Hostage situation

the biggest threat to the liberal brand should the NSW coalition form minority government is the horse trading required to appease a radical leftist crossbench. BY Amanda Stoker.

First published in the Australian Financial Review.

With pre-polling booths open for the NSW election, there seems to be only one certainty at this point: a minority government.

There will be some people who are determined to view this election as an assessment of the government’s performance on some of the social issues that define our time and the last term of government, like “climate action”, and on social policies like late-term abortion.

Those are the policies that have most divided the Coalition government – foisted upon the Liberals and Nationals either by their own left flank or by extreme independents like Alex Greenwich.

But for most voters, it will be a reflection of their experience of the fruit of asset recycling: NSW is the only state that has delivered an ambitious agenda of road and rail transport infrastructure, as well as the new schools, hospitals and leisure infrastructure to go with it.

Of all the state governments, NSW’s is the only one where the electoral promise to get the state moving without blowing the budget was delivered. While COVID-19 took some skin off the budget position, it stands out against interstate comparisons for its economic performance.

It will also speak to voters’ hopes and anxieties: that their job opportunities are strong, that they can afford to get into or climb in the property market, and that the services that make life in regional communities possible continue to be available.

And it will be a commentary on whether their daily lives – particularly in the city – are proving a grind.

While Labor has been ahead in the polls in recent months, more recent data shows voters are gradually moving back towards the Coalition as they come to focus on the decision ahead. The trend is the Coalition’s friend; the only issue is whether there is enough time for that trend to deliver. It suggests that voters observe that while the government has not been perfect, Labor’s policy cupboard is bare and its talent pool is shallow.

The pseudo-independent teals will not perform as well in this election. Federally, their best weapon was compulsory preferential voting, allowing them to be an aggregator of protest votes, tactical left-leaning voters and naïve converts to the cause.

Many of those votes will not flow in the optional-preferential environment of a state election. While one or two scalps are a risk, the teals will not achieve anywhere near what they did last May.

There is a growing awakening to the fact that the federal teals are not the “former Liberal voters” they pretended to be, and that duplicity sits uncomfortably with their claim to be bastions of integrity.

That sense is borne out by their policy positions as well as greater transparency around, variously, their shareholdings, staff treatment and voting record.

Supporters of Treasurer Matt Kean, the leader of the Liberal left in the state parliament, have attempted to set a bar for success for their leader and their beliefs that turns on reclaiming ground in the seats held by teals federally. That is a clever ploy designed to wed their party to an ideological path many in the membership’s grassroots and in the suburban belt loathe.

In fact, it is a near certainty that the Liberals will do better in seats held by teals federally in this election – but it has nothing to do with Kean or the Liberals’ lurch to the left. It is predominantly the product of optional preferential voting. It would be a mistake to double down on it for this reason.

If Premier Dominic Perrottet can hold on to government, he will be the most authoritative leader the party has had in NSW in at least two decades. If so, he will have the opportunity to break the shackles of the internal issues that have kept him from leading firmly from his values, and give more hope to suburban and rural families as well as frustrated rank-and-file members, even as he governs for all.

The biggest risk to the Liberal brand in this context is the horse-trading needed to make minority government work. In a minority government, independents like Greenwich – who was able to drive left-leaning social change from the crossbench even when the Coalition had a majority – are likely to wield disproportionate influence on the government’s agenda. That’s not a big problem for Labor, because its voters won’t punish the party for accommodating an extreme leftist ideology.

Those who vote and volunteer for the Liberal Party operate differently. They will consider it – quite understandably – unacceptable for a government in their name to regularly depart from fundamental Liberal beliefs.

Amanda Stoker is a former LNP senator for Queensland and a distinguished fellow of the Menzies Research Centre.