Former head of Australian Medical Association is advising supporters to preference Dave Sharma ahead of Tim Murray

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The independent candidate Dr Kerryn Phelps has backflipped and is now urging supporters to preference the Liberal party ahead of Labor as the battle heats up in Malcolm Turnbull’s former seat of Wentworth.

Phelps, the former head of the Australian Medical Association, said on Friday she would issue how-to-vote cards advising supporters to preference the Liberal candidate Dave Sharma ahead of Labor’s Tim Murray.

At her campaign launch on Sunday, Phelps had urged voters to put the Liberal party last but had not announced any formal preference deals.

“It’s really important you send that message that they know that Canberra needs to be a voice for the people,” she said on Sunday.

Kerryn Phelps: a liberal alternative or the voice of Wentworth voters' fury? Read more

Phelp’s unexpected change of heart on preferences came as reporters were waiting in Double Bay for a news conference with the prime minister, Scott Morrison, and Sharma.

While the Liberal candidate chatted with the owner and patrons at a cafe where the news conference was due to take place, Morrison did not turn up and Phelps arrived instead.

It’s unclear why the media event was cancelled after the unexpected arrival of Phelps, who operates a GP surgery 400 metres away.

She told the media she now believed it was important to hand out a how-to-vote card given the number of candidates running. Labor’s Murray and the independent investment manager Licia Heath are among 11 people who have announced their candidacy.

Phelps said she was a “true independent” and rejected claims of connections with the Labor party, after it was revealed her campaign was being coordinated by the former Labor strategist Darrin Barnett.

The cancellation of the news conference with the prime minister came at the end of a tough week for Sharma, who was forced to issue “an unreserved apology” for an opinion piece written this year in which he suggested teachers were “underemployed”.

“School employees and teachers are similarly underemployed, working hours closer to three-quarters of a regular full-time job,” he wrote in a Fairfax publication in June.

The former ambassador to Israel tweeted mid-week: “My main point was to Q [question] whether school as structured serves needs of modern society. Comment about teachers unfair & unwarranted.”

The Liberal party has never lost the seat of Wentworth, which goes to the polls on 20 October.



