Wentworth, you’re stepping in it

The denizens of Wentworth gather tomorrow at polling booths to determine the fate of Israel, the Iran Nuclear Agreement, the future of Judeo-Christian civilisation and the proposed skate park at Rushcutters Bay.

Fortunately, most Australians will not be obliged to ponder such weighty matters (I’m on the fence with the skate park). One thing we can be certain of is a seat the Liberals retained in 2016 with the sitting member receiving 62 per cent of the primary vote, will go to preferences for the first time since 2004.

In speaking to a number of Wentworthians this morning, the prevailing view was one of utter exhaustion and occasional wild-eyed fury at a process that had stuffed their letter boxes with political bumpf and dragged them away from the dinner table with robocalls from the nation’s politically outspoken. The only notable absentee on the hustings was Bill Shorten who remains despised.

Fearing a heavy loss in the by-election, the Prime Minister weighed in with a thought bubble about getting the removalists in to lumber the desks and chairs on to a truck in Tel Aviv and have the phones diverted to Jerusalem.

Perhaps this should come as no surprise coming from a man who has supported five different AFL teams by my count and has the scarves, jumpers and baseball caps in his walk-in wardrobe to prove it.

This loose affinity to matters of great tribal significance will not play well in Melbourne where one’s football team is decided virtually at birth and changing allegiances is not permitted. Ever.

But in Wentworth, I suppose, it is no great sin. After all, the former member for Wentworth, now of no fixed address, had difficulty remembering the name of the AFL team that kick a footy around in his electorate, nor the NRL mob that do the same, despite the fact Rooster headquarters were less than a scrambled field goal snap away from his electoral office.

I always imagined the former PM wandering into the SCG and proclaiming, “I sure like footy but where are all the ponies?”

Missing you already, Malcolm.

The 16-candidate ballot for Wentworth contains more than your fair share of nut jobs, weirdos and narcissists. All socio-political bases appear to be covered. Earth, wind, fire, death, taxes, vegetable rights and casual sex for money. All the colours of the ‘bow.

Obviously, in Wentworth, the arts are represented, too, predictably by the Arts Party. It’s just as well. In Wentworth over the last six weeks, too much burnt umber has been barely enough.

There’s even a Katter Australia Party candidate, Robert Callanan, who would have rolled his sleeves up and regaled Wentworthians with horrific tales of Filipino banana imports but was pulled up after it was revealed he had until recently been a director of a company that shared an ABN with a swanky Sydney brothel.

Apparently, Bob the Hat’s mob don’t go for those sorts of big city shenanigans and told Callanan to tell his story walking. Alas, his disendorsement came too late for the printing of the ballot and Callanan and the KAP remain entwined on the ballot and appear right up there on top to suck up the donkey vote.

I have to say I’m a little envious of all the attention Wentworthians have received. The most excitement we ever had around my electoral neck of the woods occurred when Angry Anderson was preselected as the National Party candidate. How I had longed for the short, bald tattooed one to turn up at my local polling booth in a styrofoam Batmobile. Alas, I would be disappointed, and Anderson was never seen or heard of again.

All nuttiness aside, it will come down to three in Wentworth. It’s fair to say the Liberal candidate, Dave Sharma received the ultimate hospital handpass when he was preselected. It is also fair to say he fumbled it and has failed to get a kick since.

The big-ticket independent candidate, Kerryn Phelps, doesn’t seem to stand for much at all but has pledged, if elected, to go to Canberra and fight like hell for erm, not much at all.

The Labor candidate, Tim Murray, remains cheerfully optimistic, but this may only be due to the fact he hasn’t had to share a minibus with Bill Shorten for the last month.

The prevailing view of the Twitter idiocracy is Labor should be running dead in Wentworth, or more precisely, running deliberately third and thus gifting the seat to Phelps on preferences.

Honestly, if it was a horse race the stewards would have the swabbed the lot of them to within an inch of their lives.

Individual seat polling is unreliable but from what I’ve seen, I’d say Murray is in with an outside chance to take the seat and to his credit, he has stuck to the task. Politics can be an ugly business but it’s never uglier than when results are contrived through complex preference arrangements with candidates quietly taking a dive.

Win, lose or draw tomorrow, parliamentary members of the Liberal Party will rise on Sunday morning to feel a pervasive sense of despair at a visceral, almost cellular level. There will be an almighty swing against them. Heads will drop. Dark mutterings will be replaced by angry recriminations.

The long trudge to a general election has just got a whole lot tougher.

This article was published in The Australian 19 October, 2018.