Moderate Liberals split on Nigel Farage call to forget about teal electorates
Trent Zimmerman says ignoring teal electorates would be ‘crazy’ but Jason Falinski agrees with the former Brexit Party leader that the party should look elsewhere.
Jason Falinski - one of six lower house Liberal MPs to lose their seat to a teal candidate at the May election – has backed former Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage’s declaration that the party should forget about trying to win back the progressive electorates.
But his former colleague Trent Zimmerman, who lost the seat of North Sydney to teal independent Kylea Tink, warned ignoring the Liberal heartland was a “crazy proposition”.
In an interview with The Weekend Australian, Mr Farage said there was a realignment of left-right politics across the Western world and the new teal electorates were “gone” from the Liberal Party.
Mr Farage said the Liberals should instead target families and individuals who have traditionally voted Labor and were looking for a political party based on nationhood and national security.
“Farage and others have suggested the Liberal Party should abandon seats that have been considered part of the Liberal heartland since the party’s formation,” Mr Zimmerman said.
“This is a crazy proposition, not least because the pathway back to government is perilously narrow, if not impossible, unless we regain the trust and support of voters in seats we lost.”
Mr Falinski said he was “not planning on running again” in Mackellar unless there was a downturn in the economy, rising inequality, a lack of integrity in parliament and the environment goes backwards.
He said the Liberal Party appealed to voters aspiring to have a better future and those people were no longer in the seats won by the teals, who were funded by Climate 200.
“Farage is right, the Liberal Party’s value proposition is mostly aimed at people who aspire to a better future. Many of the seats we lost to Climate 200 have a lot of people who are older, have made their money, benefited from restrictive planning policies that have driven up house prices, and are now looking for a politics that gives them an identity not necessarily a better future,” Mr Falinski said.
“There is nothing wrong with this, but it is not the core value proposition of the Liberal Party.”
NSW Liberal senator Andrew Bragg, an outspoken moderate, said there simply were not enough seats to replace the lost heartland if the Coalition wanted to return to government.
He said the party’s primary vote in city seats were on average double its primary vote in the outer suburbs.
“It’s a very low percentage and probably innumerate play to junk the NSW city seats and only pursue the Sydney outer suburban seats,” Senator Bragg said.
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