Opinion: While the campaigns are full of promise on issues like climate, integrity in politics and equality for women, there is no proof – yet – they have any greater momentum than the attempts at every election to take on the major parties, writes ...
The formula clearly works, especially when the incumbent is unpopular. It helped Rebekha Sharkie replace Jamie Briggs in Mayo, Cathy McGowan replace Sophie Mirabella in Indi andThe essential elements are to replace a man with a woman and a conservative with a moderate – or, to the fundamental point, someone who is not Labor or Green.But it is rare. McGowan arrived in 2013, Sharkie in 2016, Steggall in 2019.
It also requires a delicate balancing act in a pandemic when voters may want the certainty of a major party in power. The independents have to appeal to both sides. Their key objective has to be to gain more voters than the Labor candidate in a relatively safe Liberal seat. Defeating the Liberal incumbent on primary votes is unlikely; defeating the Labor alternative is vital. Only then can the independent collect enough preferences to vault ahead of the incumbent and claim the prize.
For some of these voters, even the slightest chance that an independent installs a Labor government will be too big a risk to justify a protest vote. The independent campaign will need much greater momentum, far beyond the hothouse of social media, to overcome that barrier.and lost at the 2019 election, knows how hard this can be. She had a very high profile going into the campaign but could not remove Health Minister Greg Hunt.
History says otherwise. The sole independent to defeat a Liberal moderate in recent times, Kerryn Phelps, took the seat of Wentworth at a rare moment. She won at a by-election when Malcolm Turnbull had quit Parliament after a leadership spill. The campaign was rocked by the leaking of a report into religious freedom and Morrison’s clumsy foreign policy decisions on Israel and Iran.
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