage

Fortunately for the good doctor, there is a simple way out of this fix: All she needs to do is declare that if she happens to hold the balance of power after the next election she will — in the interests of stability of course — support the incumbent government in matters of confidence and supply. It’s not like she hasn’t done it before.

Moreover, barring an earthquake wiping every western suburban seat off the map, Labor will romp home anyway. Labor won’t need Phelps’ vote to win but Phelps will need her voters to know she is not a Labor stooge if she is going to do the same.

Currently Phelps is torn between not wanting to disappoint her progressive supporters and knowing that she needs traditional Liberal votes to win.

Like many newcomers to politics she is full of idealism and principle. But politics is not the art of principle, it is the art of the possible.

And nothing is possible unless you win.

Joe Hildebrand co-hosts Studio 10, 8.30am weekdays, on Network Ten. Continue the conversation @Joe_Hildebrand

Originally published as Joe Hildebrand on Wentworth, Warringah and wokeness: The new fight against the Libs