(Image: Tom Red/Private Media)

Scott Morrison is desperate to draft former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian as the Liberal Party’s star candidate to win back the blue-ribbon seat of Warringah.

“I think she’d be great,” the prime minister said yesterday. “I think, as I’ve said before, the way that Gladys Berejiklian has been treated over these events, I think has been shameful.”

Berejiklian quit state politics in October after the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption announced it was investigating whether she had breached public trust during her secret relationship with disgraced former MP Daryl Maguire.

Since then, Morrison and senior Liberals have repeatedly attacked the process that led to her (voluntary) political demise; yesterday Morrison called it a “pile-on”. From almost the moment she quit as premier, they’ve been pushing to parachute her into Warringah. This morning The Australian reported Morrison intervened to delay preselections for Warringah, giving time for the ICAC’s potential findings against Berejiklian to become clearer.

The Coalition’s desperation to run a candidate with serious integrity issues makes sense as an act of cynical politicking. Before Berejiklian’s career went up in ICAC, she was immensely popular in NSW, more so than Morrison, as most premiers have been in their home states.

The goodwill she built up by giving people a relatively normal 2020 was durable, withstanding the devastating Delta outbreak and long winter lockdowns. And it could withstand ICAC too. A recent Essential poll found 42% of voters in NSW believed she had been treated unfairly, 29% disagreed, and 29% were undecided. Polling conducted by Resolve found Berejiklian’s net favourability had rebounded to +31%, about where it had been pre-resignation — numbers Morrison or Anthony Albanese would both dream of.

Berejiklian is probably far less popular in other states, particularly in Victoria, where there is a perception that her government’s missteps in June this year allowed Delta to spread around the country. 

But while “prime minister for NSW” is a mocking jibe concocted by Morrison’s political opponents, it’s a pretty accurate description of the government’s reelection strategy.

Since May it has identified NSW as the state which will decide its political hopes. The Coalition is at its electoral peak in Queensland, and will probably lose ground in Victoria and Western Australia. In NSW, it stands to gain ground. If Berejiklian can beat independent Zali Stegall and return Warringah to the party that’s held it for decades, it puts less pressure on the Liberals to win tough traditional marginals like Dobell and Gilmore. 

And more broadly, the logic is that putting a popular former premier on the ballot could reverberate well beyond the northern beaches, and help soften the Morrison government’s image among female voters. But they might not all be good reverberations for the Liberals. Berejiklian’s integrity issues are a pretty easy line of attack for Labor, particularly given the government’s failure to make good on a promise to legislate for a federal ICAC.

Integrity and climate are key to the campaigns of independents trying to unseat moderate Liberals in affluent parts of Sydney and Melbourne. Those parts of Sydney are probably where Berejiklian is most popular, but also where her presence could fire up those independent campaigns and force the Liberals to spread resources towards defending seats they’ve never had to fight for.

But head to western Sydney — to the suburbs which faced a far tougher, more aggressively policed lockdown than anywhere else in the state — and Berejiklian probably has less of a halo. There the Delta outbreak won’t be quickly forgotten. It’s possible Berejiklian could become a liability for the Liberals in marginal western Sydney seats like Reid, Banks, Lindsay and Macquarie. 

It’s cynical politics which has led the Liberals to attack ICAC and return to Berejiklian so soon after her fall from grace. But it’s a risky move, which might be too cynical even for the electorate. 

Can Berejiklian rise from the ashes? 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.