Coronavirus: Liberals eye an opening as ALP heartland takes a hit

The coronavirus has hit Anthony Albanese’s people hardest.

Taxi driver Lakhwinder Singh Dhillon, in Thomastown, Melbourne, says ‘Scott Morrison is doing really well’. Picture: Aaron Francis

The coronavirus has hit Anthony Albanese’s people hardest.

In nine electorates across mainly Melbourne’s outer north and west, Labor voters have fallen in their thousands. In just six local government areas that take in Labor heartland territory, well over 7000 people have contracted the virus.

Now the Labor and Liberal parties are battling to find a balance ­between fighting the disease and fighting the politics of the virus.

The longer term question for the Liberal Party nationally is whether it can finally smash Labor’s domination in Melbourne’s outer north, northwest and west, using the economic fallout from the pandemic as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create a southern version of western Sydney.

Lakhwinder Singh Dhillon is a Liberal-supporting taxi driver from Thomastown in Melbourne’s outer north who doesn’t hide his allegiances. But he is also representative of a multicultural working class that has suffered greatly under the virus. He hasn’t made money since March 14 but still rates Scott Morrison as “the best prime minister of Australia”.

“Scott Morrison is doing really well,’’ he says, adding that he ­believes voters will cast their ballots at the next federal election on who is best to run the economy.

Even Labor hardheads concede Morrison is resonating in Victoria with his handling of the pandemic at the same time state Labor is confronting headwinds over the bungled hotel quarantine program.

The Liberal review of the 2019 federal election specifically called for the Victorian party and NSW to recruit cross-city and cross-state multicultural supporters to provide translation, canvassing and campaigning help.

 

It is just one aspect of a multi­faceted campaign that would be required to help the party make even modest gains in the key coronavirus seats.

Privately, Labor and Liberal strategists are sceptical of the Liberal Party’s ability, commitment and infrastructure to eat into Labor’s domination, but accept seats could fall under the right circumstances. A historic recession would be one such possibility. The seat of McEwen is always winnable but the demographics have shifted Labor’s way. “It will have to be an amazing protest vote,” one senior Liberal said of the safe Labor seats.

Drive northeast for 40km from Melbourne CBD and you hit the first Liberal electorate office at South Morang. According to state Liberal MP Craig Ondarchie, the next one is 160km further north from him in the regional city of Shepparton. In the west, another Liberal MP, Bernie Finn, can be found in Braybrook. There is not much else in the way of Liberal ­infrastructure to be found.

Ondarchie, whose parents are Sri Lankan, has pleaded in the past for the Liberal Party to embrace multiculturalism. “Now is a unique occasion for the Liberal Party to ensure it represents modern-day Victoria,’’ he says.

The politics of the virus are complex and will not play out fully until the worst of the recession hits. But big swings in two outer-suburban state seats at the 2018 Victorian election provided reason for hope among conservative candidates.

Joanne Ryan, Labor’s federal MP in the outer western seat of Lalor, is knee-deep in coronavirus and looming social dislocation, with nearly a third of the workforce in her area casualised. Ryan, whose family have a connection to the area back to the 1850s, believes most people are focused on surviving the virus rather than politics.

“The strong feeling I get from my community is they don’t want politics,” she said. “They also want to know they can rely on the (support) systems.”

While it is one thing for the Liberal Party to have ambitions of winning over the multicultural and aspirational vote in Labor’s heartland, others are furious that the organisation has not backed up its rhetoric with funding and ­infrastructure.

“People will not vote for us if we don’t give them a strong reason to,” one senior Liberal said. “The money is always poured into our own marginals rather than investing for the future in the tough seats.”

Liberal state director Sam McQuestin said there would be a renewed focus on manufacturing and jobs in Melbourne’s north and west by Victorian leader Michael O’Brien.

“The ALP take voters for granted in Melbourne’s north and west and their failures in dealing with COVID, especially in these areas that have been hardest hit, highlight the continuing neglect of the residents by the Labor government and its MPs,” he said.