‘I’ll call Peter Dutton first’: SA crossbencher Rebekha Sharkie boosts Coalition’s minority hopes
In a boost to the Coalition’s hopes of forming government in a hung parliament, Rebekha Sharkie says she will meet with Peter Dutton first if he can form a stable administration.
Peter Dutton’s hopes of being able to form government in a hung parliament have been given a significant boost, as South Australian independent Rebekha Sharkie says she will meet with the Opposition Leader first if he can form a stable administration that will champion regional voters.
Ms Sharkie’s intervention now puts the pressure on teal independent MPs and candidates in traditionally Liberal electorates to say which party leader they would turn to first and what factors will determine who they choose to be the nation’s next prime minister.
The Coalition will be further buoyed by Ms Sharkie identifying unfettered population growth through immigration as a major problem in her seat, home to the once-quiet town of Mount Barker, which has become the fastest-growing city in SA with huge infrastructure pressures and housing shortfalls.
Ms Sharkie, a former Liberal Party adviser, has become a popular and entrenched independent voice for the Adelaide Hills and Fleurieu Peninsula seat of Mayo, which she holds with a 12 per cent margin.
She told The Australian her decision to give Mr Dutton the first chance to make his case ahead of Anthony Albanese reflected the fact Mayo voters have historically been more aligned with the Liberals than Labor.
The Mayo MP also said her vote was not locked in either way and that she was currently being guided by what she had seen from last week’s budget and budget in reply, saying both sides needed to display more vision in the coming five weeks to secure her support. However, she confirmed that Mr Dutton would be her first port of call in the event the Liberals could govern with independent support.
“I look at the state seats that fall under Mayo,” Ms Sharkie told The Australian.
“The majority of them are Liberal so I would assume that people would expect me to have that first conversation with the Opposition Leader.
“I am very upfront in saying that. It doesn’t mean that I will necessarily go with one or the other. I would absolutely talk to both sides but it would ultimately depend where the numbers sit and who can form stable government in a minority parliament.
“I will be looking at what’s in it for Mayo, what’s in it for regional Australia, and what’s in it for Australia as a whole.”
Other crossbench MPs in traditionally Liberal seats did not give the same assurances as Ms Sharkie when approached by The Australian on Sunday.
Independent MP Zoe Daniel said her only focus was winning her eastern Melbourne seat of Goldstein and that she was prepared to work with both Mr Albanese and Mr Dutton.
Sophie Scamps, MP for the Sydney northern beaches seat of Mackellar, said she would vote on every government bill on its merit no matter who ended up on the Treasury benches.
“I’m sure both leaders will be very energetic and persistent in reaching out to me if neither gets a majority,” Dr Scamps said.
Mayo is the former stronghold of the Downer dynasty, where foreign minister Alexander Downer and his father and grandfather long dominated local politics, and the state electorates that fall within Mayo are held by the Liberals or independents.
Despite increasing her margin at every election since her first victory in 2016 – and beating the Liberal candidate in 2022 by 30,000 votes – Ms Sharkie stressed she did not want to sound presumptuous about victory in Mayo and that she was not taking anything for granted.
Ms Sharkie also questioned the job both state Labor and federal Labor were doing in representing rural and regional communities.
Her seat is classified as inner regional but includes many small farming communities as well as Kangaroo Island, which is classified as remote.
With SA currently in drought, Ms Sharkie was the first SA politician this year to raise the water crisis affecting many of her constituents, in which farmers and townspeople without mains water are using water carts or even bathing with bottled water. Ms Sharkie suggested the Malinauskas government and federal Labor had a city-centric view of issues.
“If it’s not a big part of your constituency it can be very difficult to understand the true impact of people on the land,” she said.
Ms Sharkie was also critical of federal Labor’s management of regional health, with Mayo last year identified as the one electorate in SA where there were no longer any doctors who bulk-billed.
She said the Albanese government’s changes to regional doctor placements had fuelled a huge shortage of doctors in her seat.
“They changed the locations where overseas doctors had to work, it used to be five years in the regions,” she said.
“Changing those areas where they could practise from places like Milang or Minlaton to having city suburbs such as Mitcham listed as places where they can practise has had a huge impact on our community.
“We have whole areas now where people can’t get into a GP. Our GPs say: ‘Sorry, our books are closed’.
“Unless you live regionally, unless you know what it’s like to rely entirely on a car because there’s no public transport, you don’t have an understanding.
“We put up with a lot in the regions, which if you lived in North Adelaide just wouldn’t happen. I don’t want us to become a nation that is divided like that.”
Ms Sharkie also cited population growth and a lack of infrastructure and housing as a huge problem in Mayo.
The seat has changed rapidly since it was held by Mr Downer during the Howard era, with many areas such as the once-sleepy country road from Mount Barker to Wistow now packed with new homes on what was farmland just 20 years ago. Picture-book towns such as Strathalbyn are now encircled with new land releases, causing huge traffic pressures.
With Peter Dutton promising to cut immigration by 25 per cent, Ms Sharkie’s concerns give the Opposition Leader another point of common ground with the independent MP.
“We have had very significant increases in population in the last couple of years but we just haven’t got the housing stock to support that,” she said.
“There are some economists who say that’s had no impact on housing availability; well, I don’t see how it can’t.
“Migration needs to be much more carefully planned. If we have the same occupations 20 years later still on our skills shortages list, we have failed as a nation. We can’t keep importing and doing all these stopgap measures because we are failing our young people.”
Ms Sharkie said her philosophy as an MP had always been to talk to both sides of politics and “to look at every piece of legislation on its merits”.
“I have been able to work with either side over the years,” she said.
“It feels a little bit uncomfortable even talking about a hung parliament because it is presumptuous to say you are going to get elected. It is important never to take that for granted.
“I have looked at both the budget and the budget in reply and there were some good points in both, but there were some areas wanting in both. I want to see what else they offer the community over the next five weeks.”
Ms Sharkie said one area that would be pivotal to securing her support was aged care, and she criticised both sides of politics for failing to do enough to help older Australians with care and with work opportunities.
“I feel like we are trapped in Australia in these three-year cycles where nobody is looking on the horizon,” she said. “One thing that was missing last week from both the conversations is that there was nothing about older Australians. Nothing. Nothing about supporting more older Australians into the workforce. We make it so incredibly hard for someone who is entitled to the pension, from a lack of assets point of view, for them to participate without fear in losing their pension.
“We have all these positions going wanting in the regions. Why not let them work? They’re going to pay tax so it all comes back anyway.
“Then there’s the lack of aged-care places. I got five emails today saying ‘I can’t get Mum a place’. I got one saying ‘Dad’s 95 now and has been on the waitlist for 12 months. Are they just hoping he’s going to die?’. That’s one of the emails I got today.
“I hope we will see much more in the way of policy over the coming five weeks.”
ADDITIONAL REPORTING: Noah Yim
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