Voters scoff at Liberal Party’s tactical blunder in Wentworth

ONE word has been at the core of the Liberals’ campaign in Wentworth. The voters we spoke to today mocked it.

THE Liberal Party appears to have made a catastrophic tactical blunder in the Wentworth by-election.

Its core argument to voters was obvious to anyone who visited a polling station today. Huge signs warned of the consequences that would follow a victory for independent Kerryn Phelps, saying Labor would ultimately benefit.

“Labor + Phelps, don’t risk it,” the most common poster read.

The implication, hammered into voters heads all week by Liberal candidate Dave Sharma, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and even retired party legend John Howard, was that Dr Phelps would cause chaos in parliament.

In other words, the biggest reason to vote Liberal was “stability”.

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There were a lot of these outside polling stations.

Granted, they were probably more effective than this “A stronger economy. A secure future,” slogan, even before it was co-opted from above.

“This is a very important by-election. The lead independent candidate Kerryn Phelps on multiple occasions couldn’t even say she’d support a confidence motion. That can throw the entire government into a lot of uncertainty,” Mr Morrison told Channel 7 yesterday, for example.

“I know there has been a lot of instability and uncertainty but voting for an independent will only make that worse.”

Most voters news.com.au spoke to today were, to put it mildly, not buying that argument.

“That’s a joke, isn’t it? After what they did to Malcolm?” said Kim, a 67-year-old former teacher.

“Go a full term without knifing your prime minister, then we’ll talk about stability.”

The Phelps campaign attempted to capitalise on Malcolm Turnbull’s downfall.

“How dumb do they think we are?” another voter said, pointing out that the by-election was only happening in the first place because of the government’s own instability.

Now, obviously it should be noted that chatting to a few voters outside polling places is not a scientific process. All I can give you here is a feel for the vibe we picked up in the electorate.

Given the Liberals hold Wentworth with a margin of 17.7 per cent — it is supposed to be the safest of safe seats — there is every chance Mr Sharma could still win.

But his colleagues are not betting on it. Just soak up the tone of this Sky News report, which is littered with words like “increasingly worried”, “incredibly difficult” and “quite pessimistic”.

.@jmodoh: Govt sources are increasingly worried about retaining Wentworth.

The view within the @DaveSharma camp is quite pessimistic at this stage. They acknowledge it's not looking good and it will be hard to come back from here.

MORE: https://t.co/UjrBCBgEk5 #WentworthVotes pic.twitter.com/1pLAfWT7Zg

— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) October 20, 2018

Added to the leaked internal Liberal Party polling that showed Dr Phelps leading Mr Sharma 55-45 earlier this week, it paints a picture of momentum flooding towards the independent candidate.

Speaking of the past week, it has been anything but stable.

It started with the government supporting Pauline Hanson’s “It’s OK to be white” motion in the Senate, which left it scrambling to deny accusations of racism.

The Coalition backflipped and claimed an “administrative process failure” had led it to vote in favour of the motion by mistake, but the damage was already done, as Labor and the Greens accused it of endorsing “the words used by white supremacists and neo-Nazis”.

Then there was Mr Morrison’s sudden decision to consider moving Australia’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The move was widely seen as an attempt to entice the significant number of Jewish voters in Wentworth to vote Liberal. Later, we learned it had been made despite warnings from ASIO that it could lead to protests and violence.

It also angered one of Australia’s key diplomatic partners, Indonesia, which is a strong supporter of a Palestinian state. The government is supposed to sign a new free trade deal with Indonesia before the end of the year.

Signs at Bondi Beach remind voters of the Liberals’ own instability.

The other competitors in Wentworth ruthlessly mocked the government’s stability argument this morning.

“That’s just pathetic scaremongering. If the government is talking about instability, we know what’s created the instability,” Dr Phelps told AAP.

“It says a lot about the dysfunction of the Liberal government that people are so disgusted that they’ve contemplated voting Labor or independent, many of them for the first time in their lives,” Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen told reporters in Bondi.

Ultimately, nothing would scream instability more than defeat in Wentworth, which the Liberals hold with a margin of 17.7 per cent. It will take the biggest ever by-election swing against a government for Mr Sharma to lose.

“We’re competitive but I think it’s going to be close,” he said today.

Meanwhile, Dr Phelps was refusing to get cocky.

“I don’t think anyone can be confident. We don’t really know how this is going to turn out,” she said.

“I’m trying to turn around a massive majority and I’m doing that by focusing on the issues that are important.”

- Continue the conversation with Sam Clench on Twitter @SamClench