Tim Smith: Liberal Party should forget inner-cities

Victorian Liberal MP Tim Smith has called for the Liberal Party to shift its electoral focus away from inner-city seats and flagged that he still wants a future in politics.

Victorian Liberal MP Tim Smith has called for the Liberal Party to shift its electoral focus away from inner-city seats and flagged that he still wants a future in politics. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

Victorian Liberal MP Tim Smith has called for the Liberal Party to “forget” inner-city seats, while flagging that he still wants a ­future in politics.

Mr Smith was made to step down from his position as Victoria’s opposition legal affairs spokesman after crashing his Jaguar into a residential fence while driving at over 2.5 times the legal blood-alcohol limit.

“I’m uncancelled and I’m back,” he declared on Sky News, in his first TV interview in months.

He said the Liberal Party should shift its electoral focus away from urban centres and towards suburbia and regional areas. Mr Smith represents the seat of Kew, itself an inner-city seat, just a few kilometres east of the Melbourne city centre.

“We need to stop obsessing about the woke concerns of inner-urban elites,” he said.

“Focus on the real concerns of the true forgotten people in the middle and outer suburbs, and regional and rural ­Australia.

“Stop it. Forget about it … move further afield. Take the focus off Kew and focus on Cranbourne … Take the focus off Vaucluse, focus on Penrith.”

Mr Smith slammed the Liberal Party for losing the inner-city seat of Kooyong, held by former treasurer Josh Frydenberg, to teal independent Monique Ryan. “An affluent political amateur completely out-campaigned the Liberal Party in the seat where it was founded … It was a catastrophe.”

The comments come at a time of soul-searching for the Liberal Party after its historic election loss.

The recent federal election saw the party largely expunged from city centres by the teal independents, wiped out of blue-ribbon seats some of which had never been held by any other party.

As well as Kooyong, these include Melbourne seat Goldstein, which saw parliamentary secretary Tim Wilson swept out by Zoe Daniel. In Sydney’s Wentworth, once held by former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, Dave Sharma was ousted by Allegra Spender.

Mr Smith also flagged his desire to return to politics.

“I’d like to have a future in politics … I’d like to re-enter the debate.”

Mr Smith promised after his drink-driving incident he would not recontest the seat of Kew in the next state election.

The federal Liberal party room will meet for the first time since the election on Monday.

Former defence minister Peter Dutton is expected to become leader without contest, with former environment minister Sussan Ley as his deputy.

The anticipated leadership of the conservative Mr Dutton has raised broader questions as to whether the Liberal Party should embrace a more conservative or more progressive stance to win back enough seats to form government again one day. Mr Dutton has previously signalled he would lead from the centre.