When Labor examined what went wrong when it ran then senator Kristina Keneally in Fowler, it missed a crucial detail, says Dai Le, the independent who won the seat in May.
Labor analysis of the 2022 election released earlier this week mentions Fowler more than a dozen times, describing the loss of the western Sydney seat as a wake-up call for the party and a reminder that “no seat is safe”. But nowhere in the analysis does it mention that Keneally, who lives on an island in Sydney’s northern beaches, was an outsider to the community.
“It was a major factor,” Le told Crikey. “When you’re in the polling booth, so many people said [about Keneally]: ‘What do you know about our area? We’ve never seen you here.’
“I’ve been around for so long; they’ve seen how much I’ve worked. They trusted me. I’m not part of the major parties, and they’ve seen what the Liberal Party has done to me, and they’ve seen what the Labor Party has done.”
Labor took an 18.5% swing against it, and lost Fowler for the first time since the seat was created. It cost the party one of its most prominent politicians, who would have been an obvious frontbencher in Anthony Albanese’s government, and prompted Labor to do some soul-searching.
The answer, according to the party? “The prominence of a local independent candidate backed by a groundswell of campaign supporters, Labor’s candidate selection, and the local campaign strategy were all contributing factors to the result,” it said.
“The circumstances generated a ‘perfect storm’ that were exploited by the independent candidate.”
Le, who stood as a local Liberal candidate several times before being expelled by the party in 2016 for going independent, said people in the area were fed up with business as usual: “A lot of people were expressing they’re tired of the parties; they said we’ve had enough of major parties.”
Le dismissed any suggestion she was still aligned with the Liberal Party: “That’s Labor Party supporters. They would say that. It’s fine, the community, at the end of the day, is what’s important for me, and they know who I am.”
But Le said she didn’t feel part of the teal independents on the crossbench, either.
“They were supported by a major donor,” she said. “Out of the 151 MPs, I can tell you I’m the only one that’s self-funded.”
That independence from the rest of the independents was on display last week when Le abstained from voting on the censure motion against former prime minister Scott Morrison over his secret ministries. Ten independents voted yes, and only one, Bob Katter, voted no.
Le decided not to vote at all, but said that shouldn’t be seen as support for Morrison’s actions: “What he did was unethical, and my understanding is, [according to] the solicitor-general, not illegal.
“But a censure doesn’t actually provide any kind of results, it doesn’t actually do anything. It’s mainly a political move … Of course major parties will be political, but I think I was hoping [Labor] would be different, but then when they did the censure motion, it showed to me that they’re just like the other side.”
Did losing Fowler serve Labor right? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
“But a censure doesn’t actually provide any kind of results, it doesn’t actually do anything. It’s mainly a political move…”
It so dismays me to hear this time and time again. It itself is rhetoric. Of course a censure does something. It’s a warning to not do the behaviour again.
The logic of the above statement is that ‘we can’t do something more serious, so we shouldn’t do anything at all’. Well, you’re an elected rep now. Get something more serious done. And if you can’t, then censure the wrongdoer.
Because otherwise it just comes across as having one foot in the do-nothing obviously-wrong-way-to-go Liberal party.
Absolutely.
Certain spots are hard to change.
She voted against the IR laws, say no more imo.
“Drink Coalition Cola. Happiness in a bottle!”
“But a censure doesn’t actually provide any kind of results, it doesn’t actually do anything. It’s mainly a political move … Of course major parties will be political, but I think I was hoping [Labor] would be different, but then when they did the censure motion, it showed to me that they’re just like the other side.”What a load of self-serving nonsense from Ms Le. So had there been a penalty she
would have supported the motion? I think this statement and her history give us a fair indication of her view of ethical good governance
I dunno. I half agree with her. I disagree with the “political move” dismissal, but as to it achieving anything…
Censure is supposed to provide a deterrent by shaming the culprit. So two questions:
(1) How many Liberal Party members have during the past decade shown themselves to be capable of feeling shame?
(2) How many of them are ever likely to have any great influence within their party?
it was untenable to do nothing. it would imply that secretive, unaccountable administrative coups by PMs was acceptable to parliament. It is not, although it is for the so-called conservatives.
I reckon KK’s election-day rejection was on the cards from the start, and in my mind at least, a deserved rap over the knuckles for the ALP. Here were so many voters just begging to be saved from the tawdry mess ScoMo and friends had made of things, and along comes Albo and the bright new team promising a better standard of politics – and they go back to doing exactly the same old cynical “playing politics” shtick that voters are sick to death of.
If Albo and co. had wanted to send a message, that absolutely nothing of substance was going to change if you voted for them, they could not have done it more clearly than doing the old “parachute the big name non-local in at the expense of the more deserving local contender… and let the voters wear it” move.
I understand the byzantine inner-workings of the Labor party sometimes force these weird decisions on to their leaders, in order to maintain the cosmic balance of the universe or something, and maybe that was the case with KK getting the nod over Tu Le – but it cost them the seat for sure, and certainly made it look like we were in for more of the same-old same-old gross contempt for the electorate. People just aren’t going to cop that anymore.
So in the long run, the KK misjudgement may have been a nice timely lesson for Albo and the ALP, to prod them ever onwards toward that better standard of politics Oz voters want, because if they don’t …the people have discovered there are more colours to vote for than just red and blue.
If KK had any judgement she would not have presented herself as a candidate in this seat. The fact that she did shows that she lacks judgement, and therefore we are better off without her. Albo and the team have dodged a bullet.KKN should go off and become a bureaucrat somewhere, where poor decision making skills are less of a burden.
Let’s put 2 and 2 together.
Kristina Keneally had stood in Bennelong previously, in a by-election. Labor won Bennelong in May 2022. Why didn’t the geniuses who run the NSW ALP have Keneally stand in Bennelong, again. Even if she had lost again, they would have likely won Fowler, so no net loss compared to the current situation. She might have won Bennelong, giving Labor an extra seat and retaining her skills in the parliamentary party.
Because they knew she couldn’t win Bennelong. The whole reason she was parachuted into Fowler was because it was a “safe” Labor seat, and they had just enough sense to know that she had no hope of gaining a Lib seat for them.
Hopefully they’ve now learned once and for all that she’s just not electable, regardless of which seat they drop her in.
Dai Le is wrong when she says a censure motion doesn’t do anything. It does exactly what it says on the box. She failed to record in Hansard her censure of Morrison as a parliamentarian but yet says she thinks what he did was unethical. Maybe Dai Le is also being unethical also. She should have given a resounding no to such a threat to democracy. We Australians have a right to know who are the people sworn into ministries. It is fundamental. What doesn’t Dai Le understand about that? Who cares about independents when they can be independently nutty and self-indulgent?