It is a case of OMG what has happened to the Liberal Party and the innovation Prime Minister and his economic plan.
In once sentence: voters looked at the comprehensive economic plan Malcolm Turnbull promoted and were not thrilled by its offering.
Yes there was a scare campaign from Labor too but the Liberal Party did too little to stop that. While we are on it, where was the Health Minister during all of this?
In New South Wales, Mr Turnbull’s home state, a factional war between the moderates and the conservative wing had a huge impact; part of this dates back to the Tony Abbott overthrow and part to old fashioned turf wars.
The moderates rule in New South Wales but according to the conservative wing, the membership base is 80 per cent conservative.
In the western Sydney seat of Lindsay, Liberal member Marcus Cornish caused trouble over the weekend. He was so upset about Liberal MP Fiona Scott backing Malcolm Turnbull against Tony Abbott that he quit the party and ran against her in Linsday as an independent. He secured nearly 2000 first preference votes and gave his preferences to the Labor candidate Emmar Husar.
Ms Husar is currently ahead in Lindsay with 52 per cent of the vote counted. The margin is 2509 votes. Preferences from Marcus Cornish would have been more than handy for Ms Scott. It would have been even better for her had he not felt the need to run as a protest.
In the west I am told that key seats in Lindsay, Macquarie and Macarthur were left without the resources to fight Labor’s Medicare campaign, so in the end they were ‘sitting ducks’.
If the Coalition hadn’t held up in Victoria, largely thanks to the Country Fire Authority brawl over union pressure, Malcolm Turnbull would be in even more trouble.
As well as New South Wales the Coalition did badly in Tasmania, where it lost all three lower house seats, and in South Australia the safe seat of Mayo has gone to the Nick Xenophon team, and Hindmarsh is heading towards Labor, it appears.
Queensland wasn’t good - Forde, Capricornia, Herbert, Longman, Flynn are gone or in trouble. Peter Dutton is fighting on in the seat of Dickson but it is close. He leads the ALP’S Linda Lavarch by 1158 votes.
During the campaign the Coalition kept a very tight focus on their tactics and campaign direction. The aim was to drive home their message on the economy. Australians heard that message but it obviously wasn't want they wanted to hear.
Malcolm Turnbull is suggesting he is prepared now to talk to the cross bench.
Bill Shorten says the Liberal Party agenda has been rejected.
Now let’s see what the next few days bring. Many seats are close and until final ballots are counted it is hard to say how the week will end.
