The Coalition has held on to the Western Australian seat of Canning despite a 6% swing toward Labor in Saturday’s byelection, which saw former SAS soldier Andrew Hastie emerge victorious.
The win has been seen by some in the Liberal party as vindicating the decision to dump former the prime minister, Tony Abbott, in favour of Malcolm Turnbull in a leadership spill on Monday.
Before the change of leadership, opinion polls were pointing toward a 10% swing to Labor, which would erode the 11.8% margin held by the late Liberal MP Don Randall, whose death prompted the byelection, to a losable 2%.
Instead, when Labor candidate Matt Keogh conceded just after 8pm Perth time, Hastie’s two-party-preferred vote was holding firm at around 55.5% to 44.5%.
At Pinjarra Bowling club, located in a small town 83km south of Perth that the Liberal campaign team proudly declared was the geographical centre of the 6,178 square kilometre electorate, the Liberal Party faithful never had any doubt that the devoutly Christian, conservative family man who helped shape the keystone immigration policy Operation Sovereign Borders would win the seat.
Hastie bounded onto the makeshift stage to applause and cheers from hundreds of blue-shirted volunteers.
Flanked by his wife, Ruth, who was holding their miraculously still sleeping three-month-old baby, and the foreign minister, Julie Bishop, Hastie thanked dozens of his supporters by name, calling on the crowd to toast the late Randall, who died suddenly while out on electorate business in July.
He then acknowledged his inexperience, saying: “I go to Canberra as someone with much to learn.”
“I don’t understand every political process or issue and I won’t pretend to.
“But I’ll be guided by the values that have been tested in the defence of our nation and that I believe are essential to effective leadership – honour, integrity, compassion, humility, and service.
Hastie also personally thanked the former prime minister, who had been an especially enthusiastic supporter.
“I want to thank and honour the service of Tony Abbott,” he said.
“From day one, he wanted me to succeed. I was immensely proud to have him visit and support me and my family on this campaign and I’m grateful for his support and guidance.
“He served his country in the highest office in the land, and I want to acknowledge him and thank him for his service to the Australian people.”
Hastie then thanked the current prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, who joined the campaign in Canning two weeks ago in his then job as communications minister. Recounting their train trip from Perth to Mandurah, an anecdote Hastie has shared several times, he said: “I watched him walk the length of the train, shaking hands and talking to everybody that he met. If that’s an indication of the kind of prime minister he will be, then the AFP security detail have got their work cut out for them.”
Wrapping up the lengthy speech with yet more thanks, to the Australian Defence Force, his church, his family, and the Liberal party, Hastie thanked his main opponent, Keogh, saying he was “a formidable opponent” before adding: “I only wish the Labor Party let you tell more of your story in the campaign.
Keogh, who addressed a less exuberant gathering of red-shirted volunteers at the Mandurah Bowls club, about 20km away on the coast, a few minutes earlier, said Labor ought to be proud of its effort of almost tripling the usual swing when a byelection is prompted by the death of a sitting member - reckoned to be about 2.5%.
He also said the campaign should be credited by toppling one prime minister.
“Look, we may have lost the battle of Canning though we’ve had a great achievement in the swings we have achieved and the campaigns we have run through this campaign, but we did win the first war,” he said.
“We did get rid of Tony Abbott.”
Keogh said the Labor faithful needed to “steel ourselves as a united front” behind the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, for their next war, which would be the general election in 2016. The 33-year-old lawyer is expected to run again, most likely for the proposed seat of Burt, which will excise the northern suburbs of Canning – Keogh’s stronghold.
“With that momentous achievement that we have all had here, that we have been all been a key part of, we need to steel ourselves as a united front, a united front for the next war which will be the general election to make sure we can get behind Bill Shorten so we can advance Australia with a new Labor Government,” he said.
Speaking on Sky News before the result was officially declared, the finance minister, Mathias Cormann, who is a West Australian senator, said that “nobody will ever know” if the infamously difficult seat could have been won under Abbott’s leadership.
