Peter Dutton’s ‘toxic’ policies lost ethnic vote for Liberals in key Sydney and NSW seats

Peter Dutton’s attacks on migration and policy of cutting international students to lower house prices have cost the Liberal Party the ethnic vote across Sydney and NSW.

Peter Dutton’s attacks on migration and policy of cutting international students to lower house prices have cost the Liberal Party the ethnic vote across Sydney and NSW.

Senior Liberal figures and political experts said Mr Dutton’s policies had proven “toxic” to many diverse communities and broken the “trust” they had in the party.

They said the Liberals’ lack of policies had alienated all Australians, including those from multicultural backgrounds, resulting in a red Labor tsunami sweeping through NSW and leaving the Liberals with just four seats in Sydney.

Liberal Liverpool Mayor Ned Mannoun said Mr Dutton’s reluctance to apologise for calling Lebanese-Muslim migration a mistake in 2016 had alienated many.

“The divisive policies and comments turned people off. We need leaders who unite, not divide.’’

He said Mr Dutton’s pledge to cut international students, saying they had priced Australians out of the housing market, had also smashed the Liberals’ reputation.

“The attack on overseas students (and blaming them) on housing prices demonstrated it was just finger pointing at new Australians – because the majority of us have come from overseas,” he said.

“The real issue on housing is the lack of housing supply being put on the market by the government.

“It’s clear that new Australians from diverse backgrounds who vote Liberal didn’t vote Liberal this time across Sydney,’’ Mr Mannoun said.

Pictured is Liberal Liverpool Mayor Ned Mannoun. Picture: Facebook

He pointed to independents Ziad Masouny in the seat of Watson and Ahmed Ouf in Blaxland, both of whom beat Liberal candidates to come second to Labor.

A swathe of previously safe Liberal seats fell to Labor despite the Liberals running candidates representing the ethnic make-up of the electorate.

Sitting Liberal candidate David Coleman, the shadow foreign affairs spokesman, lost the seat of Banks, which stretches from Carrs Park to Milperra in Sydney’s west, to Labor candidate Zhi Soon. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show the largest ethnic group in the seat – 20 per cent – is people with Chinese ancestry.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visits the electorate of Banks with Zhi Soon. Picture: Jason Edwards / NewsWire

David Coleman lost the seat of Banks. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

In the seat of Bennelong, which includes Chatswood and has more than one in three Chinese or Korean voters, the Liberals fielded Scott Yung, the Australian-born son of migrant parents.

In the days before the election, Mr Yung appeared to distance himself from Mr Dutton with ads appearing at polling booths and on the Australian Financial News WeChat page aimed at Chinese Australians. The ads praised his “independent thinking” and previous criticism of former prime minister Scott Morrison.

Candidate Scott Yung was running in Bennelong. Pictures: Adam Head / NewsWire

Australian Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and Scott Yung. Pictures: Adam Head / NewsWire

Despite those, sitting Labor MP Jerome Laxale saw a swing of 10 per cent to secure the seat that had once been held by former Liberal prime minister John Howard.

Mr Laxale used Chinese language posters and social media to reach the Chinese community and said the voters in Bennelong responded to Labor’s policies while rejecting Mr Dutton personally.

“His record on health, multiculturalism and foreign affairs is very much remembered,” he said.

“Voters in Bennelong didn’t trust him or his character.”

Jerome Laxale MP during Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Mr Laxale repeated foreign minister Penny Wong’s use of a Chinese quote on Mr Dutton that translates to “rivers and mountains will change but it’s hard to change a person’s character”.

Ms Wong had also come onto the attack in the days before the election after Liberal senator Jane Hume suggested some of the Labor volunteers handing out how to vote leaflets were actually Chinese spies.

She took to Chinese social media apps WeChat and Rednote to attack Mr Dutton’s anti-China rhetoric and highlight the Liberals preferencing One Nation.

“We all remember how Peter Dutton weaponised the relationship with China. He didn’t care about the consequences for us, for our communities. And now when he wants your vote, he says something different,” she posted in Mandarin.

In the seat of Reid, along the Parramatta River in Sydney’s west, sitting Labor member Sally Sitou, whose Chinese Laotian parents fled after the Vietnam War, fought off Liberal candidate and regular WeChat user Grange Chung with a comfortable swing of almost eight per cent.

Former NSW Liberal MP David Elliott said the Liberal Party had failed to engage with ethnic communities as it had in the past.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Five Dock which is in the electorate of Reid, Jodie and Member for Reid, Sally Sitou. Picture: Jason Edwards / NewsWire

“We relied on having ethnic candidates in some seats and they simply did not do the work or have the cut through that was needed,” he said.

He also conceded that Mr Dutton had proved “toxic” to ethnic communities across Sydney.

“Dutton is a white bred man from suburban Brisbane and he never had the exposure to the ethnic vote in Western Sydney that we have enjoyed at a state level,” he said.

The four Sydney seats the Liberals held – Berowra, Lindsay, Mitchell and Cook – have voters with predominantly Anglo, Scottish and Irish heritage. Even then, Liberal Julian Leeser saw a six per cent swing to Labor despite almost 75 per cent of his electorate having British origins.

Political researcher Mark Rolfe, from the University of NSW School of Social Sciences, said the Liberals had not understood the ethnic vote.

Liberal Julian Leeser hands out how to vote cards at early voting in the seat of Berowra at Hornsby TAFE. Picture: NewsWire / Damian Shaw

“They are not just one simple ethnic bloc,” he said.

“They are a variety of groups and they have been impacted by the cost of living just the same as everyone else. The vacuum of Liberal policy would have affected their vote the same as all other Australians.”

Dr Rolfe said there were different generations of Chinese people who had come to Australia and had different views on the Chinese government.

“For example, those who came after the Tiananmen Square massacre are not as sympathetic to China as the mainland Chinese who have come to Australia more recently,” he said.

“It is wrong to view the Chinese vote as a bloc. It is made up of different generations with different views.”

And he said Mr Dutton’s views on security and China were still hurting the Liberal Party during this election. “People do not forget.”

Social researcher Mark McCrindle said ethnic communities naturally resonated with traditional Liberal values that supported small business, intergenerational wealth and home ownership.

“But the trust factor is key,” he said. “Some of the communications from the Liberal Party may have landed a bit flat in ethnic communities.”

Mr McCrindle said winning back that trust would require the Liberals to reassure those communities they shared the same values in the future.

Originally published as Peter Dutton’s ‘toxic’ policies lost ethnic vote for Liberals in key Sydney and NSW seats