Pittwater decoded

Bryan · Monday 28 November 2005 · 6:11 am

Reading the entrails of the Pittwater by-election is difficult — even thought the message has been delivered with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. A twenty-five-plus per cent swing against the opposition to an independent and the loss of its third safest seat is some message for the Liberal party to digest. The Poll Bludger has been unable to find parallels.

As with most election losses, the spinmeisters are out in force to ensure their side of the story is put and put effectively. No one in politics wants to carry the can for an election loss.

The line from the newly ascendant Christian right is that John Brogden is to blame. Milne reports that the right is blaming Brogden for not publicly endorsing the non-local Liberal candidate, Paul Nicolaou, in the face of a popular local mayor and ultimate winner, Alex McTaggart.

Frankly, I find it hard to imagine the kind of endorsement that would have wound back the six percentage points necessary for the Liberals to win Pittwater. As for the implication — “it is not our fault for picking a non-local candidate; it is Brogden’s fault for not endorsing that candidate” — what can I say? It was naive and perhaps unreasonable for the right to expect the man it had defeated and humiliated so publicly would then jump to its tune and endorse his replacement. Revenge is, after all, a dish best served cold. (And anyway, Brogden’s face did appear on Nicolaou’s how-to-vote cards).

From the moderates’ perspective, the right took the electorate for granted and lost it. First the right brought Brogden down with a whispering campaign. Then it selected a non-local candidate. Ultimately, the electorate said “no” to the socially conservative (some would say extremist) ideology of the Christian right and its hegemony within the New South Wales Liberal party.

I find this analysis as self-serving as the last. Brogden was no saint. And the actions that led to his downfall, propositioning women and slurs against the wife of the former premier, would have been as distasteful with the electorate as any whispering campaign. Furthermore, the social conservativeness of local Federal member Bronwyn Bishop, has not been a tremendous liability for the Federal Liberal party in this seat. West noted that Bishop’s seat voted against the Republic referendum in 1999. The so-called doctor’s wives are not a big feature in Pittwater.

I have opted for a simpler explanation. Feuds within political parties are almost always damaging electorally, and almost always the fault of both sides of the dispute. In plain English: disunity is death. Ironically, the loss of Pittwater is likely to exacerbate factional differences within the Liberal party, at least for the short-term.

Having lost Pittwater, the Liberals have a huge challenge ahead. Antony Green noted that in New South Wales, strong and plausible independents have been a longstanding issue for the Coalition. Of the seven independents in the New South Wales parliament, six are from traditionally safe Coalition seats: Dubbo, Manly, Northern Tablelands, Pittwater, Port Macquarie and Tamworth. Furthermore, the trend appears to be that once an independent wins a safe Coalition seat they retain it at subsequent elections.

Green also argued that with seven independents, there is a chance the 2007 State election could see a hung parliament. While Green is technically correct, with the Liberals in disarray I think another Labor government more likely.

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