The man who calls himself “the fixer” is in a bit of a fix. Stretching from the eastern fringe of the Adelaide city centre up into the foothills of the Mount Lofty Ranges, the comfortably middle-class suburban electorate of Sturt has been represented by the industry minister, Christopher Pyne, for 23 years, but his ninth election campaign has a certain X factor about it.
South Australia’s most prominent Liberal politician is up against not only the old enemy in Labor, represented by the LGBTI rights activist Matt Loader, but also the emerging threat of the Nick Xenophon Team (NXT), which has offered up emergency doctor Matthew Wright.
Xenophon, whose party outpolled Labor in South Australia in a Roy Morgan survey released this week, has personally involved himself in the fight despite Pyne’s attempts to avoid such a showdown, slamming the Pyne team’s “premature erection” of election signage and mocking the campaign slogan “Pyne Delivers” by printing out empty pizza boxes adorned with the industry minister’s face. Pyne hit back this week by accusing NXT members of stealing his signs.
Juggling the responsibilities of a senior minister in addition to a war on two fronts within his own seat, Pyne is working overtime to safeguard his political future, hitting up shopping centres for meet-and-greets and in particular targeting the migrant small business owners that so define Adelaide’s eastern suburbs.
Last week Pyne headlined a local community radio fundraiser for Adelaide’s Radio Italiano, less than 24 hours after slipping in some positive messaging regarding the heritage of his electorate on national television, during his one-on-one battle with Labor’s Anthony Albanese on Q&A.
“In my electorate I have a lot of second and third-generation Italians [who have been] here since the second world war and they’ve made a fantastic contribution to our country,” he said in response to a question about the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, characterising refugees as illiterate and innumerate.
The background of Sturt is more than just Italian, however, with significant immigration from the UK, India and China, and Dutton’s comments continue to linger.
Originally from England, local resident Sam King singles out immigration as the key issue for him and was offended by Dutton’s remarks.
“[Dutton’s] comments were definitely directed towards non-white people but I’m from England originally and I can’t spell,” he jokes.
King is tossing up between Labor and the Greens candidate, Rebecca Galdies, but won’t be voting for a NXT representative as he is concerned they will cut penalty rates.
At Labor’s campaign launch at the San Giorgio La Molara Community Centre, Senator Anne McEwen lambasted Dutton for “denigrating the very migrants and refugees who built Sturt”.
As for the Labor candidate for Sturt himself, Loader focused his speech instead on issues more easily pinned to Pyne directly, such as the local impact of the cuts to a promised increase in education spending during Pyne’s stint in charge of the portfolio during the Abbott era and the high unemployment rate persisting in South Australia under the watch of a local industry minister.
Pyne was repeatedly chastised to cries of “shame” from the partisan crowd but Loader and the other Labor speakers did not mention Xenophon.
Asked by Guardian Australia about why those dissatisfied with Pyne ought to vote Labor ahead of the NXT, Loader framed it as a strategic decision for voters.
“In the lower house they need to make a decision about forming government, the Nick Xenophon party aren’t going to be in a position to influence that, you can change Australia best by working from government,” he says.
“Many of the things Labor is putting on the table can only be done by a change of government not just by changing to some other independent MP. You need a change of government if you want healthcare improved, if you want education properly funded.”
The decision to avoid the X-word may pay off with voters like Rostrevor retiree Georgette Psaltis, who, despite being politically engaged enough to attend the Labor campaign launch, was nevertheless unaware that a NXT candidate was even contesting Sturt.
At the Marden Markets with @wright4sturt @NXT_HQ market goers love @Nick_Xenophon !! pic.twitter.com/7n0twASAjE
— Richard (@RMHUG) March 18, 2016
On being advised of this, Psaltis said she liked Xenophon because “I’m a Greek like him, and he’s out in the open with what he thinks”, before reiterating support for Labor.
“I might give [NXT] my second vote,” she says.
Away from the fire-and-brimstone political theatre of Labor’s campaign launch, Wright is taking a more low-key approach of inviting voters via letterboxing and Facebook to a series of cafe meet-ups around the electorate.
At Zeea’s Eatery in Glenunga, Wright bought a round of coffees for a dozen interested locals, challenging them to ask him questions on any issue they pleased, leading to a nuanced if somewhat meandering conversation through topics as diverse as foreign land ownership through to the lack of NBN in the electorate.
The only mention of Pyne came from one of the attendees, to which Wright responded that he “wasn’t there to bag the local member” and instead offered a broad critique of the two major parties.
“The decision to run in Sturt is political not personal, a rejection of that style of politics,” he says. “I think people are completely sick of the salesman-type approach to leadership.”
One of the attendees was Lyndon Park resident Malcolm Hill, who says he usually votes Liberal but has voted for Xenophon in the Senate previously.
“I came along today to meet this guy [Wright] who is a bit of an unknown, to find out where he comes from and where he’s going,” he says. “I’m happy with what I’ve learned today.”
It is perhaps disillusioned Liberal voters like Hill that were on Pyne’s mind during a 5AA radio interview on Wednesday during which he uttered the sacrilegious words: “If people don’t want to vote Liberal, I will be advocating they vote Labor.”
The interview of course was seized upon the next day and turned into a campaign video. It wasn’t Labor people distributing the clip however – it was Xenophon.
