Voters in Scott Morrison’s former electorate of Cook want a stronger anti-corruption watchdog and a ban on deceitful political ads, new polling has found.
A voter survey commissioned by the Australia Institute ahead of Saturday’s by-election found 84.6% of respondents were in favour of truth in political advertising laws being put into place before the next federal election. Seven in 10 respondents also said the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) should be able to hold public hearings under any circumstances, rather than just in exceptional cases.
The poll from the progressive think tank was conducted by uComms on March 28, surveying 914 Cook residents via automated voice and text messages.
The polling also backed up internal Liberal advice saying the party’s candidate Simon Kennedy will win comfortably. He’s up 65% to 35% on two-party preferred votes, compared with his closest rival, the Greens’ Martin Moore.
A Liberal source previously told Crikey the party expected Kennedy to have an “easy run”, especially since Labor declined to nominate a candidate for the blue-ribbon seat which sits on a 12.4% Liberal margin.
Morrison, Australia’s prime minister from 2018 to 2022, pledged ahead of the 2019 election to legislate a federal integrity body, but gave up on the promise shortly before the 2022 election.
Morrison said in April 2022 he would only put his proposal for an integrity body to a vote if Labor vowed to support it without amendments. After Labor won the federal election the following month, it proceeded to legislate the NACC, and the watchdog began operations in July 2023.
However, Labor was criticised for adding a high bar for public hearings to the bill establishing the NACC. Under the government’s design, the commission can only go public with its hearings under hazily defined “exceptional circumstances”.
Truth in advertising legislation has long been a goal of teal independent MP Zali Steggall, and in recent months Labor has shown signs it’s interested in submitting its own bill to that effect.
Guardian Australia reported last month that Special Minister of State Don Farrell “is expected to introduce legislation by mid-year to introduce caps on electoral spending and donations, and new powers for an independent regulator to enforce truth in political advertising”.
Australia Institute director of democracy and accountability Bill Browne said Australia’s electoral system was “long due for reform”.
“Cook is Liberal Party heartland, but there is clear demand among Cook voters for integrity reforms like truth in political advertising laws and public hearings when in the public interest for the NACC that the Liberal Party has so far not supported,” Browne said in a statement.
“Neither major party can afford to be complacent given voters in safe seats are as supportive of integrity reforms as marginal ones are.”
If politicians are legally obliged to speak truthfully then we might expect long periods of silence.
At the risk of sounding harsh, voters in Cook might say they are in favour of accountability and integrity in politics, but if they elected and then re-elected Scott Morrison, they deserve anything they get,
They voted in a brown sty dropping, constantly.
Yes moral and ethical actors (in their own minds), and if not, will be too easily distracted and misled by any dog whistle campaign of the RW MSM’s choosing; too easy.
“…they deserve anything they get..”
You’re right AB, we should look at this like an old fashioned morality tale.
And yay verily, the voters of Cook did many times elect and venerate the graven image, and the craven form, and the land was blackened and none would take his hand, and the Sylvania marinas ran red, and the chicken was served raw, and the ukeles were untuned, until verily the beast wore five hats of the ministers, and a great tsunami rose from out of the unaddressed climate change, sweeping away the Cook voters, and only the rusting robodebt was left to bear witness on the shore…
Something like that.
Easily convinced by Scotties marketing department BS..
What is overlooked is the voters of Cook elected a local member, not a PM.
The culpability for making PMs of The Lying Rodent, The Mad Monk, Scotty From Marketing and potentially Herr Kartoffelkopf lies with their parties.
An important point ALWAYS ignored, even when/if known.
Even more important and apparently under several metres of ferroconcrete is that there is NO SUCH POSITION as PM in the Westminster system.
The post of primus inter pares existed solely as a convener of a grouping – how it metastasized into the current form should be studied by political forensics in the hope of preventing & eliminating the disease.
I mean, they say they “want” these things when asked, specifically, but it’s not as though they want them enough to let it influence their votes or anything.
Just like they may ‘want’ action on climate!
Truth in advertising.
As a concept this is comedy gold. The point of advertising is to disorient the targets with aspirational falsehoods. It is designed to undermine every theoretical positive component of capitalism. At least three of the “magnificent seven” of world’s dominant organisations [Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla] are advertising behemoths, at least two of the others are marketing creations. Nvidia will in due course become the most successful participant in consent manipulation, ever.
“Truth” and “advertising” are two circles in a Venn diagram so far apart that you cannot see one from the other.
Reminds me of Bill Hicks’ advice to people in marketing
From the seat who really only has about 1.2 people per hundred more supporting Smirko, the Teals really should have put up a candidate.
The seat of Cook is ripe for the picking, next time.
Not really teal demographics. Cashed-up bogans a la Sylvania Waters along the beaches and happy-clapping suburbanites in the hinterland. Not quite Kooyong or Wentworth.
Those bogans don’t like being taken for fools or having their surf and harbour areas destroyed.
The happy clappers tend to not want to be associated with a whole lot of lying.
A good Teal demographic or an Independent.
There is no Teal party, just similarly minded independents. What was needed was a Teal-in-waiting like the other blue ribbon electorates had.
It would be great to see a Teal in Cook, but as you probably know, Climate 200 don’t seek out Teal candidates. They have to result from a strong movement in the community: If there is enough grass roots support, Climate 200 funding follows. (See link for Simon Holmes a Court’s comment) A few months ago, I read there was some action in the Queensland seat of McPherson. Karen Andrews(Lib) former Minister for Home Affairs is retiring, and a group called “McPherson Matters”, was reportedly working up a Teal candidate. You wouldn’t think it likely, but it would be devastating for the Liberals to lose the southern Gold Coast seat. At last report, their were four males slugging it out to get the Liberal preselection. A male replacing a retiring senior female MP would not help the Liberal cause.
Hopefully, in 2025 there’s a lot more Teal candidates, and just not in Liberal seats. It would be good to see some moderate left independents taking on Labor party hacks as well.
Which is where Don Farrell’s election spending and donations bill comes in. Some fear has been expressed that the ALP and LNP will gang up and make the legislation a weapon to suppress new entrants to politics. That way, the LNP/Labor duopoly would be safe, and they could continue to take it in turns to look after themselves, their mates, their donors and obliging lobbyists. Let’s hope legislation ostensibly aimed at protecting and improving democracy doesn’t, in fact, have the opposite effect.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/mar/04/liberals-pick-management-consultant-simon-kennedy-for-cook-byelection
I realize that the Teals are Independents who think alike and can source some help and funding.
The demographic is such that a strong independent would make mince meat out of just another Liberal Clone.
Throw in the performance of Simon Birmingham and the rest of the weak as water Libs, deciding to back a country which killed an Australian doing humanitarian aid work in Gaza by drone strike.
The use of weasel words such as “A Tragedy”, and, the Cook electorate will not tolerate this.
Yes Ratty, I used to have a lot of time for Simon Birmingham as a sensible moderate, but he has capitulated to the Liberal right wingers. His support for the hare brained nuclear power idea dropped many a jaw, and the Libs over the top support for 1$rae! is not only morally suspect, it is really bad politics. It will not go down well in western Sydney or north and western Melbourne – the places where elections are won and lost. I can only think that Birmingham’s actions are driven by his political exit strategy. His behaviour will probably make sense when we see where steers his lifeboat to after jumping the Libs sinking ship.
“Hopefully, in 2025 there’s a lot more Teal candidates, and just not in Liberal seats. It would be good to see some moderate left independents taking on Labor party hacks as well.”
There is not much chance of that. Most of the Labor hacks as you say are in safe seats which are multi-ethnic and faith based. Some are in the trendified Illawarra and Newcastle regions and glamour puss inner city electorates but most are in NESB/CALD seats and the teals have Buckley’s chance of picking up votes there. Most of the people there are struggling to survive, live hand to mouth, live 5 to a room and couldn’t give a damn about the environment. No chance there. What should be happening is that there be decent Greens candidates looking to knock off some of these Labor seats, hacks or otherwise. But they have proven to be a disappointment.