Scott Morrison to target ALP’s true believers

The values of working-class voters are more aligned with the Coalition, the PM says as his strategists focus on ALP heartland seats.

Scott Morrison says the values of working-class voters are now more aligned with the Coalition than Labor as government strategists focus on ALP heartland seats ahead of the next federal election.

The Prime Minister, in an interview with The Australian, said lower- and middle-income voters wanted to be empowered to be “in charge of their own lives” and did not see themselves as “held back as some sort of a victim of the system” — signalling a push to win over voters in long-held Labor seats including the NSW Hunter Valley and Sydney’s western suburbs.

The Berejiklian government’s victory in the Upper Hunter by-election has left the ALP engulfed in a debate about how to appeal to its traditional voters after the party suffered a swing against it in the ultra-marginal seat, a result described by NSW Labor leader Jodi McKay as “terrible”.

The Nationals party won with a two-party-preferred swing towards it in Upper Hunter — despite its former MP resigning after it emerged he was under investi­gation on sexual assault alle­gations — with Ms McKay con­ceding it had exposed funda­mental problems with Labor.

 

“People didn’t hear our message and that is fundamental to the changes we as a party need to make,” she said.

“What came out of that by-election was not just a loss but that we have fundamental issues within our party we need to address.”

An incumbent party has not won a two-party-preferred swing towards it at a NSW by-election in more than a decade, and Ms McKay said it was clear governments had enjoyed a surge in support because of their handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Yet the Berejiklian government is also mired in several scandals, including the resignation from cabinet and the Liberal Party last week of former families minister Gareth Ward over allegations – which he denies – of sexually in­appropriate conduct.

Jeff Drayton, the ALP candidate, said the vote was “a warning to Labor that we can’t take any community for granted”.

“Labor needs to do some real soul-searching as to how we will win these communities back,” he said. “It’s going to take honest reflection and a lot of hard work.”

Mr Morrison, in an interview before the outcome of the by-­election was known, said Labor had “treated people for decades as victims and (said) that only ­government can help them”. “They don’t think like that at all,” he said. They haven’t thought like that, if at all, certainly not for a very long time.

“So much of what we are doing in our economic plan comes together in regions like the Hunter, but they come together in places like Gladstone, they come together in places like Albury-Wodonga, they come together in so many parts of the country: regional, outer suburban parts of the country, whether it is in western Sydney or … Pakenham in Melbourne.”

The loss in Upper Hunter, which overlaps the marginal federal Labor seat of Hunter held by former resources spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon, has reignited an internal debate over whether Labor was doing enough to reach some of its traditional voters who had moved elsewhere.

Mr Fitzgibbon said federal Labor leader Anthony Albanese had not done enough to reverse a slide in the party’s blue-collar vote, criticising a decision to oppose a government-funded gas plant announced by the Coalition ahead of the Upper Hunter by-election.

“While Gladys Berejiklian certainly had all the advantages of ­incumbency (during a pandemic), it is clear blue-collared workers who deserted us two years ago have not returned in large numbers and remain sceptical if not suspicious of our return to the fold,” Mr Fitzgibbon, who holds his seat on a margin of less than 3 per cent, said.

“That suspicion was further fuelled by our pronouncement that we were opposed to a $600m gas generator in the region.”

However, deputy Labor leader Richard Marles said he would not jump to conclude that the Upper Hunter result had any bearing on federal voting intentions.

“We’re very focused on working people around the country, no matter what industry they’re in,” he s told Sky News on Sunday.

“And when it comes to those who work in coal, coalminers and people who work in other parts of that sector, the truth is that even on the most significant projections about how quickly we move down a path of carbon reduction, coal will still be a significant part of our economy for years and years to come.”

Mr Morrison, however, said: “Some might say (Mr Fitzgibbon) is trying to save the Labor Party but they don’t seem to be listening to him.

“I think Labor has completely lost touch (in the Hunter Valley) and I think they have abandoned them.

“I want to ensure that we keep heavy industry in this country and I don’t think that view is out of sync with all the other things we are trying to achieve, whether that is on lower emissions or anything else. I think they have been given a message that somehow they are collateral damage when it comes to those (climate change) policies. I totally just don’t buy that.

National's candidate Dave Layzell, right, winner of the Upper Hunter by-election, with NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro. Picture: David Swift

“If anything it is the reverse. I think places like the Hunter and others have been a key part of sourcing the energy economy of Asia for a long time and I think over the next 30 years that will happen again … it might happen a little differently.”

With the majority of votes counted, the Nationals had suffered a 2.6 per cent first preference swing away from it in the Upper Hunter, but Labor had lost almost 7 per cent of its first preference vote – with about 20 per cent of the primary vote – with the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers down 10 per cent.

Independent and other minor party candidates picked up a large number of votes, with One Nat­ion polling a 12.5 per cent primary vote while Kirsty O’Connell, backed by former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, drew 8.6 per cent.

NSW has an optional preferential voting system, which means if a voter doesn’t allocate a preference and their first choice is excluded from the count, their vote is exhausted.

However, Labor would regularly attract far higher primary votes in Upper Hunter. In 2007, its candidate recorded 31.3 per cent of the first preference count and in 2019 had 32.5 per cent.

Ms McKay said blaming the loss solely on her leadership would be a “cop out”.

“There is a fundamental problem in the conversation we’ve having with the electorate,” she said.

“There were an awful lot of people who didn’t vote for us and our message didn’t resonate with them,” she said, adding on Sunday that Labor “didn’t expect our vote to be torn away like it was”.

The aim of Coalition figures to make further inroads into ­working-class seats would mimic the success of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in gaining support from former Labour strongholds.

Former British prime minister Tony Blair said this month that centre-Left parties were in crisis around the world, arguing a focus on “extreme identity and anti-police politics” had become “voter-repellent”.

“Political parties have no divine right to exist and progressive parties of the centre and centre-left are facing marginalisation, even extinction, across the Western world,” he wrote in the New Statesman.

With Labor set to pressure Mr Morrison about low wage growth ahead of the next election, the Prime Minister said interventionist wage policies were “not real wage increases”.

“The only thing that is going to increase people’s wages is businesses earning more, and being more productive and winning more contracts and making more things and putting people in work. As the labour market tightens, you will see wages increase,” he said.