Eden-Monaro a bushfire by-election the PM doesn’t need

Illustration: Eric Lobbecke

Celebrity chef Pete Evans was fined $25,000 for advertising a light machine which he claimed would help fight COVID-19. Compared­ with US President ­Donald Trump’s suggestion of injectin­g people with dis­infectant to eliminate the virus, Evans’s pitch sounded like it could have come from Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy himself.

Trump, the White King of the world, later claimed it was sarcasm directed at journalists. Hilarious.

At least Evans can cook, whereas Trump has shown repeat­edly he is not a president’s ­fingernail. What a surprise. What a tragedy that Trump again exposed­ himself as bereft of moral leadership at a time his country and the world need it, in the face of the existential threats of a health crisis and the geopolitical instab­ility posed by China’s attempts to bully and bribe its way out of blame for this calamity.

Almost alone as a world leader, Trump has managed to engineer a slump in his approval ratings. Compare that with Scott Morrison, who has gone from rock ­bottom to rock star.

According to Newspoll, the Prime Minister’s personal renaissance has not been matched by a rise in the party vote. It shows the Coalition neck-and-neck with Labor, which senior members of the government say doesn’t gel with their on-the-ground feedback. “Does anyone seriously believe­ the federal government would lose an election held now?” one asked.

Well, no. But.

Whether Morrison’s popular­ity can translate into votes could soon be tested with a by-election for the marginal NSW seat of Eden-Monaro, which was not a happy hunting ground for Morrison over the summer after his disastrous bushfire visit to Cobargo.

The member for Eden-Monaro Mike Kelly. Picture: Gary Ramage

The sitting Labor member, Mike Kelly, has been very unwell. His resignation and the possible departures of fellow Labor MPs Brendan O’Connor and Mark Dreyfus were canvassed in this column and on Insiders last year. Kelly’s announcement is expected on Thursday, however, the planning — and the game-playing — has been under way for some time.

A by-election would pose serious challenges for Morrison and Labor leader Anthony Albanese, particularly if quarantine restrictions remain. If the virus is contained, voters will want a clear idea of what comes next. If it isn’t, and because all politics is local, campaigner­s will have to run virtua­l campaigns and use what is left of regional media.

Although Cooma is booming thanks to Snowy 2.0, other parts of Eden-Monaro are a long way off recovering from the summer­’s catastrophic fires. Visits to community spaces, schools and rallies would be problematic. The vote itself could be a postal ballot.

Despite the improved climate for Morrison, a government has not won a seat from the opposition in a by-election for precisely 100 years. The last time people got ­excited at the prospect was under Malcolm Turnbull in July 2018, with the super Saturday of by-elections in three states. Voters understood they weren’t changing the government, but a few of them might have surmised they could change the prime minister.

There is no threat at all to ­Morrison, but voters could send a message anyway.

Kelly won Eden-Monaro by less than 1 per cent last year. With a bit more money and attention, the Liberal candidate, Fiona Kotvojs­, might have won.

Alas, resources were poured into nearby Gilmore where Morrison’s hand-picked candidate, Warren Mundine, polarised the party and then lost the seat.

Morrison and the NSW Liberals would have to be mad to repeat that mistake by seeking to impose someone on the locals, or by musc­ling them to select a preferred candidate, or by not running a candidate at all, effectively handing over a Liberal seat to the ­Nationals, as some mischievous Liberals suggested was possible with Morrison’s blessing. A giant can of worms waits to burst open.

Kotvojs, a local business­woman, environmentalist and volunteer firefighter who has continued to work the electorate, will run again for preselection if Kelly resigns. Senator Jim Molan, who also lives in the electorate, has left open his options, although he purportedly said privately recently that he wouldn’t run if Kotvojs did.

State Liberal MP Andrew ­Constance has been touted as a contender, although word around the traps is that if NSW Deputy Premier and Nationals leader John Barilaro decides to run, he won’t.

NSW Minister for Transport Andrew Constance.

NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro.

Both their seats fall within Eden-Monaro. If Constance ran, he would most likely win the ­preselection and the seat. However, his criticism of Morrison ­during the fires still rankles, hence the reported appeal of clearing the way for Barilaro, or of swinging Molan into the preselection battle to try to knock off Constance.

Local Liberals want a plebiscite to choose their candidate, warning that if there isn’t one the party could find itself short of volunteers at the critical time. So the idea that Morrison could leave it to the Nats is fraught and could unleash mayhem inside the federal Nationals too, where leadership rumblings arced up again with charges that Michael McCormack didn’t fight hard enough to save Virgin ­Aust­ralia. Is it any wonder that Morrison said on Wednesday there would be a ­Liberal candidate?

Local Liberals scoff at suggestions Barilaro would win the seat. Last year, the Nationals secured less than 7 per cent of the primary vote. The best they have done in Eden-Monaro was a lowly 16.4 per cent when another popular Nat­ionals MP, Peter Cochran, ran in 1987. Former Nationals leader Tim Fischer would tell anyone who would listen that Eden-Monaro was a Liberal (or Labor) seat.

It is hard to see how Barilaro, based in Queanbeyan, could sway voters in an electorate ravaged by bushfires by telling them he was giving up his ministry of disaster recovery in the state government to become a backbencher in the federal parliament. But there are Nationals convinced his brand would carry him to victory, then he could jump if and when McCormack’s leadership collapses. David Littleproud, Darren Chester, Keith Pitt and Barnaby Joyce would have a lot to say about that.

Labor’s choice, at least, sounds straightforward: Kristy McBain, the mayor of Bega Shire who performe­d well and won a national profile during the fires.

The last thing Morrison needs as he continues his tactical ­warfare with the states, particularly Labor’s Daniel Andrews, over schools is an outbreak of ­internal conflict as a pre­lude to a battle ­history says he can’t win, rock-star status or not.