Federal election 2019: Keneally thrown under Shorten’s campaign bus

The former NSW premier was somehow seen as Labor’s trump card.

Senator Keneally speaking in East Gosford last week. Picture: AAP

Former NSW premier Kristina Keneally has continued her run of bad luck at election contests.

After suffering the worst defeat in NSW history at the 2011 state election as premier and, losing the Bennelong by-election, she has been a fixture as a campaign spokeswoman on the Shorten campaign bus prior to Bill Shorten’s defeat.

Senator Keneally declined to comment on her campaign role yesterday, or her political record, but it is understood Labor’s nat­ional secretary Noah Carroll, who is now under pressure in the wake of the defeat, asked the former premier to be the “bus captain” with Mr Shorten.

Senator Keneally became one of those to step forward at press conferences and attack the Morrison government. She was drafted on the bus because, as a senator, she did not have to work in a lower house seat during the campaign, and because of her high profile.

Mr Shorten drafted Senator Keneally to run for Bennelong in 2017 in a by-election where he hoped to force former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull out of ­office, but Senator Keneally fell short.

At the time, Liberal officials in NSW rubbed their hands with glee and dragged out previous campaign material involving Senator Keneally being backed by corrupt former powerbrokers Eddie Obeid and Joe Tripodi into the premier’s job.

Senator Keneally’s government was reduced to 20 seats in the 93-seat Legislative Assembly during the 2011 election rout. She later gave evidence at ICAC against Obeid and Tripodi.

Senator Keneally, who was given a Senate seat by NSW Labor head office replacing Sam Dastyari after her unsuccessful Bennelong tilt, was known to have held hopes of a cabinet spot had Mr Shorten been successful on Saturday night.

One Nation MP and former federal Labor leader Mark Latham said he could not believe Labor had attempted to use Senator ­Keneally as an electoral advantage during the campaign given her unpopularity in NSW and lack of electoral success.

“I said this during the campaign — they must think they’re so far ahead having someone as unpopular in NSW as Keneally wouldn’t make any difference,” Mr Latham said.

“Why you would want her to remind people of NSW’s worst government?

“She was at a press conference, Shorten would speak and she would step up,” Mr Latham said, adding that Scott Morrison had been able to do the press confer­ences all on his own.