The party knows why Kristina Keneally lost her bid for a lower house seat — but the woman who trumped her says it missed a crucial detail.
When Labor examined what went wrong when it ran then senator Kristina Keneally in Fowler, it missed a crucial detail, says Dai Le, the independent who won the seat in May.
Labor analysis of the 2022 election released earlier this week mentions Fowler more than a dozen times, describing the loss of the western Sydney seat as a wake-up call for the party and a reminder that “no seat is safe”. But nowhere in the analysis does it mention that Keneally, who lives on an island in Sydney’s northern beaches, was an outsider to the community.
“It was a major factor,” Le told Crikey. “When you’re in the polling booth, so many people said [about Keneally]: ‘What do you know about our area? We’ve never seen you here.’
Discussion about this post