Scott Morrison is desperate to draft former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian as the Liberal Party’s star candidate to win back the blue-ribbon seat of Warringah.
“I think she’d be great,” the prime minister said yesterday. “I think, as I’ve said before, the way that Gladys Berejiklian has been treated over these events, I think has been shameful.”
Berejiklian quit state politics in October after the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption announced it was investigating whether she had breached public trust during her secret relationship with disgraced former MP Daryl Maguire.
Since then, Morrison and senior Liberals have repeatedly attacked the process that led to her (voluntary) political demise; yesterday Morrison called it a “pile-on”. From almost the moment she quit as premier, they’ve been pushing to parachute her into Warringah. This morning The Australian reported Morrison intervened to delay preselections for Warringah, giving time for the ICAC’s potential findings against Berejiklian to become clearer.
The Coalition’s desperation to run a candidate with serious integrity issues makes sense as an act of cynical politicking. Before Berejiklian’s career went up in ICAC, she was immensely popular in NSW, more so than Morrison, as most premiers have been in their home states.
The goodwill she built up by giving people a relatively normal 2020 was durable, withstanding the devastating Delta outbreak and long winter lockdowns. And it could withstand ICAC too. A recent Essential poll found 42% of voters in NSW believed she had been treated unfairly, 29% disagreed, and 29% were undecided. Polling conducted by Resolve found Berejiklian’s net favourability had rebounded to +31%, about where it had been pre-resignation — numbers Morrison or Anthony Albanese would both dream of.
Berejiklian is probably far less popular in other states, particularly in Victoria, where there is a perception that her government’s missteps in June this year allowed Delta to spread around the country.
But while “prime minister for NSW” is a mocking jibe concocted by Morrison’s political opponents, it’s a pretty accurate description of the government’s reelection strategy.
Since May it has identified NSW as the state which will decide its political hopes. The Coalition is at its electoral peak in Queensland, and will probably lose ground in Victoria and Western Australia. In NSW, it stands to gain ground. If Berejiklian can beat independent Zali Stegall and return Warringah to the party that’s held it for decades, it puts less pressure on the Liberals to win tough traditional marginals like Dobell and Gilmore.
And more broadly, the logic is that putting a popular former premier on the ballot could reverberate well beyond the northern beaches, and help soften the Morrison government’s image among female voters. But they might not all be good reverberations for the Liberals. Berejiklian’s integrity issues are a pretty easy line of attack for Labor, particularly given the government’s failure to make good on a promise to legislate for a federal ICAC.
Integrity and climate are key to the campaigns of independents trying to unseat moderate Liberals in affluent parts of Sydney and Melbourne. Those parts of Sydney are probably where Berejiklian is most popular, but also where her presence could fire up those independent campaigns and force the Liberals to spread resources towards defending seats they’ve never had to fight for.
But head to western Sydney — to the suburbs which faced a far tougher, more aggressively policed lockdown than anywhere else in the state — and Berejiklian probably has less of a halo. There the Delta outbreak won’t be quickly forgotten. It’s possible Berejiklian could become a liability for the Liberals in marginal western Sydney seats like Reid, Banks, Lindsay and Macquarie.
It’s cynical politics which has led the Liberals to attack ICAC and return to Berejiklian so soon after her fall from grace. But it’s a risky move, which might be too cynical even for the electorate.
Can Berejiklian rise from the ashes? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name if you would like to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say column. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
“But it’s a risky move, which might be too cynical even for the electorate.”
Which electorate? Warringah only?How much attention is Morrison giving to other electorates, particularly outside NSW? It might be true that voters in Warringah and the rest of NSW are so jaded, cynical and comfortable with corrupt and crooked politics that they be pleased to vote for their very own St. Gladys of Integrity. But is it possible enough previously Liberal voters outside NSW will switch their allegiance because this is the final straw that convinces them the Liberals are too stinking rotten and devoid of any respectable principles, and St. Gladys is not quite such an icon in other states anyway, so that the net result across the country does more harm than good to the Liberals?
Probably not, it seems quite possible there is no longer any way to shock voters with political lies, rorts and systemic corruption, but for sure this move will be noticed beyond just NSW.
“PM for NSW” doesn’t only describe the LNP election strategy, it hits home in other ways. As has been said, Morrison seems incapable of seeing things from the point of view of people not like him, and that even extends to state identity. His harping on about the ‘Sharkies”, living in Kirribilli House, dissing ‘Canberra’… and so on doesn’t resonate with the rest of us.
Previously a rugby union enthusiast, Scott’s johnny-come-lately revhead photo-op at Bathurst, is as genuine as his ‘lifelong’ fandom for the Sharkies I suspect.
Wouldn’t it be great if Gladys said “I would love to run, but I couldn’t possibly work with a bully like Morrison” that would show real integrity.
Probably result in Morrison being dumped for Dutton, who’d not at all a bully.
More of a malignant thug hanging upon you every word so that he can take offence.
Corruption in members of major parties is not merely acceptable. It is expected.
Much of the funding of major parties has been the proceeds of crime since the Howard ministers gave $12bn of Greater Sunrise helium to Woodside and pals. All subsequent governments know of the deal. None has blown the lid, none has pursued prosecutions because all have conflicts of interest from the same sources.
The Howard ministers were obliged to manage national resources in the public interest. They breached our trust.
Sports Rorts and all other published graft examples are small beer by comparison.
ScoMo is so insensitised that the taint around Gladys is unnoticed.
yes but where are the same levels of Labor egregoiusness? People keep talking about both as being sinful, which pleases the LNP hugely. But surely teh Lying party is infinitely worse than others??????
Another being worse does not absolve one’s own behaviour.
More corrupt Labor MPs have gone to prison, in NSW alone, than all others in the country as a whole.
A union movement so compromised and complicit as to have accepted the Accord with blandishments about rising wages, more jobs and “getting the foreman’s job at last” – sung to the tune of The Red Flag – would be high on any list of those too corrupt and contaminated to any longer serve any useful purpose.
NSW has been a ghastly sink of endemic corruption in its politics, business elites and professions from its first days, so no surprise to find NSW Labor is not a pretty sight. (It’s also true, and rather curious, that NSW has one of the better crime and corruption commissions, proven by the venom it attracts from the frightened and guilty.)
Chris Bowen on Radio National this morning made a good distinction between the main parties when challenged with the accusation they are all crooks. He argued that although it’s true there are terrible examples of unacceptable behaviour in all the parties, Labor included, Labor wants a robust integrity commission and Labor wants any corruption in its ranks exposed and severely dealt with, in contrast to the Coalition who only want impunity and freedom to hide their corrupt dealings. How true Bowen’s claim is throughout all of federal Labor can be debated, but it’s still a far better stance than anything from the Morrison gang. We’ll only know for sure if Labor win power and we see what it’s robust independent integrity commission actually looks like, but we can be confident the Coalition will not deliver any such thing in the foreseeable future.
Bowen claims “…Labor wants a robust integrity commission and Labor wants any corruption in its ranks exposed and severely dealt with…” and you give him credence?
Yes, Phryne, Bowen is credible.
Labor has a strong record of sacking and/or expelling members accused of wrongdoing – Obeid, Fitzgibbon, Thomson, Dastyari, Somyurek …
But the enablers, trimmers & tackers remain in situ.
My comment merely paraphrased Bowen’s interview and finished by saying “We’ll only know for sure if Labor win power and we see what its robust independent integrity commission actually looks like”, which makes your question redundant.
Bet $100 if comes to nothing IF ‘Labor’ comes to office.
I would never be happier to lose.
All that proves is that either far too much blatant corruption isn’t considered ILLEGAL (just highly immoral) or that the DPP & Court System in NSW is so utterly compromised, by the Libs, that they’ll never even try to convict a Coalition MP. Though I believe its most likely a combination of the two.
I seem to remember the Nats giving $32 billion away as water rights, sealing the fate of the Murray. But I could be mistaken. Before that, didn’t a Lib govt take all the money in the national pension fund and put it into general revenue? Could be wrong on that too, of course. But the history of megascams is amazing – more recently robodebt and jobkeeper. Small compared to the US of course. e.g. their last few wars have been trillion $ scams; paying the banks that caused the GFC, ditto. When you’re in govt, the bigger the scam the better. Throw up a smokescreen of little scams – airport land, carparks etc, and the numbers get lost. Calling a billion a thousand million would make the zeros stand out as what they are, each one multiplying by ten. Add a nought to a billion and you’ve just added nine thousand million. In dollars, that’s a medium scam. (Long back room discussions on how to add another zero. How to sell it. Who could take the fall. Etc. Nobody game to leave the room).
God I hope they are both arrogant enough to do it. It will be like shooting fish in a barrel for labor
Not with Elmer Fudd as leader – he’d not want to be unkind.
“Elmer Fudd” said, I might not be the slickest speaker, but,I do tell the truth.
Thank you Mr Albanese.