Coalition woos Rebekha Sharkie and Stirling Griff
The Morrison government is trying to persuade Rebekha Sharkie and Stirling Griff to join the Coalition.
The Morrison government is hoping to land a political coup — and better parliamentary numbers — by attempting to persuade Centre Alliance MPs Rebekha Sharkie and Stirling Griff to join the Coalition.
While Ms Sharkie and Senator Griff told The Australian there had been no formal offer, Coalition sources said they hoped an arrangement could be ratified with the pair.
The move would give the Coalition a two-seat majority in the House of Representatives and greater ease in negotiating the Senate if the two South Australians supported the government’s legislative agenda.
Ms Sharkie dismissed the speculation as “just regular rumours which crop up with us all the time”.
“There is no formal offer,” she told The Australian. “I do not have any formal request in front of me saying ‘Rebekha please join us’. There is no formal offer on the table.”
Senator Griff also downplayed the extent of talks but confirmed overtures had been made from both sides of politics to him and Ms Sharkie since the last election.
“They would be very keen to get us, obviously, and people have made comments from time to time, but there is no formal offer,” Senator Griff said.
“We have had approaches from both sides of politics, often half-joking at the end of meetings and conversations … If there was a formal offer, I would have to sit down with Bek and discuss what we do.”
Ms Sharkie is a former Liberal member and worked as an adviser to former Abbott government minister Jamie Briggs, whom she ousted in a major upset in the Adelaide Hills seat of Mayo in 2017 after he was embroiled in an inappropriate-conduct scandal during an overseas trip.
She has proved a popular local member and improved her margin at last year’s federal poll against Liberal candidate Georgina Downer, the daughter of former foreign minister Alexander Downer, whose family has a long connection to the Adelaide Hills.
The Australian understands that in return for supporting the Coalition, the Liberal Party would agree not to run a candidate against Ms Sharkie at future elections.
Any formal arrangement between Ms Sharkie and the Coalition could prove difficult to manage with some voters in her electorate and with sections of the Coalition, who would baulk at her progressive views on issues such as climate change and asylum-seekers.
The Adelaide Hills seat was once the bastion of old Adelaide money and farmers, but has become more progressive, with the seat almost falling to singer-songwriter and Redgum founder John Schumann as an Australian Democrats candidate against Alexander Downer in 1998.
The Centre Alliance grouping was originally framed around former SA senator Nick Xenophon, who quit federal politics in 2017 and made an ill-fated attempted to return to state politics at the SA election the following year.
The grouping has started to fracture, with its other federal parliamentary member, Rex Patrick, surprising Ms Sharkie and Senator Griff by announcing this week he would quit the party to serve as an independent.
Senator Patrick has become more closely aligned with Tasmanian Jacqui Lambie and has attacked the government on several occasions, whereas Ms Sharkie and Senator Griff have a more positive working relationship with the Coalition.
The federal opposition seized on the speculation, with SA Labor senator and foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong warning Ms Sharkie that any formal arrangement with the ¬Coalition would be seen as a betrayal of her contract with Mayo voters.
“I can’t see why Rebekha would give up her reputation as a hard-working independent.
“South Australians would be shocked if Rebekha and Stirling joined the Liberal Party they have campaigned so strongly against,” she told The Australian.
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