Kristina Keneally confirms lower house move, as factional feud trumps diversity

Scotland Island, in Sydney’s wealthy northern beaches, is an exclusive community accessible only by ferry. It’s where Labor Senator Kristina Keneally lives, and it’s a world away from Fowler, the south-west Sydney electorate that is one of the most multicultural in the country.

This morning Keneally confirmed the rumours were true: she is running in Fowler, replacing retiring MP Chris Hayes. For Labor it’s a quick fix, endorsed by NSW factional heavies that solves a messy battle over Senate ticket order, and puts Keneally, one of its strongest parliamentary performers this term, in the lower house. 

But to those outside the party machine (and even some within), her appointment is a huge missed opportunity to improve diversity in federal Parliament, and an insult to the people of south-west Sydney.

Star power v factions

Labor has always wanted Keneally in the House of Representatives. As NSW premier, Keneally took the fall for a deeply rotten Labor government at the 2011 election. Years of smart television punditry were enough to wash away the stench of Eddie Obeid and Joe Tripodi, as Labor made her its star candidate to run in the safe Liberal seat of Bennelong at a 2017 byelection.

Despite an energetic campaign, Keneally fell well short. As luck would have it, former senator Sam Dastyari had fallen from grace over China ties around the same time, and within a month Keneally replaced him in the Senate.

Since then, her rise through the ranks in federal politics has been swift. But that rise has often upset the delicate factional balancing act that runs the ALP, where personal favours and arcane alliances are so often prioritised over talent and merit. 

Keneally’s emergence as one of Bill Shorten’s go-to attack dogs in the 2019 election was a rare positive takeaway from that doomed campaign. It meant Opposition Leader Albanese wanted her on his frontbench from the outset. That demand was, rather absurdly, opposed by her own NSW right faction because a promotion would have come at the cost of demoting one of its current frontbenchers. Eventually it was resolved by Ed Husic, a well-liked western Sydney MP and Australia’s first Muslim parliamentarian who stepped aside for Keneally.

As Labor’s home affairs spokeswoman, Keneally has been a strong Senate performer for the party. She’s got a keen eye for turning an estimates soundbite viral. But once again, her future came up against factions. She didn’t have the numbers to budge Deborah O’Neill (exactly the point if you don’t know who that is), also from the right, from the top position on the NSW Senate ticket. O’Neill has the backing of the powerful Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association. Number two on the ticket is kept for the left, in this case Jenny McAllister. The third spot hasn’t won since 2007. 

Diversity takes the fall

In a statement Keneally said she was there to fight for the community of south-west Sydney: “I want to step up and fight for Fowler in the House of Representatives, for every suburb, every faith community, every small business, every family.”

But parachuting in a favoured candidate could alienate many. Labor’s solving its factional bunfight means Tu Le, a young Vietnamese-Australian backed by Hayes to run in the seat that includes Cabramatta, could miss out.

“She has no connection at all to the community,” Le said of Keneally yesterday. 

Just last year, Keneally courted controversy by calling for Australia to reduce its temporary migration intake after the pandemic, arguing Australians “should get a fair go and a first go at jobs”.

Osmond Chiu, a research fellow at progressive think tank Per Capita, says the angst wasn’t so much about whether Keneally would be a good MP, but that it symbolised how pursuing diversity in Australian politics is always sacrificed.

“If diversity doesn’t even matter in the most diverse seat in Australia, when is it going to matter?” he said.

Some of Chiu’s recent research found state parliaments are lagging behind on racial and cultural diversity compared with their counterparts in the UK, US and Canada. So far, Australia’s 47th Parliament is unlikely to bring a significant improvement on cultural diversity. 

Fowler is just the kind of seat where the party of multiculturalism could try to reflect the community. Instead, as Le said, Labor’s diverse voters continue to be taken for granted.

But this kind of short-termism could seriously hurt the party: Labor’s vote went backwards in the multicultural Sydney suburbs at the last state and federal elections. The Liberals are watching closely, and are starting to preselect more culturally diverse candidates in that old heartland.

Chiu says there’s a misconception that preselection issues like this only anger party insiders. Instead, it does longer- term harm to the party’s reputation among a generation of non-white voters: “There’s a failure to understand the message it sends, especially to a new generation of younger people from those backgrounds, that organised politics isn’t for them.”

What do you think of Kristina Keneally being given an easy ride into the lower house? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name if you would like to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say column. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.