For whom polls tolled: ousted Libs count cost of campaign clangers
As Sussan Ley works to patch up a splintered Coalition, the Liberal Party has finally laid bare the mistakes that led Peter Dutton to lose his own seat and more than a dozen others.
Peter Dutton’s Liberal campaign was so shocked by its historic defeat that the party president demanded the federal director explain its fatally flawed polling in the middle of their own election party, while one of Mr Dutton’s top allies kept thousands in the bank after the then-opposition leader told him his seat was safe.
As Sussan Ley works over the weekend to patch up a splintered Coalition and find a strategy to deal with a Labor win so large it could guarantee Anthony Albanese two more terms in office, the Liberal Party has finally laid bare the mistakes that led Mr Dutton to lose his own seat and more than a dozen of his colleagues’ on May 3.
Defeated Liberal National Party opposition assistant treasurer Luke Howarth has revealed Mr Dutton reassured him his outer-Brisbane seat of Petrie was safe, before asking for part of his campaign war chest to be spent trying to win a Labor-held longshot seat and defend Coalition strongholds from the threat of Climate 200-backed Teal candidates. Mr Howarth has also conceded he regrets putting his longtime friend Mr Dutton’s face on joint billboards and how-to-vote cards, after he underestimated the then leader’s unpopularity in their adjoining electorates.
Another senior Liberal source said the internal polling by Freshwater Strategy was “way out” and had given Mr Dutton’s team, strategists and MPs flawed information throughout the campaign.
“The polling was a huge problem … it was way out,” the senior Liberal told The Australian.
“If we’d have known (the truth) we would have changed course overnight.”
The senior Liberal source also criticised the strength of negative ads produced by Coalition campaign headquarters and director Andrew Hirst, and suggested it was not official opposition policy when Senator Jane Hume announced Canberra-based public servants would be forced to work full-time from the office.
Senator Hume’s office rejected that claim and said her speech and the policy announcement had been put through the proper channels, including Mr Dutton’s office.
But the senior Liberal source said rather than kill Senator Hume’s announcement straight away and stoke talk there was a policy split, it was decided it was a “benign” issue.
According to sources who saw the final Freshwater tracking poll conducted on the Wednesday night before the election, the research showed a swing to the Liberals in some NSW and Victorian marginal seats of about 5 per cent.
Emboldened by that result, Mr Dutton told close allies and MPs, including Coalition frontbencher Mr Howarth, that he could win 10 seats off Labor and force Anthony Albanese into minority government.
Liberal Party president John Olsen confirmed the flawed polling would be a major target of the “full and transparent” review of the federal campaign.
On election night in the Liberal Party’s campaign war room at Brisbane’s the W Hotel, when it became obvious the Freshwater polling failed to predict the scale of Labor’s victory, Mr Olsen challenged Coalition campaign director Andrew Hirst to explain what had gone wrong.
Mr Olsen denied the confrontation was “heated” but said “we certainly had a conversation on polling, you wouldn’t have to be Einstein to work that out”.
Mr Howarth said Mr Dutton was let down by his own office, polling, poor policy development and an inability to counter Labor’s devastating personal attacks.
Mr Dutton was reassured by Freshwater twice during the campaign that he was ahead in his own seat of Dickson, which he went on to lose after three-time Labor candidate Ali France secured a 7.76 per cent swing to her.
Mr Howarth said he did not poll his own seat of Petrie, partly because Labor had not announced a candidate until the eve of the campaign but mostly because he was reassured he was safe.
He said Mr Dutton told him to help in neighbouring Lilley, held by Labor Sport Minister Anika Wells, so he raised $1.7m and spent $634,000 in his own seat of Petrie, before tipping $350,000 into Lilley and $400,000 into other seats.
“But the whole polling was wrong … I don’t think the leader or his office had any idea what was coming – clearly – because they didn’t think he’d lose his own seat. They didn’t think I’d lose my seat.”
Freshwater Strategy declined to comment and director Mike Turner is legally prevented from talking because he’s still under contract with the party.
It is understood the company did not decide which seats to poll, and that the pollster believes its research consistently and increasingly showed that Labor was the favourite to form government.
Another defeated Queensland LNP MP, Bert van Manen, said there was no indication he would lose his seat of Forde, which he held on just over 4 per cent, but the working-from-home policy hurt his chances.
“Certainly I got no indication from anywhere that there were any risks (to my seat),” Mr van Manen said.
“It’s an unusual situation for me because in every campaign I’m in the top five or 10 (marginal) seats in the country and nobody was discussing my seat or Luke (Howarth’s) seat this time.”
“Not you guys (in the media), not pollsters, not Labor. From that perspective, it was strange that we got the result that we did. We need to have a good hard look at what went wrong.”
Mr van Manen said the Coalition’s policy to cancel working from home arrangements for public servants – which was later reversed – and plans to cut 41,000 Canberra bureaucrats hurt him.
“One hundred per cent I had that feedback directly. Women at the polling booths were concerned … and there’s a general view in Queensland … that given what happened during Campbell Newman’s tenure, that still resonates when you’re talking about public servants.”
Mr Newman’s LNP government was defeated after just one term in power, following the sacking of about 14,000 state public servants.
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