Liberals hit back at election review ‘whitewash’ that attempts to blame incumbents for losing seats

Liberals have hit back at their party's election review, calling it a "whitewash" designed to shift blame on to defeated MPs in order to downplay the unpopularity of Scott Morrison.

Despite the review acknowledging that the choice between Morrison and Anthony Albanese was "the most influential driver of voting intention", critics have taken aim at a controversial finding that "some (not all) local members did not maximise the advantages of incumbency".

"The standing of a number of incumbent MPs in key seats was not what should be expected leading into a campaign," it said.

The comments appear to blame six MPs defeated by teal independent candidates for succumbing to "a very sophisticated and well-resourced grassroots activist network" in previously safe inner-city seats.

"There were clearly challenges in the last term of parliament, such as Covid restrictions, but to suggest for a second we lost to teals because of issues with incumbents papers over the more substantial problems of policy and leadership the party faces."

The review acknowledged that teals contested some "seats with incumbents either diverted by senior parliamentary positions, [or] where lockdowns may have limited traditional opportunities for direct voter contact".

That comment softens the blow for Melbourne-based former deputy leader, Josh Frydenberg, in Kooyong and assistant energy minister Tim Wilson in Goldstein, but appears to cast more blame on MPs in Sydney, where Trent Zimmerman, Jason Falinski and Dave Sharma lost to teal opponents.

One former Liberal MP said the review appeared to be a "whitewash exercise" designed to support a narrative that "we only lost the Climate 200 targeted seats because the local members were so bad".

"Every single one of the people who lost metro seats added to the Liberal party vote substantively, while the Liberal brand itself was a drag on the vote," they claimed.

The former MP pointed to similar results in Higgins, lost to Labor, and Brisbane and Ryan, lost to the Greens, despite "very popular" local members.

The former MP said the Liberal campaign "didn't see Climate 200 and the Greens coming", instead focusing resources on traditional Liberal-Labor marginals such as Longman.

"We could've saved a lot of these seats if we pumped up the local members.

"The problem was the party had decided to run a presidential campaign around one of most unpopular leaders in Australian history."

The former MP said the Liberals had for 30 years "constantly wedged the Labor party and its blue-collar base" but was caught unprepared when its conservative and liberal constituencies were divided, losing the votes of professionals and women.

The former MP said although teal MPs' ground game had helped, demographics that turned against the Liberals delivered similarly large swings in seats like Paul Fletcher's Bradfield and Dan Tehan's Wannon where the independents were not as high profile.

The review recommended a "minimum work program" for incumbent MPs, including voter contact efforts and an active social media presence.

It also called on the party to redouble efforts to win back teal seats, including collecting "all available public information on the teal campaign, the voting record of teal MPs, their social media and other comments".

On Friday, Fletcher, the manager of opposition business, told ABC radio the Liberals were "out-campaigned" by the teals, particularly in digital campaigns.

"There was a huge amount of money being spent in individual teal seats," he said.

This "unprecedented" spending included $2m on Monique Ryan's campaign in Kooyong and $1.38m on Kylea Tink's campaign in North Sydney.

The Albanese government has said it intends to legislate spending and donation caps after a review of the 2022 election, prompting complaints from fundraising vehicle Climate 200 that measures to lift independents' profile will be limited while major parties benefit from incumbency.

The review claimed that "from a campaigning perspective, the 'Teals' are not a series of 'independent' entities" - citing shared resources, polling and messaging.

"They are, for all intents and purposes, and by any meaningful interpretation of the term, a political party and should be treated as such going forward."

Climate 200 has consistently denied coordinating the independents' campaigns, explaining its role was limited to supporting candidates chosen by community groups.