Turnbull Signals Liberals Won’t Contest Batman Byelection
Malcolm Turnbull has said he does not expect the Liberals to field a candidate in the Batman byelection, a move that would help the Greens take the seat and increase pressure on Bill Shorten.
With Parliament set to return on Monday, Mr Turnbull gave a wideranging interview to the ABC’s Insiders programme in which he held out hopes for wage growth in 2018 and defended Liberal MP Jason Falinski after Labor obtained legal advice claiming he has dual Polish citizenship.
Mr Turnbull also said that the sale of confidential documents in a second-hand filing cabinet was a “shocking failure” that should cost those responsible their jobs. The Batman byelection, triggered by Labor MP David Feeney’s resignation over dual citizenship, will be a test for Shorten, who hopes that the Australian Council of Trade Unions president, Ged Kearney, can win the seat despite a rising Greens vote.
Yesterday Turnbull said he did not “expect we will be running a candidate in the Batman byelection” but it was up to the Victorian division of the Liberal party to decide. Mr Turnbull did not deny the move was designed to help the Greens defeat Labor and noted it was a political decision based on “priorities and limited resources”. The Prime Minister accused Shorten of “moving further and further to the left ... [throwing] workers, jobs and traditional Labor supporters under the bus in his desperation to hang on to inner-city seats here in Melbourne”. Mr Shorten led the “most leftwing, anti-business, anti-jobs Labor party ... we’ve seen in generations”, he said.