This is part one of a two-part series on independent Dai Le’s campaign in Fowler. Daniel Holmes closely observed Dai Le’s campaign as a freelance journalist.
Dai Le’s campaign team began celebrating at Cabramatta Golf Club almost the minute the polls closed on election day. They sensed something was afoot. “The community [has] already won by making this seat marginal,” said Le.
Her volunteers clearly agreed, singing round after round of the campaign’s unofficial fight song, Boney M’s “One Way Ticket”, shouting “for Keneally” at the end of every chorus.
Although most of Le’s volunteers were local, disillusioned voters from across the country had travelled to support her from as far as Melbourne and Brisbane.
The controversy around Kristina Keneally’s candidacy in Fowler has been well documented. Le’s campaign for Fowler less so. Yet it should have been clear early that Le could be a serious threat to Labor’s 38-year reign. Campaign volunteers and voters said Keneally had not been seen around much since she moved into the electorate the previous year — whereas independents were on the march.
Dai Le and Fairfield mayor Frank Carbone advanced the cause of independents in Fairfield City Council, securing a 52.4% swing against the major parties in the last local government elections, placing 10 of 13 local council seats in independent hands.
By 7pm on election day, it was clear Fowler would be a tight race. A band playing golden oldies kicked off at the Cabramatta Golf Club, prompting a dozen people, including Le, to hit the dance floor with an energy usually reserved for weddings.
Cheers and screams of “go Dai!” erupted across the room every few minutes when results were updated in their favour, or Fowler was mentioned on the ABC.
Even as victory became probable, Le remained circumspect: “Well, if it’s trending that way, the community has spoken up, but honestly I haven’t had time to process it.”
Even after the seat had been called, she didn’t formally declare victory until Keneally conceded the following day. But that didn’t stop her from partying into the night.
When it was all over bar the shouting, Le belted Queen’s “We Are the Champions” in front of the band, flanked by supporters.
Le has been accused of being evasive about who she would ally herself with in Parliament, but says she’ll support and work with whoever helps her to deliver for her electorate. She comes across as sincere, not evasive.
Le has been involved in local activism and politics most of her life. She is more pragmatic than idealistic. Looking at the records of independents from more traditionally working-class communities, such as Peter Andren and Tony Windsor, as well as at her history in local politics, will probably prove more instructive than comparisons with the current batch of independents.
But only time will tell what impact she will have in the 47th Parliament.
… Which way will she vote? mmmmmm ….
1) Four of a 10 year “suspension” from the Liberal Party to serve – for refusing to fall into line with the party’s choice of mayoral candidate for Cabramatta?
2) Married to Markus Lambert – “ex-president of the local Liberal Party branch”? … Still a Cabramatta Liberal Party branch “official”?
3) 2019 voicemail from her to another member :- “The meeting went OK last night with us… we were able to reject all of the members. I still am in control of the branch.” After an dustup over the ‘enrolling of new members at the branch which led to police being called. Footage of that altercation was later provided to Channel 9’s A Current Affair and showed Ms Le was present.”?
4) How long before “all’s forgiven” and she’s ‘allowed’ back into the Liberal Party parliamentary fold?
… Yeah, which way will she vote I wonder?
I also wonder “When will the starry-eyed distracted media be interested enough to join those “old dots” – rather than be happy hung up on these ‘fabulous independents'”?
What in God’s name were Labor thinking when they dropped Keneally into the electorate at the last moment? Did they not read the room? Did they not look at the data, or read the articles? If this is how you try to appease your ever-quarrelsome factions then you deserve to lose.
Labor weren’t thinking. They were hoping for the best and didn’t see the writing on the wall. Keneally a 3 time loser. Worse candidate ever. Took the place for granted. Didn’t learn the lessons of the 2008 Cabramatta byelection where following Reba Meagher’s departure, Dai Le got a 22% swing in her favour as a Liberal. In one of the poorest places in Australia! KK can now live in the Fowler electorate as she has enough money to buy a weekender to sleep in to break the tiresome journey from her home in Scotland Island to Canberra where she can mozey around the parliament and shmooze Labor big-wigs and look for employment opportunities or sinecures like Ambassador to the Holy See where she can also as a woman of faith, say a prayer for Tim Fischer. God bless him and his trains.
Splendidly narcissistic, she is on record as saying she would be a “real” rather than “teal” independent. The sort of zinger that would have been whiteboarded by the team supporting hi-vis Scomo. Delivering on “local issues” is the emptiest of political promises, roughly translating as “I have nothing to offer the country”. Across Sydney, our local “teal” was elected like most of her peers on national issues – climate, corruption and lies. Three major impediments to achieving anything, nationally or locally.
…. She couldn’t run for Cabramatta mayor under the Liberal Party banner – they had someone else picked out – so she ran as an “Independent” – so she was suspended from the party – while continuing to “party” inside that tent
Now she’s in the Nation’s Big Lower House as an “independent” – focused on those ‘local issues’.
Nirvana?
Smells like pork-barrel spirit?
I’ll forgive her much for having demeaned & destroyed Kryptonite ‘minus 18.5% swing’ Keneally.
This is perhaps one of the most vacuous pieces of writing I’ve ever read on Crikey – very disappointing compared to the usually high-quality analysis. The headline suggested that the article would provide insights into Dai Le’s “winning campaign”, but instead all we got was another breathless “aren’t the independents marvellous!” shtick and we learnt all about the songs her supporters sang.
These ex-Liberal independents need close scrutiny and must answer real questions about how they will respond to big-picture national and international issues, not just funding for the local football clubhouse. Yes the Teals are good on climate change and integrity, but on most other issues they obfuscate. Will they follow the Jacquie Lambie path? – she’s great at pork barrelling deals for Tasmania, but her vote on most major policy issues is just a loose cannon.
The teals are not one homogeneous set. Kate Cheney in Perth has a clear position on respect – not just for women, but for implementing the Uluṟu statement, and dignity for the elderly and disabled. Her views on integrity extend beyond an ICAC. And her support for science and rational policy extend beyond climate change.
I am old enough to remember the Liberals under Andrew Peacock. Some of the teals have been Liberal party members, sure, but they are not conservatives. Less pessimism please!
So am I. The souffle. Peacock, the Toorak Cowboy. Friend of the loopy Shirley McClaine. He was no great shakes let me say. A disappointment and it was Alan Ramsay who said of him that he believed in everything and nothing both simultaneously and sometimes expressed in the same sentence. I hope no one like him emerges from the “teals”.
Agree about the article. Nothing here I hadn’t read or seen on ABC in the day or two after the election.
Dai Le. Liberal-lite? False flag if ever there was one. Labor to be fair has chosen some duds to stand against her. Not only KK recently but in 2008 for the Cabramatta byelection they chose the Coogee based Reba Meagher. Dai Le got a 22% swing to her but was still unsuccessful.
Dai Le is a liberal party hack if ever there was one and like her so-called former Labor ally in Fairfield Council, are busy with local grand projects which to be fair can be useful but can also fall into the category of “Beer and skittles” stuff. Look at all the football stadia – WIN Oval in Wollongong. Look at Parramatta Stadium. Previous one lasted les than 40 years and now Parramatta has no swimming pool and the new one will be built in another suburb and almost in another LGA. Gotta hand it to local politicians and businesses.
She seems by her biography to be one best at self-promotion. Her work seems to centre around media, ethnic group liaising and Liberal Party politics. I see she was instrumental in building a shopping centre and car park in Cabramatta. Great if you are a developer or an entrepreneur, small business or franchisee wanting to try your hand at something because you can’t either work with people or convince someone better to give you a job. I am sure other street based shops were displaced in this current “mall-mania” we have been subjected to for the last 40 years. Traffic generated too but hey! Can’t stop progress!!
i am suspicious of local politicians. They are too close to local businesses and politicians who are invariably dodgy and have barrows to push. Most local pollies are too close to the property industry, the Club and Hotel industry and I have seen other affected businesses or businesses likely affected by various projects, roads, bridges, DAs, for example, interfering or setting up faux community groups as fronts for their affected commercial interests. I am certain she will be as useful as a brick on a wall but it is Labor’s fault for not winning in Fowler. A start-up Labor seat if ever there was one. In fact the whole Fowler saga has proved my theory – Ethnicity and culture triumphs over everything. Trumps class, education, geography, ideology and even dare I say, religion. Hell, it even trumps self-interest and self-preservation. A strong Vietnamese presence specifically and a broader Indo-Chinese base combined with the changing demographic of the south-western suburbs have meant that former class-based parties like Labor are going to struggle. This is where Dutton thinks his “forgotten people” are going to come from. Dutton will, like Howard, quietly pack away his former racism, Empire-Man status and varied prejudices, and see these ethnic groups, these peoples of faith, these groups of CALD or NESB, who are socially conservative or reactionary, as potential voters. And these people in these suburbs are largely dumb enough to believe it. They have big, new, shiny shopping centres, clubs, community centres, swimming pools, oval and stadia – all of which they have to pay to go to and then some! – but they will be stuck as we are now thanks to years of coalition neglect with rising gas bills, rising electricity bills, high property prices – mortgaged or rented – higher interest rates on loans, decreasing house prices resulting in negative equity, more congestion, more road tolls, struggling health, law enforcement and education and emergency response services to keep pace with the population needs, work for the dole, declining real wages, higher tertiary education costs. The list goes on.
Hope they are willing to suck it up to elect a local who looks and sounds like them.