Oakeshott to call shots in house deadlock

Rob Oakeshott has left the door open to backing a Bill Shorten-led minority government if he wins Cowper.

Scott Morrison nails home the Coalition’s housing message at an investment property development in Port Macquarie yesterday. Picture: AAP

Rob Oakeshott has left the door open to backing a Bill Shorten-led minority government and declared he had no regrets about helping prop up Julia Gillard’s prime ministership.

Mr Oakeshott’s comments to The Australian came as Scott Morrison visited the electorate of Cowper on the NSW mid-north coast and warned that the government would fall if voters chucked out the Nationals in favour of the independent candidate.

Mr Oakeshott, running as an independent, indicated he was open to backing either the ­Coalition or Labor in the event of a hung parliament. “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” he said.

He labelled it a “silly question” when asked whether he admired the Opposition Leader as much as Ms Gillard, whom he lauded in his valedictory speech when leaving parliament in 2013.

“This is not a personality contest of who in the schoolyard you like more or less. Therefore a silly question,” said Mr Oakeshott, who has urged caution on Mr Shorten’s dividend imputation crackdown.

Mr Oakeshott and Tony Windsor were two conservative MPs who backed Ms Gillard over Tony Abbott after the drawn 2010 election and helped Labor govern for three years. The Gillard minority government controversially broke an election promise and introduced a carbon tax at the behest of the Greens, which also backed Labor over the Coalition.

The Prime Minister landed in Port Macquarie yesterday morning and addressed about 100 retirees in a local leagues club, warning that Mr Shorten would become prime minister if the Coalition lost the seat.

“You have a big responsibility here in Cowper … you will not only be deciding who your next member of parliament will be … but Cowper will be a critical seat in deciding who the next prime minister will be,” Mr Morrison said.

Outgoing Nationals MP Luke Hartsuyker held the seat on a margin of 4.6 per cent and the rural party has held the beachside seat — which includes Coffs Harbour — since 1963.

Its candidate for the election is local solicitor Patrick Conaghan.

Mr Morrison told the audience he would respect the savings of retirees as he lashed Labor’s planned changes to dividend imputation, which would affect more than 8200 people in the electorate.

He said he would defend the “quiet army” of Australians who “don’t have time to be shouting about politics”.

“I find this right across rural and regional Australia and in the suburbs in our big cities; there is this quiet army of Australians, they are not shouty and they do not make a lot of noise,” he said.

“Do you know why? They are too busy raising kids, getting them off to school, running small businesses, working hard, looking after grandkids, paying bills, paying taxes.

“(Mr Shorten) forgets that you’ve worked hard and paid tax all of your life to set up an independence in your retirement that doesn’t claim on welfare.”

He later went to a housing development and railed against Labor’s housing policies. More than 6000 Cowper residents have negatively geared properties.