Opinion: How Mother’s Day swung the federal election

Senior Liberals believe the timing of Mother’s Day won them last weekend’s unwinnable election, writes Peter Gleeson. Here’s how.

SENIOR Liberals believe Mother’s Day won them last week’s election.

As families around the country got together for their annual Mother’s Day lunch, six days before the poll, younger Australians finally started listening to their parents and grandparents, the insiders say.

It was over a family lunch or dinner that young Australians – many who say climate change was their No.1 election issue – started to realise then opposition leader Bill Shorten was not the answer.

Shorten’s uncosted policy on climate change and his determination to tax the country into economic oblivion was too risky.

“Mother’s Day was a godsend for us a week out from the election,’’ a senior Coalition cabinet minister said.

“That was the day young Australians learned from their parents and grandparents that Shorten was too big a risk.

“That was the day young Australians realised that without a stable economy, you can forget about tackling climate change.’’

Prime Minister Scott Morrison with the women in his life on Mother’s Day. Picture: Alex Coppel

Labor, believing it had the election in the bag, ran a terrible campaign, taunting large chunks of the electorate not to vote for them if they didn’t like their franking credits policy.

For Chris Bowen to then compound that mistake by defending the negative gearing policy, “it’s not a bad thing for your home to go into negative equity’’, and it was clear Labor had lost the fiscal plot.

Anecdotal conversations from polling booths in Queensland demonstrated throughout the campaign that the Coalition was very much a chance of pulling off the unlikeliest of victories. In Peter Dutton’s seat of Dickson, an elderly man went straight up to Dutton at pre-polling and said he’d never voted Liberal in his life but would this time because Labor was going after his franking credits.

In Clermont, LNP Member for Capricornia Michelle Landry was approached by two miners.

“We won’t vote for you next time, because we always vote Labor, but we are voting for you today,’’ they said. Nothing like job security to sharpen the focus of a voter.

Much has been said about the strong Coalition result in Queensland and the equally poor Labor vote, the worst primary outcome since the John Howard halcyon days.

White hot with anger, Labor-Greens sympathisers in southern states vented on social media, describing Queenslanders as rednecks, racists and plain dumb.

Some threatened to emigrate to New Zealand and there was a massive spike in hits on a website where the logistics of obtaining Kiwi citizenship was explained.

Liberal strategists believe family catch-ups helped seal the deal. (File picture)

Here’s a sample: “Queensland, you inbred f---- Can we send Queensland as another state of the US.”

“They are a bloody disgrace and I will never visit that scum state. F--- you Queensland.”

“Bloody rednecks. Queensland redneck hillbillies.’’

And on and on.

Queenslanders have proven to be Australia’s smartest people. They worked Shorten out.

As my good mate Graham Richardson says, the mob always get it right, and in Queensland they realised that Shorten was shifty and untrustworthy.

What he said in the Melbourne seat of Batman was different to what he said in the Townsville seat of Herbert.

They worked it out that as Shorten kept referring to the “top end of town’’, many on his front bench had real estate portfolios of multiple investment properties.

Hypocrisy runs deep in the Labor Party. So Queenslanders, take a bow.

Voters rejected higher taxes and an attack on their standard of living and aspirations. Queensland. beautiful one day, so clever the next.

To those Lefties bemoaning the result and upset with the Sunshine State, maybe you should jump on a plane and head to Queensland to escape the southern chill.

You might learn a few things — like manners and respect. Even give that black heart a chance to thaw out.

For Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, the lesson is clear.

Voters saw through Shorten’s phony attack on aspiration and his tricky and mean middle finger to Central Queensland mine workers.

Queenslanders want jobs and are sick of being bullied and pushed around by inner city elites. Ms Palaszczuk must approve Adani on June 13.

If she doesn’t, Queensland Labor faces a rout next October and years in the political wilderness.

Originally published as Opinion: How Mother’s Day swung the federal election