Turnbull government minister Concetta Fierravanti-Wells has blasted her own party's campaign tactics in a crucial by-election and accused the Liberals of lurching too far to the left.
Senator Fierravanti-Wells said a 5 per cent swing against the Liberals in Bennelong proved voters were shunning the party in favour of other right-wing options, believing their views were no longer being represented.
Labor accused the coalition of "China-phobia" during the heated campaign, which coincided with former opposition senator Sam Dastyari being ousted from office over his close ties to a Chinese political donor.
"The carpet-bombing of Sam Dastyari, on top of the same-sex marriage issue, and following the very strident prosecution of the foreign interference legislation, did have an effect where the Chinese Australian community was the collateral damage," Senator Fierravanti-Wells told Sky News on Thursday.
One in five Bennelong voters are of Chinese heritage and half don't speak English at home.
"If we are going to adopt this sort of approach, then we have to make sure that our media, and our communication, and our messages are very strong so that collateral damage doesn't have the electoral impact that it had in Bennelong," Senator Fierravanti-Wells said.
The conservative NSW Liberal senator said it was clear that across the country, the coalition was leaking votes to Pauline Hanson's One Nation and Cory Bernardi's Australian Conservatives.
She said the Liberal Party must be the repository of both the liberal and conservative traditions.
"I think we need to respect that more and we need to make sure that we target the electorate in both of those areas."
Senator Fierravanti-Wells said it was obvious Australians did not want Bill Shorten in the lodge, and the coalition had a good message to sell about the growing economy and job creation going into the next election.
"This is a very good message that we have to sell - we just have to be able to sell it better," she said.
