Family First puts Denis Napthine on notice

FAMILY First has threatened to bring down the Victorian government, showing it could cost the Coalition up to nine seats.

FAMILY First has threatened to bring down the Victorian government with its preference allocation and produced analysis showing it could cost the ­Coalition up to nine seats, delivering victory to Labor’s Daniel Andrews in the November election.

The conservative-leaning party has put the Napthine government on notice, saying it cannot rely on Family First preferences as it has in the past because of its failure to tackle housing shortages and safeguard manufacturing jobs, as well as introduce reforms on abortion and adoption.

The party’s Victorian director, Ashley Fenn, has written to the Liberal Party’s Victorian division and Premier Denis Napthine warning the government will not receive Family First preferences without major new policies and initiatives in these areas.

“We are very disappointed in the response so far,’’ Mr Fenn told The Australian. He added that he had had “warm and friendly” discussions with the ALP over Family First’s key issues.

“The government is not showing leadership or conviction on ­issues that are important to Family First,’’ Mr Fenn said.

“I have put them on notice. We have said: ‘Don’t come to us and expect our preferences having done nothing that supports the areas that are important to us’.”

In 2010, Family First preferenced the Liberal Party over the ALP in almost all the seats it contested, helping to end the ALP’s reign. This time, Mr Fenn has flagged a candidate-by-candidate approach that is likely to see the ALP secure Family First preferences in many seats, especially where candidates from the Labor Right are preselected.

The move has sent ripples of concern through Liberal ranks and buoyed Labor campaigners, but both sides are expecting protracted negotiations before final preference allocations are made.

Family First wants to see abortion reforms to give doctors freedom of conscience and prohibit late-term abortions, as well as a legislative and funding boost to ­facilitate more adoptions. It is also calling for greater vision in public housing and in generating manufacturing jobs. The party appears to have lost faith in the government to deliver in these areas, as well as infrastructure, where it argues a proposed freight rail project in the state budget seemed to benefit landowners and freight companies more than the public.

Mr Fenn has produced an analysis of the 11 most vulnerable seats that are either held by the government, or are notionally Liberal after the recent redistribution, suggesting his party’s preferences could deliver nine of them — and government — to the ALP.

It shows that if 75 per cent of Family First voters follow the party’s how-to-vote cards (about the historical average) the Liberal-held seats of Carrum, Bentleigh and Mordialloc would fall to the ALP, along with a clutch of notionally Liberal seats. An electoral redistribution last year extended the Napthine government’s buffer from two seats to five.

A senior Labor source agreed that Family First had an ability to “direct quite a lot of traffic’’ in the election if they delivered on their promises.