NATION Batman boosts Labor’s hopes

OPPOSITION Leader Bill Shorten has used his party’s unexpected win in the Melbourne seat of Batman to set the platform for the next federal election, promising only Labor will tackle cost of living pressures.

Former ACTU president Ged Kearney unexpectedly fought off the challenge of the Greens in Saturday’s by- election, a poll brought on by former Labor MP David Feeney having to step down over his citizenship status.

Ms Kearney is the first woman to win the electorate and her success means nearly half of Labor’s federal MPs are women.

The former nurse believes she won the election by focusing on issues like schools, healthcare and jobs for kids.

I did a lot of listening and that really is what focused our campaign on the issues that mattered and people really, incredibly well, responded to that,” she said yesterday with Mr Shorten by her side. Mr Shorten was asked what it meant for Labor with a federal election due next year.

“My aim is that by the time of the next federal election people will understand that if they want to tackle costs of living, they vote Labor,” Mr Shorten replied. He promised to bring the price of health insurance premiums down while keeping energy bills down by backing a 50 per cent renewable energy target and at the same time restoring faith in the wages system.

But Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull brushed off the result in a seat where the Liberals didn’t even stand.

“I guess it tells you a lot about Bill Shorten’s situation that he’s crowing about holding a seat that the Labor Party have had for 50 years,” he said.

Treasurer Scott Morrison said the Batman election was about a race to the left and the Labor Party won.

“They are the most left political party in the country,” Mr Morrison told Sky News.

“I wouldn’t describe Batman as a mainstream electorate and if Bill Shorten wants to run the campaigning he ran in Batman around the rest of the country, I’d say ‘ bring it on Bill’.”

With the Liberals not fielding a candidate in Batman, the by- election was a test of whether the Greens’ march into inner- metropolitan seats would continue, or if Labor could successfully win back those voters.

In the event, the minor party blamed their loss on preferences to “hard- right” parties such as the Australian Conservatives.

Six- time Greens candidate Alex Bhathal did not say if she’d run again for the seat after conceding defeat.