The Guardian(London)
November 26, 2018 Monday 5:00 PM GMT
'We are not them': NSW Liberals distance themselves from Victorian loss
Berejiklian government has done a better job of avoiding 'culture wars bullshit', one MP says
by Michael McGowan
The New South Wales government has sought to distance itself from the rest of the Liberal party in the wake of the party's disastrous result in the Victorian state election, with a senior minister declaring "we are not them" and another MP labelling the Victorian Liberals' campaign "manifestly inadequate".
After the Victorian Labor government's comprehensive victory in the state election on the weekend attention has quickly turned to what the result could mean for NSW, where the Liberal state government will go to the polls seeking a third term next March.
In response, the NSW government has wasted no time differentiating itself from interstate and federal colleagues. On Sunday the premier, Gladys Berejiklian, pointedly suggested that the prime minister, Scott Morrison, would not be needed during the campaign, saying her government would stand "on its own two feet".
But in interviews with half a dozen state government ministers, MPs and senior staff from both moderate and conservative camps on Monday, the general consensus was that the party in NSW had less to fear from the Victorian result than the federal government.
That's because, as one MP put it to Guardian Australia, the government in NSW has done a better job of avoiding "the culture wars bullshit" than its counterparts elsewhere.
"We're far more centrist than what the Victorians positioned themselves as," the MP said. "There seemed to be an approach down there of engaging in the culture wars. We're not immune from that but it's not part of our day-to-day discourse."
Another senior government figure censured the Victorian Liberals for "demonising" and "targeting" particular migrant groups.
"This concern about overpopulation, overdevelopment and migration is coming through all the polling everyone is doing, but the Victorians failed to take the lesson that the public is not targeting any particular type of people, the public is targeting governments.
"They're saying governments are not working hard enough to address the problem. It isn't about demonising one group, it's looking at it from a macro policy level."
The Victorian Liberals took a particularly hard-nosed conservative agenda to the election, promoting policies such as boot camps for young offenders, jail for breaching bail, the closure of safe injecting rooms, as well as stoking fears about "gangs".
The platform turned out to be a failure, with voters in Victoria preferring the incumbent Labor government's focus on transport infrastructure and popular health policies such as free dental care for public school students.
In NSW, the government has seized on concerns about population and migration. In October Berejiklian called for a return to "Howard-era immigration levels", saying migrant levels had been allowed to "balloon out of control".
And the government has its own problems: voter frustration because of congestion caused in part by infrastructure delays, and a feeling – borne out most visibly by its decision to allow an advertisement for a horse race on the sails of the Sydney Opera House – that its agenda is too easily led by radio shock jocks such as Ray Hadley and Alan Jones.
But, as one minister put it to Guardian Australia, Berejiklian – herself the daughter of Armenian migrants – has done a better job of talking about issues such as migration without stoking division. "Gladys can talk about migration without sounding like a racist or a xenophobe because she isn't one," the minister said.
On Monday the NSW transport minister, Andrew Constance, from the same moderate faction as Berejiklian, told reporters in Sydney that the "progressive" NSW government had similarities to the Labor government in Victoria.
"We're not the commonwealth, we're not Victoria, we're very different," he said. "We're doing things differently. We're a progressive, accountable, mojo state where we've got great outcomes happening for everyone.
"The Victorian government has been building infrastructure. Look at this state. We're one of the best infrastructure jurisdictions in the world. We've got to stay the course."
Others put the blame more explicitly on the Victorian Liberal party. The NSW upper house Liberal MP Peter Phelps told Guardian Australia the campaign in Victoria had been "manifestly inadequate".
"What was their campaign message? I'm a political junkie and I have no idea what it was," he said of the Victorian campaign. "In relation to what NSW can learn it is this: people don't give a damn about ideology provided that you are meeting their needs."
He said the Labor victory in Victoria "makes me feel more confident about a Coalition win in NSW", because of the state's low unemployment, new housing growth and improvements in transport infrastructure.
Like all the other government figures the Guardian Australia spoke to, Phelps was less concerned about the result in Victoria than the possibility of voters taking out their frustration with the federal government on the NSW government.
Phelps, a former staffer to seven federal Liberal MPs who lost his own preselection battle at the weekend, has been an outspoken member of the government.
In October, he tweeted that the prime minister, Scott Morrison, should call an early election and get "smashed" at the polls in order to save bigger losses at the state level.
On Monday he told Guardian Australia comment had been made out of "frustration" but that there was "no doubt" the federal party was "damaging the 'Liberal' brand".
He said Morrison's response after Wentworth – which he characterised as 'we don't need to change anything' – was "the catalyst" for that damage.
"The feds being on the nose was only an incidental factor in Victoria, but it nevertheless exists," he said.
"Of course they won't go early – they'll hang on till grim death hoping for an electoral miracle. In the meantime, it only needs two in 50 voters to mistakenly take our their frustration at the fed Libs on the state Libs and we are toast."