Article by Katharine Murphy, Political Editor, The Guardian Australia
You can read article excerpts relating to Zoe here:
The former ABC journalist Zoe Daniel is running against Liberal Tim Wilson in the seat of Goldstein. When I put this view from Liberals to her, she is surprised. “I don’t get any sense of anything going off the boil. The only thing I’d say is it was Christmas and new year. Everyone was engaged in their holidays then getting kids back to school. I’ve detected in the last week a real resetting – people saying ‘let’s go, we are going sprint from here to the election’.”
I ask whether locals are negative about Morrison. “Yeah, I think so. There’s a trust gap and the trust gap continues to widen,” Daniel says. “There is definitely an anti-Scott Morrison sentiment among a lot of the people I talk to.
“My husband and I went up the street and had a glass of wine with some of the residents up the hill and there were about 15 people there and they were all older, long-term residents of Goldstein, lifelong Liberal voters. I think of the 15 of them, only one had decided not to vote for me. That person had a personal relationship with the incumbent.
“That, to me, was really interesting, that those people of a particular older conservative demographic who have voted a particular way forever, had decided to vote differently because of their frustration on the integrity issue and the trust issue.”
She thinks the coming election will be a referendum on the government, and on politics as usual. “People are really over it. They feel like the status quo is not good enough and they want something different. They are looking for sincerity and honesty and accountability.
“The main thing you get from people when you talk to them in the street is that shake of the head, of ‘Oh God, we’ve got to change something … we want someone who will get in there and speak for us sincerely’. That comes across incredibly strongly, even when I talk to people who have voted Liberal all their lives, which is a lot of people in this electorate.”
