Lanai Scarr: As postal votes begin to arrive in homes, the PM’s truth on preference deals will unfold

This week postal vote forms will start being delivered to the homes of voters who have registered to vote early or remotely. Once received by voters, it will be the real kick-off of the election, with people able to choose who they want to run the nation for the next three years. What will also be tested is Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s pledge that he would not do any preference deals with Clive Palmer anywhere across the country. Possibly the most hated man in WA, Clive Palmer is running candidates in every electorate around the country and he is seeking a Senate seat for himself in Queensland. The eccentric mining magnate tried to tear down WA’s hard border in the midst of COVID, attempted to sue the WA Government for $30 billion and is locked in a legal suit with Premier Mark McGowan. Palmer has poured enormous advertising dollars into his campaign, regularly buying space in newspapers — including The West Australian — and running ads on television and radio. After having a taste of Parliament as the member for Fairfax in 2013, the 68-year-old has enlisted ousted Liberal MP for Hughes Craig Kelly to run his team. Palmer was also credited by some with helping Morrison secure his “miracle” election win in 2019 against the odds, due to preference deals. He sunk $80 million into the campaign in 2019 against former Labor leader Bill Shorten. During his first visit back to WA after the hard border opened, the Prime Minister ruled out doing preference deals with Palmer. “I don’t believe there will be a deal,” Morrison said. “It is a matter for the party organisation. But, no, I don’t believe there will be a deal and that is certainly not my expectation and it is certainly not my request.” Last week Morrison reiterated that pledge in Perth when asked if the Coalition would do a preference deal with Palmer. “No. I made that clear when I was last in Western Australia,” he said. When postal vote forms hit the mailboxes of those who have registered for them and parties and candidates distribute their how-to-vote cards separately (they never come directly from the independent Australian Electoral Commission), it will be a key test of whether Morrison was telling the truth. Labor has been running a strong campaign on the Prime Minister not being able to be trusted with social media ads, pitting Anthony Albanese next to Morrison with the words Leader vs Liar. Preference deals now only relate to the how-to-vote cards people get on their way into polling booths or with postal votes. If Liberal Party how-to-vote cards preference Palmer in any way, it will be a broken promise by the Prime Minister. Some think the furore that has been allowed to simmer around Warringah candidate Katherine Deves is all part of a strategy to help the PM keep a pledge to not preference Palmer (nor One Nation, though there has been no public commentary that the Liberals would not do that) but still show conservative voters Morrison won’t “silence” their views and he’s a safe choice. Warringah — the electorate on Sydney’s northern beaches — might be 3945km from Perth but it has been a national electorate on the radar of West Australians for a long time. Former prime minister Tony Abbott held the seat from 1994 and lost it in 2019 to Olympian Zali Steggall. Warringah had been held by independents previously but it had been “Liberal Blue” since 1969. There was talk former NSW premier Mike Baird would return to politics and run in the seat. But when his protege Gladys Berejiklian stepped down as NSW premier amid a corruption investigation, the Federal secretariat saw a chance to install a high-profile woman in Warringah. Berejiklian declined yet the party wanted to pick a woman because, as one Liberal put it, “we know we have a woman problem”. “The thought was that (Deves’) social media comments would not create that much of a storm and she would help claw back support but probably not win,” one Liberal said. But Deves has created a distraction for the Prime Minister that he is “allowing” to play out, Liberals have said. Her comments about the trans community, linking trans people to serial killers and trans activists to the Nazis, have angered many and created a firestorm of questions the PM hasn’t been able to escape. The West’s editorial on Monday put it best: “The cruel reality is that because of this debate some trans kids will self-harm.” The blunt reality is Palmer and One Nation are chipping away at votes and the Liberal Party can’t join them so they want to beat them. Internal polling has shown the PM’s lines around not silencing Deves and making sure people can have a say on what they believe has played really well in the electorate and in other parts of the country. So much so, some are even tipping Deves could pull off her own “miracle” win and insulate other conservative electorates nationally in the process. She could even help electorates such as Swan, where the Liberals are battling to hold on to the seat with a margin of 3.2 per cent as MP Steve Irons retires. Watch this space. Lanai Scarr is The West Australian’s Federal Political Editor