Malcolm In Middle Of Pinks And Greens

The Age

Wednesday October 17, 2007

Peter Ker

The Tasmanian pulp mill and new electoral boundaries have left the Environment Minister bartering for preferences, writes Peter Ker.

IT WASN'T supposed to be like this for Malcolm Turnbull. Wentworth: harbour views, famous beaches, celebrities, sports cars and expensive real estate. The sort of place where Turnbull's wealth and merchant banking reputation might be admired. A place where voters had never flirted with the Labor Party in more than 100 years.

There were some initial speed humps - his preselection was famously expensive and bitter before he ousted incumbent Liberal Peter King before being elected in 2004.

By January, he was Environment and Water Minister at a time when the drought was Australia's biggest issue. By September, he was being asked whether he would challenge Peter Costello for the Liberal leadership when John Howard departs.

But three years since being elected, Malcolm on the move has become Malcolm in the middle. A series of factors - local, national, controllable and uncontrollable - has left him wedged in Wentworth. Again, he is fighting for votes and bartering over preferences with minor parties.

Labor's Wentworth candidate, George Newhouse, a softly spoken human rights lawyer, has a chance of winning a seat that has an official margin of 2.5 per cent. But more than almost any other "marginal" electorate in Australia, Wentworth's true character in 2007 is hard to define.

Some strategists believe Turnbull's official buffer might as well be plucked out of the air because the seat is so hard to predict. Encouragingly for Turnbull, the 18 per cent of who gave their primary vote to King in 2004 will need to find someone else to vote for, and logic suggests most of those will return to the conservatives.

But other changes since 2004 are less positive for Turnbull, with the redrawing of electoral boundaries making the seat more problematic. The suburb of Randwick has been lost to the south, where it has become part of Peter Garrett's electorate of Kingsford-Smith. In return, Wentworth absorbed the lively and cosmopolitan streets of Paddington, Darlinghurst and Kings Cross, formerly part of Tanya Plibersek's safe Labor seat of Sydney.

Ghassan Kassisieh, from the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby, said those suburbs had delivered a large number of "pink" voters into Wentworth, as well as a smattering of Green and other protest voters.

The local state MP is controversial independent Clover Moore, who has captained floats in the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and is both Sydney's Lord Mayor and a member of the NSW Legislative Assembly. Both major candidates have courted the gay vote, with Newhouse personally campaigning through the Oxford Street strip at 11 o'clock last Saturday night.

Newhouse recently told a gay and lesbian forum that Labor would remove the 58 laws that still discriminate against homosexuals, and warned that whatever personal attitudes Turnbull held towards the gay community, he belonged to a party that had opposed laws recognising same-sex relationships.

Turnbull, whose wife, Lucy, has worked as president of the AIDS Trust in Sydney has - so far unsuccessfully - lobbied within the Coalition for new laws giving gay couples legal and financial rights.

Wentworth also has a Jewish community large enough to sustain a franchise of the Glicks kosher bakery business popular in Melbourne's Jewish community around Balaclava and St Kilda East.

But the plans to build a pulp mill several thousand kilometres to the south loom as the wild card in Wentworth.

Turnbull 's role as Environment Minister turned the $1.7 billion Gunns pulp mill proposal on Tasmania's north coast into a major issue. He was subjected to a high-profile pressure campaign in the local newspaper, the Wentworth Courier, thanks to Telstra board member Geoffrey Cousins. Stunts and protest banners on nearby Bondi Beach also attracted national coverage, urging Turnbull to reject the mill proposal.

Wentworth Courier editor Nicole Triantafillou said the issue dominated the paper for weeks in September, and would be a determining factor for at least a section of the community.

"Voters are aware it fits in the broader context of climate change and environmental impacts," she said. Turnbull approved the project with 48 conditions, claiming a victory for science over political expediency.

Some anti-mill campaigners, such as Dr Warwick Rafferty, concede that Turnbull did a "reasonable job" in assessing the mill, given his limited powers. Newhouse must feel the same, judging by his and Labor's lack of opposition to the mill.

But the decision prompted new candidates in the seat. Dixie Coulton, a former deputy mayor of Sydney, will stand for the Climate Change Coalition, trying to court anti-mill voters who might not like the social policies of the Greens.

Danielle Ecuyer, a former merchant banker, is also expected to announce her candidacy this week after speculation over her previous relationship with Newhouse. The Age believes at least one other candidate is intending to contest the seat, as will the Democrats.

But with Labor effectively endorsing Turnbull's move, the Greens loom as the winners from the pulp mill decision.

The party suggests the vote for their Canadian-born candidate, Susan Jarnason, could double, possible to as much as 20 per cent. And Greens preferences are due to flow to Newhouse before Turnbull.

"A great deal of thought has gone into it (Greens how-to-vote cards) . . . but ultimately we are really committed to getting rid of the Howard Government," Jarnason said.

IN THE MARGINALS

WENTWORTH

SITTING MEMBER AND OTHER CANDIDATES

Malcolm Turnbull (Liberal), George Newhouse (Labor), Susan Jarnason (Green), Pierce Field (Democrats), Dixie Coulton (Climate Change Coalition).

SEAT CATEGORY

Inner metropolitan. Wentworth is a wealthy electorate with a high number of apartment dwellers, strong Jewish community and a significant gay and lesbian community.

DEMOGRAPHIC STATISTICS MEDIAN AGE

36 (national average 37)

MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME

$1609 per week (national average $1027 per week)

FULLY OWN THEIR OWN HOME

27.7 per cent (national average 32.6 per cent)

BUYING OWN HOME

19.6 per cent (national average 32.2 per cent)

LANGUAGES OTHER THAN ENGLISH SPOKEN AT HOME

Russian (1.8 per cent), Greek (1.3 per cent), Italian (1.2 per cent), French (1 per cent), Cantonese (1 per cent)

KEY LOCAL ISSUE

Gunns pulp mill, legal rights for same-sex couples, Rose Bay marina proposal.