Super Saturday by-elections: high stakes for Turnbull, Shorten

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (left) is confronted by anti Adani coal mine protestors as he campaigns in the seat of Longman. Picture: AAP

It is tempting to say no matter what happens in Saturday’s by-elections it’s a win-win for Malcolm Turnbull. If the Prime Minister regains Longman or Braddon, or, even more incredibly, pulls off a historic double, he will have accomplished a once-in-a-century feat. And if he doesn’t, well, it still helps ensure Bill Shorten survives as Opposition Leader.

It is tempting to say it, certainly a few Liberals are thinking it, but it is not quite true. It is true that inside the government, although they profess to be undaunted by the prospect of Anthony Albanese, they believe they have Shorten’s measure and would rather he stayed, spurred by private research that shows while disunity is their greatest liability, Shorten remains their most valuable asset.

What is also true, always, is that there is nothing like the rush that victory brings. The risk is that once this hits, the real reasons for victory get obscured. It would be a grave misreading of the public mood to think a good, or even great, by-election performance would make a suitable springboard for a general election. One win, or two, simply would provide proof the government is well and truly back in the game, with enhanced prospects of winning an election that Turnbull repeatedly has assured us, without qualification, will be held next year.

Two precious commodities in Australian politics today, and the rarest, are stability and trust. After months of painstaking work, Turnbull has restored some faith. Queenslanders report the Liberal National Party feels better about Turnbull’s prime ministership. They will never love him but it appears they are getting used to him. In Tasmania, they reckon he is well liked. Turnbull has rebuilt his standing by getting on with the job and by not forgetting to define his opponent, or, as one Coalition MP put it: “We are not talking about section 44 (dual citizenship), gay marriage and Barnaby’s doodle.”

It would be destroyed if Turnbull, soon to become the long­est serving PM in more than a decade, bolted to an early election. He’d be marked down as an opportunist and a liar. The charges would dog him all the way to polling day, when he’d be severely punished.

Labor hopes the notion Turnbull will be tempted to go early irritates voters so much, they’ll give him a flick on Saturday. The fringe benefit for Shorten would be if it also induced his dithering backbenchers to hold the line after Saturday, regardless of the result.

Shorten’s opponents also feed the early election notion, although from a vastly different perspective. That is that a loss of even one seat would show there is not a minute to waste, so Albanese should be installed now. Despite the government’s confidence it can deal with Albanese, partly because of his shifting positions, particularly on boats, and partly because they reckon he suffers from being Sydney-centric, his backers have no doubt that in net terms Albanese would do infinitely better across the country than Shorten.

As by-elections go, these are weird. Normally by-elections are a gift for an opposition, even if the sitting member dies. All it has to do is convince voters they need to send a message to the government. Obviously many will. However, the greater weight has been on the message for Labor. If the party loses both Longman and Braddon, Shorten is a goner.

The only interpretation to be put on that devastating outcome would be that they need not only a new leader but a new approach. Labor sources wish in that case that Shorten would do the right thing, resign and go quietly. Good luck with that. They do not discount the possibility that Shorten, knowing he was done for, would throw his weight behind another likely contender, say Chris Bowen.

If he loses one and wins one, it gets more complicated. Some Labor MPs are inclined to allow events to maturate over weeks. Or fester, more likely.

If he wins both, it still needs to be emphatic. While a win’s a win, if it’s by a sliver, doubts would remain over Shorten’s ability, in the face of an unpopularity that could not be denied, that he could win the general election.

Shorten also has been damaged by the controversy over backbencher Emma Husar, who faces grave allegations of bullying and misuse of taxpayer-funded entitlements. Female bullies are hardly unique to Labor. Too often they are overlooked, or too readily excused, despite multiple offences against staff; however, the timing of these allegations could not have been worse for Shorten. The leaks of these allegations sprang from staff fearing a cover-up or from higher up the food chain by people deliberately seeking to wound him during the campaign.

Shorten’s first claim, that he knew nothing of the allegations until last week when his office told him, amended yesterday to say he did not know of “these complaints”, was both feeble and tricky. First, the Sergeant Schultz defence always sounds like a porky; and, second, it was so carefully worded, so typically shifty, that it didn’t exclude knowledge of other earlier complaints

As if it couldn’t get weirder or more complicated, given Longman will be decided by prefer­ences, Pauline Hanson is cruising. No one knows how much difference this will make. Probably not much. It’s like Donald Trump on a much smaller scale. People inclined to vote for One Nation will do so regardless because they like that she sticks it to everyone.

One Nation’s campaign against Shorten has been savage. Mark Latham’s robocalls helped brand him a liar, and the party’s Queensland leader Steve Dickson-inspired the Silence of the Lamb poster, featuring Labor’s media-shy candidate, Susan Lamb, with a moth in her mouth, spoofing the 1990s thriller. Despite the dirt thrown against its candidate Matthew Stephen, One Nation thinks it can pick up the seat, if he comes in second, with the help of a donkey vote.

Before Hanson’s vanishing act, the LNP was reporting a higher One Nation vote in pre-polling, with fears there would be a high ­informal vote because of the number of candidates and a complicated how-to-vote card. A One Nation victory would put the wind up not only Labor but the Liberals, too. If that happens, and if it misses out in Braddon, the government’s morale would be shattered and Turnbull’s enemies would re­double their efforts to destroy him. No one thinks the Liberals will win Mayo. They were never going to, and Georgina Downer’s selection simply guaranteed it. So that is ­factored in.

So much hinges on Saturday: the direction of the government, the fate of company tax cuts, the value of class warfare in modern Australian campaigns and, ultimately, the leaders’ fate.