There are plenty of people you might slam the door in the face of, or at least shut it straight away. Politician, or anyone flogging a political message, would be among the first to spring to mind.
But a nurse? Would you close the door in a nurse’s face? Well, you’d at least hesitate. And the semi-finely oiled machine that is Unions NSW has figured that out.
On a rainy Saturday morning on the central coast about 30 unions members are assembling, ready for doorknocking. Some are wearing shirts that declare “NSW not for sale” while a smattering are dressed in nursing scrubs – they are genuine nurses, wearing the dark blue scrubs that you usually end up studying as you are wheeled into theatre. On the breast it says “NSW Nurse and Midwives’ Association”.
The gathering also includes representatives from the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and the Electrical Trades Union. The unions are all Labor-affiliated but the message the members are trying to get out is clear: they aren’t party hacks, just your fellow workers who are concerned about a few key issues.
The issues the door-knockers are campaigning on today are all based around privatisation. The privatisation of electricity assets, the privatisation of health – though this message seems to be set in fairly vague notions – and the privatisation of education through the cuts to Tafe funding.
“Do you represent a party? No, you’re a worker, you’re a trade unionists,” Unions NSW secretary Mark Lennon tells the room before they set off under the grey skies.
Campaign coordinator Salim Barbar also stands to give some pointers. Don’t knock on any door you feel is unsafe or enter any yard you feel unsafe entering. Don’t engage in political conversations about Labor or the Greens.
“Don’t get into arguments about politics, stick to the issue. You’re there to talk about the issue, unpack the issue … if you’re at a door for 20 minutes to half an hour, this person has cottoned on to what we’re doing and they are trying to suck your time dry,” he says.
Guardian Australia heads out with ACTU member Kristyn Crossfields and registered nurse Michelle Cashman. Bateau Bay is the area being tackled that morning, in the seat of The Entrance, held technically by independent Chris Spence on a margin of 11.6% though he was elected as a Liberal and stepped down from the party after the Independent Commission Against Corruption announced it was investigating him over corruption allegations.
“Hi, my name’s Michelle, I’m a registered nurse on the coast,” Cashman says smiling as each door is opened.
Most people are sceptical at first but as soon as Cashman says she’s a nurse the door is swung open just a little further.
Her spiel is almost the same every time. “I’m a local nurse and I’m concerned about healthcare in the area, with this upcoming election we could see it privatised and my patients can’t afford that.”
The reactions are variations of the same theme. Nobody, it seems, wants healthcare privatised, well, nobody wants to tell a nurse they would like healthcare privatised. Nobody, whether they’re voting Liberal, Labor, Greens or Family First will argue in favour of it.
One woman, who says she has always voted Liberal, says she did ABC Vote Compass, an online tool to determine where you sit on the political spectrum.
“I was shocked by it, absolutely shocked. I put in my position on all these polices, you know I don’t want anything privatised, not electricity, not schools, not healthcare. And it said I should vote Labor. I was shocked!”
An elegantly dressed 67-year-old woman (she later tells us her age when she is laughing about her disbelief at attending a friend’s 70th next week) narrows her eyes slightly when Cashman appears at her door
“You’re not from the Labor party are you?” she asks.
Crossfields and Cashman look at each other. “No,” says Cashman, “I’m not here to tell you how to vote.” Cashman hands the woman an A4 flyer, which says in capital letters across the back: “Put Liberal last.”
The woman points to Crossfields’s shirt and says “your shirt says stop the Liberals”. Cashman and Crossfields laugh before Cashman starts talking again about the cost of healthcare. The woman begins to nod.
“I’m a boomer and my healthcare keeps going up,” she says. After some hesitation, and a confession she has in fact already voted, the woman signs the pledge Cashman is carrying which says she supports healthcare in NSW. The pledge asks for a name and address and those who sign will get a letter from Unions NSW before the election urging them to vote against the Liberals.
Cashman later tells me she has been a member of the Labor party for about a year, but it is secondary to what she sees as her role as a community activist.
There is a man with six utes parked outside his house. “I completely back what you’re doing,” he says as he signs the pledge straight away. The utes belong to his adult sons, still living at home and working in their 20s. Another woman, maybe in her 70s, answers the door in her dressing gown: “I was just about to have a shower,” she says. She shuffles inside to sign the pledge and returns quickly. Patting her hair she coos “come and see me next Saturday, I’ll look much better”, as Cashman and Crossfields walk away.
Another woman scolds “I’m on the phone if you don’t mind” without even opening her door, while another is naked except for a sarong and tells Cashman to leave a flyer behind. On it goes, sore feet, empty houses, Cashman and Crossfields admiring how certain people have managed to get a particular plant to grow at their house.
At one point Crossfields tries to give Cashman some guidance. People are receiving the message positively, she says, they do not want their healthcare privatised. Maybe, after she’s had a good reaction from them Michelle could say one of the ways to save healthcare is to put Liberal last?
Cashman umms and aahs.
“I don’t know about that, I don’t want to tell people how to vote, I do think the Liberals should be last but I would be put off by someone saying something like that to me, it’s like telling me how to vote,” she says.
Crossfields nods. “You think it would put people off? OK.”
The flyer says it anyway. Encouraging preferential voting with the Liberal party put last is a proven effective strategy. We only have to go back a couple of months to the last election it helped the Labor party win. In the Queensland election if everyone voting Liberal National party had just voted 1, as the LNP encouraged them to, it is likely the LNP would have won. Instead the Labor party got almost 2% of its swing from Greens preferences.
At the end of the morning Cashman tells me 53 houses were doorknocked, about half of those had people home and only three said they were not interested and did not sign the pledge. Flyers are left under the doors and in the letterboxes of people who were not home. So that’s about three hours to speak to almost 30 people, and there’s no guarantee their vote has been influenced.
Victoria has proved doorknocking is effective work, but why does Cashman do it?
“For me it started seven years ago with the Your Rights at Work campaign. I’m a nurse, I care about people and I saw there were huge injustices with what was going to happen in the government at the time. I just thought this isn’t right,” she says.
“From that it’s grown and I’ve stayed in touch with various community groups, I believe quite wholeheartedly what the Baird government is proposing is not right for our community and we need to stand up and say this is not right.”
Cashman has stepped up in her scrubs because she feels the failures of both parties have left it to people like her.
“Unfortunately I don’t think either party communicates particularly well with the people so nurses are out there talking about how it will affect patients. I work for the patients.”
