Libs relieved after polling pointed to much worse by-election result

Scott Morrison knew the government was in dire straits early last week and feels the Liberal Party actually clawed back votes.

Australia's Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, speaks during the Invictus Games opening ceremony in Sydney, on Saturday. Picture: AAP

Scott Morrison knew the government was in dire straits in Wentworth early last week — about the time he made his Jerusalem embassy announcement — and felt the Liberal Party actually clawed back ground in the by-election battle, leading to Saturday’s close result.

The Australian revealed last week that polling in the seat had Kerryn Phelps ahead 55 per cent to 45 per cent on a two-party-­preferred basis.

The Australian has since been told that early last week, polling showed Dr Phelps ahead 59 per cent to 41 per cent.

That polling followed Malcolm Turnbull’s son Alex Turnbull sending a Facebook message to voters imploring them to vote for any candidate but the Liberal.

Events including the Liberal Party leaking the 55-45 polling helped the government recover to the current 51-49 result in favour of Dr Phelps.

That result includes a 43 per cent primary vote for Liberal Dave Sharma — a greater primary than Mr Turnbull received when he took the seat in 2004 (he received 41.8 per cent) but not, it seems, enough to claim victory.

As of last night, Dr Phelps was ahead of Mr Sharma 51.1 per cent to 48.9 per cent. Ordinary votes — not postal votes — were going Dr Phelps’s way 52.5 to 47.5 per cent.

The 55-45 poll was close to the margin that emerged on election night before prepoll votes and postal votes made the contest tighter yesterday.

The polling leaked to The Australian last week had 75 per cent of the electorate believing Mr Sharma would win the seat — and at the time Liberal officials believed this expectation was killing their chances; that people felt they could lodge a protest vote without causing a minority government.

“Our own research showed things were much different to where this final election has ended up,” the Prime Minister said ­yesterday.

“What I am pleased about is that those Liberals who wanted to see us win, but weren’t planning to vote for us on Saturday, decided to.

“They decided to turn up and vote for us and I thank them for that vote of confidence, but there were many others for whom the anger was just too much to get past, and that’s what we saw ­yesterday.”

Mr Morrison also said yesterday morning: “It’s down to just over 800 votes. If it gets as close as 100, then an automatic recount is triggered under the normal rules.”

By last night, the margin had travelled back out to 1862 votes in Dr Phelps’s favour, after recounts found votes had been placed in the wrong piles at two large booths, Bondi Beach Public School and Bellevue Hill.

Mr Morrison has steadfastly denied that his announcement of being “open” to following US President Donald Trump and moving the Australian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem — made last Tuesday — was linked to the Wentworth by-election.

Yet Liberals believe it helped attract Jewish votes in an electorate where 12.5 per cent of voters are Jewish. Some critics insist the move backfired.

The terrible internal polling came after the government had a bad week, with the leak of a report into religious freedom and a debate over whether private schools should be allowed to ban gay and lesbian students.

Some Liberals last night were critical of the campaign the party ran in Wentworth, saying direct mailouts to letterboxes showed the party was not up to the social media tactics the Labor Party uses and that are now part of the political scene in the US.