The campaign director for the victorious Zali Steggall in Warringah considers what works - and what doesn't - in the contest for votes
There will be many post-mortems after the 2019 federal election: Labor on why it lost, the Liberals on why they won, why Queensland rejected Labor so comprehensively and why the Liberals lost Warringah. I worked as a campaign director for Kerryn Phelps last year when she seized the blue-ribbon Liberal seat of Wentworth in a byelection, and then for independent Zali Steggall's historic victory in Warringah at this general election.
To win we had to make sure our message was clear, concise and effective. We would not get a second chance or have the luxury of multiple messages. Our opponents did and it didn’t help them. They thought if they said it often enough it would work, even if it wasn’t true. Consider this: the main message of the Liberal/Advance Australia campaign was if you vote for Steggall you will get Shorten. It was sent to voters repeatedly, stuck on billboards and trucks and sent in text messages ad nauseum.
I suspect if you asked the question "what is in it for me to vote ALP" at focus groups in marginal seats, voters would have struggled to name anything.As for Wentworth, the move back to the centre by the Liberal candidate, David Sharma, with one simple message – "I am a moderate Liberal" – was successful. He studiously avoided the negative campaign that failed so dismally at the byelection. He went positive.
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