E&OE
FRAN KELLY:
The Liberal Party’s election disaster in Victoria is reverberating in Canberra this morning. The PM will hold emergency talks with Federal Victorian MPs after their State counterparts suffered a 5% swing and lost a clutch of previously safe seats in Melbourne’s Eastern suburbs. Labor Premier Daniel Andrews says the demolition job came about because voters rejected the hard-right approach of the Liberal Party and what he called its playbook of division and scare campaigns.
DANIEL ANDREWS:
“The low road, the politics of fear, the politics of division, which is not leadership – that has been rejected, and I’m very proud of that. They want big, broad, bold politics, not this narrow, nasty stuff that was on offer and it was rejected comprehensively yesterday”
FRAN:
Premier Daniel Andrews speaking on Insiders yesterday. Well, if the Victorian election rout is repeated at the Federal level, the Coalition could see up to seven Liberal seats lost in Victoria alone, and almost certainly it would spell the end of the Morrison Government. Scott Ryan is a Liberal Senator for Victoria, he also serves as President of the Senate. He’s a former Vice-President of the Liberal Party and former senior adviser to several State Liberal leaders including Jeff Kennett. Scott Ryan’s in our Parliament House studios, Scott Ryan welcome back to Breakfast.
SENATOR RYAN:
Good morning, Fran, thanks for having me.
FRAN:
This was one of the Liberal Party’s worst-ever results in your state of Victoria, why did things go so wrong?
SENATOR RYAN:
Well, there’s a lot of lessons out of this, Fran. This was primarily a State campaign as Matthew Guy said, and Daniel Andrews won a convincing victory as Matthew said on Saturday night and we owe him congratulations for that. But there are other lessons here, I mean, what struck me on Saturday were swings in previously safe Liberal seats, seats that are the cradle of the Liberal Party, the birthplace of the Liberal Party, across Kew, Brighton, Sandringham. We may have lost the seat of Box Hill, looks like we’ll hold on to the seat of Hawthorn, these represent areas at federal elections like Goldstein, Higgins, Menzies and Kooyong, and these voters, these voters who are our electoral base, this our real base of the Liberal Party. They sent us a message, and federal issues, and there is a message for the party in what happened in those seats as well as in the broader election.
Fran:
Well what was the message they sent you, then?
SENATOR RYAN:
I think these people, and a couple of my State colleagues made the point that they don’t want litmus tests for what it means to be a real Liberal, I mean, a lot of Liberal voters, they’re fairly conservative in their own lives, they raise kids, they work hard, they run small businesses, they support strong local communities, they volunteer. But they’re pretty liberal in their political outlook. They don’t want views rammed down their throat, and they don’t want to ram their views down other people’s throat. And that has historically been the Liberal way, we’re often conservative in our disposition – I am – but I’m very liberal in my political outlook, and we don’t want litmus tests that somehow you’ve got to adopt this position, particularly on social issues that means if you don’t, you’re not a real Liberal or you’re not conservative enough.
FRAN:
So does that mean, to keep it at a State level for a moment, that Matthew Guy was wrong to double-down on law and order?
SENATOR RYAN:
No, I, I think the law and order campaign, at the State level, clearly Labor won, but Labor focused on that as well, they had a very strong focus on their resourcing for example [interrupt]
FRAN:
But that was all Matthew Guy’s focus, almost…
SENATOR RYAN:
Oh, no that’s unfair, I think the two issues in the State campaign that I witnessed were the cost of living and family budgets and law and order and community safety. And Labor’s campaign, they focused on their spending on police and they focused on their spending on public services, but the issues that the Coalition addressed, and had addressed over several years, they’d been talking about these issues for years, I think those issues were front of mind. But Labor won the campaign and we’ve got to review why. And there’s multiple reasons for that, and that’s why I say there are, you know, lessons for the party here in what happened in our traditional Liberal areas, where our electoral base sent us a message, but also, in a campaign sense, we were out-muscled again by a professionalised and union base that Labor had. We’ve got to address that, and we need to understand what delivered the result on a policy level but also what did it on a campaign level.
FRAN:
You’re listening to RN Breakfast, our guest is Victorian Senator and Senate President Scott Ryan. Well let’s go to that at a policy level because this is now where you’ll need to focus, presumably in the Federal realm to make sure that those results are not replicated and this must be pretty frightening for you as a Federal Victorian politician because some of the seats that have gone are seats that have long been jewels in the crown of the Liberal Party, and that’s a problem for you. What issues do you believe were at play to see a swing of, you know, of between five and ten percent in some of these bluest of blue Liberal, blue ribbon Liberal seats?
SENATOR RYAN:
Well, Fran that’s the point I want to make is I think it’s partly about tone and to an extent noise that comes out of Canberra. I mean, while it was a State election, I think that some of the noise that comes out of this place did strongly influence the scale of the loss but also, where it happened [interrupt]…
FRAN:
Are you talking the leadership noise?
SENATOR RYAN:
Well I think that, as Matthew and Josh Frydenberg have said, that didn’t help at all, but also, it’s partly about tone. I mean, some people said after Wentworth they tried to dismiss those voters as not part of real Australia, you know, labelling people, dismissing them, that’s not the Liberal way. I want to cast the net wide in the Menzies and Howard tradition as to give people a reason to be Liberals, not come up with litmus tests and say “If you don’t hold this view” on a social issue, or if you don’t hold this particular view on climate change or renewable energy, that somehow you’re not a real Liberal. That is not the path to electoral success. And, and I’m sick of being lectured to by people who aren’t members of the party, by people who have never stood on polling booths, about what it means to be a real Liberal. Thousands of Liberals stood on polling booths [interrupt]…
FRAN:
Who do you mean? Who do you mean? Do you mean some commentators?
SENATOR RYAN:
No, I’m not going to get into names, but our voters sent us a message, which is that some of the noise that comes out of this place and some of the noise that comes out of commentators about what it means to be a Liberal , well, Liberal voters what us to focus on their issues. I think the Federal Government is doing that, I think we’ve heard from Josh Frydenberg this morning about that, but those who stand up and say “You’ve got to be this to be a real Liberal, you’ve got to adopt this particular social view, you’ve got to oppose climate or those sorts of policies”, you know, I don’t have litmus tests to be a Liberal like that, that is not the path to success.
FRAN:
Okay…
SENATOR RYAN:
…and we shouldn’t be dismissing people because they have a different view.
FRAN:
I’m trying to zero in, I guess, on what sort of issues you think you might need to change the messaging. Tim Wilson , the member for Goldstein, some of that heartland we were just talking about there, he said that voters brought up with him the federal leadership change and the lack of energy policy. Did voters raise those issues with you?
SENATOR RYAN:
Well, in my time on polling booths, what I got was, what I said earlier, Fran. I think there’s this issue about tone and the issue about, about where we’re focusing. The noise that comes out of Canberra is not representative necessarily of what people are thinking about in their daily lives, I mean, what keeps our voters awake at night [interrupt]..
FRAN:
So what noise? What noise is wrong?
SENATOR RYAN:
Well, look, I didn’t have people approaching me on polling booths, asking, I think we were distracted, for example, spending quite a few days, in the lead-up to the Wentworth by-election talking about what some people call religious freedom . These can be important issues but, quite frankly, people weren’t raising with me on polling booths, teachers and kids and anti-discrimination law. That doesn’t mean it’s not an important issue, but the tone of some of the debate, and as I said, the litmus tests, the noise where some people say, you’ve got to have a particular view on climate change, you’ve got to have a particular view on religious freedom or you’re not a real Liberal, I think we’ve got to get past that and give people, make our family broad, give people a reason to be Liberals, not confect fights, not label them as cosmopolitan intellectuals or say they’re not part of real Australia.
FRAN:
Well, let me put this to you, are suggesting that the Scott Morrison Government and the leadership group should look at walking back a bit, softening their, their dialogue, their rhetoric at least, if not their approach on religious freedoms, on asylum, on terror laws?
SENATOR RYAN:
No, I think the current Federal Government, I think Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg and the ministerial team are trying to focus on these issues. What I’m talking about is some of the noise that comes out of this place and some of the noise that comes out of the media that I think crowds that issue out.
FRAN:
You’re saying its coming out of the media, what about some in your own party room?
SENATOR RYAN:
Oh, I think it’s coming from a lot of people. I’m not going to name names, but I think, again, all Liberals should sit down and think what do our voters want? How do we give people an excuse, a reason, to feel like they’re Liberals? Not set up tests to say, “Well, if you don’t believe this, you can’t be a Liberal”.
FRAN:
Do you believe – Do you agree with your colleagues, Senator Jane Hume as she put it this morning in the Fin Review, that we need to be “less ideological towards climate change, social issues, crime and race”? Does that sum up what you’re saying?
SENATOR RYAN:
Well I think what we need to do is say the Liberal Party has people with various views, and all of those views can be accommodated, and internally the idea of compromise is actually a good thing. You know, too often I hear this idea that somehow to compromise is to be a sell-out. Well guess what, John Howard and Peter Costello compromised and they achieved, you know, historic tax reform. Peter Reith compromised with the Democrats and actually got fundamental workplace relations reforms through. This idea – and I think this is another thing, that a lot of our voters are tired of – that somehow to compromise, to address a problem, and move on to one of the other plethora of problems government needs to address, that is not selling out. That is getting the job done.
FRAN:
Do you think, as Daniel Andrews trumpeted on Saturday night, Victoria is “the most progressive state in the nation”? Do you think that your party sacrificed the Victorian electoral base by paying too much attention to trying to win seats in Queensland? Because tone might work well in one state but doesn’t work well in another.
SENATOR RYAN:
Well I think that Victoria is historically a liberal state. I don’t think of the term “progressive”. I think as I said earlier, a lot of our voters and a lot of Victorians, they’re pretty conservative in their personal lives but they’re liberal in their outlook. They don’t want to demand other people lead their lives a certain way, they don’t want to force their views on others but they don’t want views forced upon them either. Now I think the Victorian Division of the Liberal Party has historically represented that. I think it’s a strong Liberal tradition, I think it reflects the Menzies and the Howard approach and the Kennett approach to government and I think the State Liberals did that. But as I said, I think that some of the noise that comes out of this place over a long period of time has actually meant that the scale of what happened Saturday and the message we got in seats that are the cradle and the heart of the Liberal Party where we were formed, where thousands of our members are, I think they sent us a message.
FRAN:
Just briefly, are those seats in danger at the federal election, in your view?
SENATOR RYAN:
Look, I think people do differentiate between state and federal politics. I do think there’s obviously a bit of overflow, but no I think our four members there, I think they’re in a very strong positions and I sincerely hope and I’m certain that they will generate ongoing support from their communities.
FRAN:
Scott Ryan, thank you very much.
SENATOR RYAN:
Thanks Fran.
[ENDS]