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Why it's Labor who is copping the Longman protest vote

By Graham Young - posted Friday, 27 July 2018


And One Nation will play a part again. They held the state seat of Caboolture briefly in 1998, and according to polls are on around 14% of the vote.

In a recent visit to the area I was told that immigration was the number one issue by numerous voters. Growth issues came next. Then I got lectures on how we ought to only buy locally grown or made. You can see why One Nation polls well.

But Labor, in an effort to push the Greens out of the inner-city vote has not been talking to these people.

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Multiculturalism and identity politics aren’t things in Longman. Most people are of European extraction, and they are nationalists, not cosmopolitans.

There is little enthusiasm for either Turnbull or Shorten, with the only party displaying Turnbull photos, Labor, and the only party displaying Shorten photos, the LNP.

However, Liberal lieutenants, particularly neighbouring MP Peter Dutton have been tuned-in to the wave-length, talking about immigration and security issues, and Turnbull has started talking about population.

Trust is also a factor. Shorten has a problem in this area, made worse by his candidate. Many electors are sceptical of her story as to how she renounced her UK citizenship.

During the last week or so some “genius” in the ALP campaign decided to release the information that the LNP candidate, Trevor Ruthenberg, had claimed a military medal on his parliamentary website he wasn’t entitled to.

Ruthenberg immediately admitted to the mistake, and received support from some RSL members. The Courier Mail doubled down on the story later in the week because the same medal was mentioned on his personal website.

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This had the effect of alerting people to Ruthenberg’s military service, a positive for him in this sort of territory, and focussed attention back on Lamb’s integrity. A readily admitted mistake on a medal seems trifling compared to a by-election, and dirty laundry, aired in the nation’s national parliament.

The ALP’s campaign is also a stale cookie-cutter amalgam of the last state and federal campaigns. They’ve raised political zombies to new life, trying to frighten voters with the spectres of long-departed state premier Campbell Newman, and a “Mediscare” 2.1 based on the Caboolture hospital.

Normally by-elections are an opportunity for electors to protest against sitting governments, without taking the risk of changing them. What Labor has managed to do is to put itself in a position where the protest vote is likely to work against it.

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An edited version of this article was published by the Australian Financial Review.



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About the Author

Graham Young is chief editor and the publisher of On Line Opinion. He is executive director of the Australian Institute for Progress, an Australian think tank based in Brisbane, and the publisher of On Line Opinion.

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