Is Treasurer Josh Frydenberg about to lose Robert Menzies’ seat?
Lost in the mess of yet another Nationals sex scandal and the spectacle of our national press poring over the unfortunate sex texts of the now chastened (and demoted) MP Andrew Broad was an even greater looming disaster for the federal coalition.
Polling now indicates that the treasurer Josh Frydenberg is at risk of losing his wealthy inner eastern Melbourne seat of Kooyong, a seat once held by Liberal Party hero and Australia’s longest serving Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies.
A Reachtel poll conducted this week in Mr Frydenberg’s electorate showed that the blue ribbon silvertail seat, which has never not been held by the Liberal Party or its predecessors across its century of existence could suffer a 15 point two party preferred swing against the Treasurer handing the prize electorate to the ALP.
If an election were held in the inner-suburban Melbourne electorate this weekend, Mr Frydenberg could potentially lose the seat on a two-party-preferred split of 52-48 to Labor, a horrendous and humiliating loss and potentially the end of a career for a man many high up in the Liberal Party had hoped would make a future Prime Minister.
In the wake of this polling unions in Victoria have declared themselves ready to fund and support a decapitation strategy to win Kooyong and take out a sitting cabinet minister. Both unions and the ALP have already announced a similar campaign targeting Peter Costello’s former seat of Higgins currently held by Minister for Jobs and Industrial Relations and Minister for Women Kelly O’Dwyer which despite being another wealthy area has also produced some horrendous polling for the Liberal party in recent months.
This along with the loss of the former Prime Minister’s seat of Wentworth in Sydney and the loss or threatened loss of some of the wealthiest seats in Melbourne during the recent state election promise ominous changes on the horizon.
The Liberal Party from its inception has been built on the twin pillars of middle class social conservatives on the one hand and fiscally conservative wealthy voters on the other. If the wealthy have abandoned them the entire basis of the Liberal party electoral alliance may very well be under threat and the future viability of the party as a party of government comes into question.
This week Frydenberg announced the greatest achievement of any Federal treasurer since the Howard-Costello years, an actual return to budget surplus. Barely anybody even noticed or cared.
The public mood has shifted and those wealthier voters who once would have applauded sound financial management now seem more interested in the leftist obsessions of open borders and climate change, obsessions imparted to them by the leftist lecturers that shaped their worldviews.
When the Liberal Party looks unable to say what or who exactly they are for and seems even unable to object as the children of their supporters are brainwashed into fierce partisans of their enemies it is perhaps unsurprising if voters continue to repay that confusion and incompetence with ever decreasing enthusiasm.
