Bill Shorten faces test of leadership at Saturday’s by-elections loom
ALL eyes will be on five by-elections taking place this Saturday. The results could have interesting consequences for our nation’s leaders.
THE results of Saturday’s five by-elections could make history and decide the future of our nation’s leaders.
Dubbed the Super Saturday elections, voters in the electorates of Longman, Braddon, Mayo, Fremantle and Perth will head to the polls.
While Labor is on track to hold the Western Australia seats of Fremantle and Perth, it’s facing a tough battle to retain the Queensland seat of Longman and the Tasmanian seat of Braddon.
Defeat in any of the seats could trigger a leadership challenge against Opposition leader Bill Shorten as it would be the first time an opposition seat would have been lost to the government in a by-election in 98 years.
In a further blow to Mr Shorten, a YouGov Galaxy poll published by NewsCorp on Monday showed Labor would be in a winning position in both Longman and Braddon if Anthony Albanese was the party’s leader.
Mr Shorten acknowledged the Queensland seat of Longman would be the toughest of the five fights. His party has run heavily on energy prices, health and education, pledging to reduce hospital waiting lists.
The Liberals, meanwhile, have focused on job creation, lower taxes and business investment.
In positive news for Mr Turnbull, a Fairfax/Ipsos poll showed the Opposition led the Coalition by just 51 to 49 per cent on a two party basis, compared to 53 to 47 per cent a month ago.
Mr Turnbull has also increased his popularity over Mr Shorten, with 57 per cent of voters nominating him as preferred prime minister, compared to just 30 per cent for the Labor leader.
Professor of politics at the University of Western Australia and Griffith University Peter van Onselen told news.com.au Mr Shorten’s leadership would be under strain if Labor lost one or both seats.
“Frankly, with the history of oppositions holding seats in by-elections, his leadership would be under consideration if he loses one or both seats,” Prof van Onselen said.
But despite the shaky polling, he did expect Labor to retain both seats.
“In general at by-elections, voters look to punish the incumbents — those in government — and that’s why I think it would be significant if Labor were to lose one or both seats,” he said.
Even if there was a loss, Prof van Onselen said there was a good chance Mr Shorten would survive any leadership tensions and lead the Labor Party to the next election.
“Bill Shorten is very good at the internal workings of the Labor Party and this could see him outmanoeuvre Anthony Albanese — and that might see him survive.”
LONGMAN
One of the most hotly contested seats is Longman in Queensland, which Labor is close to losing in a historic defeat.
Labor’s Susan Lamb won the seat in the 2016 election from former LNP member Wyatt Roy by just 1390 votes, and she is struggling to hang on to it.
Part of her success in the previous election was attributed to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation as the party recommended voters preference Labor in the seat. However, in Saturday’s by-election it will preference Liberal National Party candidate Trevor Ruthenberg.
YouGov Galaxy polling published by NewsCorp on Monday now shows “Big Trev” is leading in the seat by 51 to 49 per cent.
But Labor strategists believe the result is so tight the winner may not be known on Saturday night.
The positive polling comes after a week of controversy for Mr Ruthenberg. On Tuesday The Courier Mail revealed he had not received an Australian Defence Medal, a military medal given for overseas peacekeeping, but instead got the Australian Service Medal for his four years of service with the RAAF.
Mr Ruthenberg described it as an “honest mistake” and apologised for the error. More than 40 per cent of respondents in a ReachTEL poll done for The Sunday Mail said they believed him.
With polling so close, it looks likely that One Nation preferences will play a crucial role in deciding who wins the seat.
But party leader Pauline Hanson has been on a family cruise off Belfast for a long-booked holiday ahead of the poll, although she has said she will be back on the hustings on Saturday.
Candidate Matthew Stephen said she was “exhausted and in need of some R&R”.
Voters will however, be greeted by a cardboard cut-out of Ms Hanson at polling booths and encouraged to take a selfie.
Ms Hanson’s star power will likely be welcomed by Mr Stephen, who faced controversy this week over the sale of his business which owed money to tradies. He reportedly told The Courier-Mail that someone had demanded payment from him to keep quiet about what happened.
Voters in Longman were forced back to the polls after it emerged Ms Lamb, a former teacher’s aide and union organiser, didn’t renounce her British citizenship properly.
She said she didn’t provide her parent’s marriage certificate as required because she was estranged from her mother and her father had died. She was eventually allowed to renounce her UK citizenship without providing the certificate.
BRADDON
Another crucial seat to watch is the Tasmanian seat of Braddon where a squid fisherman has emerged as an unlikely kingmaker.
Independent Craig Garland is a local fisherman who is polling 8.9 per cent, compared to Greens’ Jarrod Edwards, who holds 6.7 per cent of the primary vote.
Their preferences are expected to be key in helping Labor’s Justine Keay secure the seat ahead of the Liberals’ Brett Whiteley.
Ms Keay only has 34.3 per cent of the primary vote (compared to Mr Whiteley on 40.7 per cent) but she holds 52 per cent of two-party preferred vote, according to a ReachTEL poll commissioned by the Australian Forest Products Association.
More than two-thirds of voters in the area said they would preference Labor above the Liberals.
Mr Garland has said he will direct preferences to the Shooters and Fishers party, then Greens and then Labor.
The 54-year-old is fighting for better protection of state fisheries and is opposed to the large salmon farmers Huon, Petuna and Tassal. He emerged as threat after winning more votes than the Greens or the Jacqui Lambie Network during the state election in March.
His popularity appears to have spooked the Liberal party and it has been trying to discredit Mr Garland, highlighting his assault conviction against a female police officer in 1993.
Mr Garland pleaded guilty to assault after getting involved in a brawl in Geelong. He said he was trying to help a friend who was being chased and pushed a woman, who he later found out was an off-duty police officer, leading to her breaking her wrist. He said she had been pulling his dreadlocks.
Labor has made fishing the focus of recent campaigning, including a pledge to ban super trawlers from Tasmania’s small pelagic fishery and promising to spend $750,000 for scientific studies in Tasmania’s oceans.
It is also focusing on health, promising to fund an additional 306 surgical operations at the North West Regional Health, Burnie, and an extra 258 at Mersey Community Hospital, Devonport.
Meanwhile the Prime Minister said Mr Whiteley would be able to deliver for the area as a government MP.
“He’ll go there as a member of the government, and that means he can deliver,” Mr Turnbull said. “Whether it is the $60 million into the Bass Highway, which going together with (the Tasmanian Government’s) $40 million makes $100 million — $10 million more into the Murchison Highway. So many investments to deliver more jobs, more training.”
Mr Turnbull has announced $450,000 for skills training of up to 150 people in the electorate.
The future of forest industries is also expected to be a key issue in the area, with 70 per cent of voters surveyed by ReachTEL suggesting they would more likely back a party or candidate “with policies that support northwest Tasmania’s forest industries”.
MAYO
The Liberal party is trying to hard to wrestle control of the South Australian seat Mayo away from the Centre Alliance’s Rebekha Sharkie, who secured the electorate from the Liberals for the Nick Xenophon Team in 2016.
A YouGov/Galaxy poll published by NewsCorp on Monday showed Ms Sharkie leading on first preferences 47 per cent to 35 per cent. After preferences the poll predicted Sharkie to win 59 per cent to 41 per cent. Labor is not contesting the seat.
The Liberals’ candidate Georgina Downer is the daughter of former politician Alexander Downer, who held the seat for 24 years, and she has been supported by an impressive rollcall of party heavyweights.
Her list of visitors over the past weeks has included Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, former PM John Howard, as well as Julie Bishop, Michaelia Cash, Simon Birmingham, Michael McCormack, Greg Hunt and Kelly O’Dwyer.
Mr Howard said their high-profile presence shows they believe their candidate can take the seat.
“It’s an expression of confidence — if they thought she was a hopeless candidate, they wouldn’t come,” he said. “Good candidates attract high-profile supporters.”
But others suggest the attention may just be a sign the seat is in play.
Ms Downer, 38, grew up in the Adelaide Hills before she moved away to study at Melbourne University. Since then, the lawyer and former diplomat has lived in the UK, Japan, Canberra and, contrary to reporting, spent time back in Mayo.
If elected, she will become the fourth generation MP in her family. But she has a formidable challenge ahead of her.
Ms Sharkie won the 2016 election against previous Liberal candidate Jamie Briggs with a two-party preferred vote of 54.97 per cent. She got 34 per cent of the primary vote, compared to Briggs on 37 per cent.
Ms Sharkie believes her status as an independent brings benefits to voters and said Mayo gets the attention of a marginal seat while in the hands of a crossbencher.
But Ms Downer rejects that Mayo was ignored under Liberal rule, pointing to funding for the Heysen tunnels, which were delivered in 2000.
“If you have someone from the party of government who is in your seat then you have such an enormous capacity to get those issues that you’re concerned about in your electorate heard on the party room floor,” she said.
PERTH
There is less controversy around two Western Australia seats with voters showing a strong lack of interest in the by-elections.
The Liberal party is not standing candidates in Perth or Fremantle and Labor’s Patrick Gorman is expected to retain the seat of Perth comfortably.
But a minor party is targeting Liberal hot spots in Perth, saying conservatives are “very unhappy” Labor is the only major player in the race.
The Western Australia Party, led by City of Subiaco councillor Julie Matheson, is mainly pushing for a better GST share for the state and says the issue hasn’t been neutralised by the Federal Government’s recent overhaul promise.
“They (conservatives) are very happy they’ve got the Western Australia Party as a choice in this by-election,” Ms Matheson told reporters on Thursday.
Only 2754 pre-poll votes were cast in Perth in the first eight days of voting and just 2397 in Fremantle, compared to 12,800 ballots in the Queensland seat of Longman.
Professor van Onselen said by-elections traditionally had lower voter turnout than general elections. However, there were other factors at play in WA.
“The Liberals not running (in Perth and Fremantle) may well lead some conservative voters not to turn up, or at least not be energised enough to turn up to pre-polling,” he told AAP.
He said he didn’t expect the lower-than-usual turnout to impact on the July 28 by-election results in WA.
“The Greens won’t win Fremantle, and Perth is a ‘lay down’ (misere) for the Labor Party,” he said.
FREMANTLE
Josh Wilson won this safe Labor seat with 57.52 per cent of the two-party preferred vote in 2016.
The former Fremantle councillor and deputy mayor had to resign his seat after it emerged he had not renounced his British citizenship. Mr Wilson applied to renounce his citizenship before the election but it did not come into effect until nine days after the nomination deadline.
The Liberal party is not standing a candidate in the electorate and the Greens are not expected to poll strongly enough to win the seat.
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