Would you vote for Dick Smith? Poll shows he’d easily take Bronwyn Bishop’s seat

WOULD you vote for Dick Smith? The outspoken businessman is gearing up for a tilt at federal politics, and he could just become Australia’s next independent MP.

A TILT at the Federal Election by outspoken businessman Dick Smith is looking increasingly likely — and polling suggests he could just win.

Mr Smith has threatened to run as an independent in old friend Bronwyn Bishop’s electorate of Mackellar, in Sydney’s north, if the former speaker is preselected.

What was intended as a move to encourage branch members to inject young blood into the Liberal stronghold has put the entrepreneur on a path to potentially becoming Australia’s next independent MP.

In a survey conducted for News Corp, a staggering 69 per cent said Ms Bishop should retire, while just 21 per cent of voters said they would vote for her. By contrast, 54 per cent said they would give Dick Smith their primary vote if he contested the election.

MediaReach concluded that if Ms Bishop was preselected, Mr Smith would be “very hard to beat” and that his high profile would make it “very hard to structure a campaign against him”.

Speaking to news.com.au, Mr Smith expressed surprise at the results of the poll, while standing firm in his promise to run.

“I’m quite surprised given I haven’t done any campaigning or anything, and made a definite announcement,” Mr Smith said.

A Choppergate-inspired Mardi Gras costume spotted on Instagram.

Ms Bishop refused to bow out in the wake of her expenses scandal. Picture: Mick Tsikas

The campaign against Ms Bishop’s refusal to bow out has nothing to do with her headline-making $5000 taxpayer-funded helicopter flight to a Liberal party function at Victoria’s Clifton Springs Golf Club. The expenses scandal known as Choppergate resulted in Ms Bishop’s dumping as Federal Speaker, and prompted an outpouring of memes.

“I wasn’t critical of the helicopter — I said, ‘It’s wonderful she’s doing something for general aviation,’” said Mr Smith, an aviation buff who has vowed to make improving the industry a central pillar of any term he serves in the Federal Parliament.

“She’s the only politician who’s done anything for general aviation for the last 20 years.”

But he firmly believes Ms Bishop should follow in the footsteps of Philip Ruddock, Warren Truss and Bill Heffernan, who last month announced plans to retire from Federal politics.

“They’re all in their seventies, I think it’s really good that they’ve bowed out on the top,” he said.

At 72, Mr Smith believes he himself is too old for politics, but is determined to run against Ms Bishop if she is preselected.

The pair have been friends since childhood, having grown up in the same street in East Roseville on Sydney’s upper north shore. Ms Bishop — who is about 18 months older than Mr Smith — was the treasurer of a cubbyhouse they both frequented.

Dick Smith, pictured in 1989, is too enamoured with aviation to begrudge Bronnie her chopper ride.

She’d phoned about two weeks ago, Mr Smith said, when news broke that he intended to stand.

“We had a bit of a conversation, quite a friendly one,” he said. “She wants to get back in again so she can do something about terrorism. And I said, ‘Why don’t you get someone younger, new and fresh to do that?’”

Mr Smith, who last year registered the business name The Dick Smith Party and threatened to run against then Prime Minister Tony Abbott, said he’d already had doubts about Ms Bishop when he wrote her a letter of support ahead of the 2013 election.

“I actually said to her then, ‘Look, Bronnie, surely it’s time to retire, bow out gracefully’ and she convinced me, she said most of the electorate were people of our age.”

But this time he vowed to stand firm, “because I think she’s too old — and I think I’m too old, but if she’s going to stand, I’ll stand. But I really believe the Liberal party should wake up to itself.”

He called on Liberal preselectors to “rat on their faction” by paying lip service to backroom deals, but anonymously opposing Ms Bishop in the vote.

“When you get to the secret ballot, have a mind of your own and vote for who you think would be best for Australia,” Mr Smith urged.

Unless such a revolt takes places, it’s understood that Ms Bishop is strongly positioned for preselection.

“They’re claiming that Bronwyn’s got it sewn up like North Korea,” Mr Smith said. “I hope that that’s not so, and if it is so, then I’ll have to stand.”

Bronwyn Bishop on the pre-election campaign trail in MacKellar, announcing environmental funding.

If that happens, and the poll predictions come true, he plans to make the most of any political platform by advocating for economic reform, population control and a boost to the general aviation industry.

“We’ve now got hardly any training for airline captains, and I would imagine in five or so years time we’ll have Qantas having to get pilots from China,” Mr Smith said.

“In Queensland, there used to be seven or eight charter operators and now there’s one.”

He vowed to fight for restrictions on immigration to reign in population growth, which he fears will turn Australian cities into high-rise ghettos.

“Our economic system is flawed,” he said. “It requires perpetual growth but it’s a finite world, and when I see beautiful Federation houses being knocked down at places in North Sydney and being replaced with high rise, I realise that's what we’ll have to do everywhere.

“We can’t really go out, because Sydney’s surrounded by national parks, so we have to go up. And the way I see it, in 20 or 30 years’ time, there won’t be one freestanding house.

“Everyone will be living like termites, like they do in Shanghai, and I know that if I stood in MacKellar and said, ‘Look, we’re going to try and keep the freestanding houses and kids with a cubbyhouse’, that it will be incredibly popular.”

‘DON’T COMPARE ME TO TRUMP’

Mr Smith was quick to distance himself from fellow entrepreneur Donald Trump, also known for strong views on immigration.

“I’ll be nothing like Donald Trump,” he said. “I’m completely middle-of-the-road, nothing like him at all. Or nothing like Clive Palmer.”

He argued for immigration levels to be capped at 70,000 people a year, saying that Australia’s population could then level out at about 26 million.

“We have this beautiful lifestyle where kids can play cricket in the backyard and have a swimming pool — well, all that will go if we just allow more and more people, more and more growth,” he said, adding that a continued population boom would keep driving up house prices.

Ms Bishop is due to face a preselection ballot in Mackellar on April 16.

Her main challengers will be Liberal staffer Jason Falinski, who has strong factional support, and Walter Villatora, who has letters of support from NSW Premier Mike Baird and former prime minister Tony Abbott.

In the MediaReach poll, 52 per cent of voters surveyed said they would vote Liberal if Ms Bishop wasn’t running, while just 18 per cent said they would be less likely to vote Liberal without her.

News.com.au has sought comment from Ms Bishop’s office.

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— With AAP

Originally published as Would you vote for Dick Smith? Poll shows he’d easily take Bronwyn Bishop’s seat