Werriwa: the Cunningham factor
According to Mike Seccombe in today’s SMH, Labor fears another Cunningham.
Ironically, Labor would have preferred the Liberals to run, if only, as one party strategist put it, to give the numerous minor party and independent candidates “someone else to hate”.
With Labor the only major party standing, all other candidates were then encouraged to “gang up” against them through complex preference swaps in the hope of winning.
“This looks dangerously similar to Cunningham,” said one of Labor’s strategists yesterday, referring to a by-election in similar circumstances in 2002.
Like the Greens, I think this is little more than scare-mongering designed to frighten longstanding Labor voters into voting for Labor.
Speaking of tactics, I just loved the text-book quote at the end of the article. Here we have Labor playing the cautious-but-confident role perfectly with an appropriate touch of the underdog. It neither takes the electorate for granted nor concedes the contest.
Labor’s NSW general secretary, Mark Arbib, confirmed Werriwa was “going to be an extremely difficult and tricky by-election”.
“But the party has a strong candidate in the field, and it is still possible to win the seat,” Mr Arbib said.
Frankly, I would be surprised if Labor did not win the by-election. In my view the socio-demographics of Werriwa differ from Cunningham, making a Green outcome unlikely.