Federal election 2016: WA MP Andrew Hastie condemns out of touch Liberal campaign, by Jared Owens.

Liberal MP Andrew Hastie has excoriated the Coalition’s innovation-focused campaign strategy for alienating grassroots conservatives while being “disconnected” from the experience of swinging voters.

The Perth-based MP for Canning told his local newspaper he threw aside his party-issued talking points after struggling to answer a middle-income father’s questions about how the government’s policies would help his family.

“It was at that point I realised that a lot of what we were campaigning on nationally just wasn’t resonating with everyday Australians,” Mr Hastie told the Mandurah Mail, noting his seat was “not going to be the next Silicon Valley. He couldn’t understand the reason for company tax cuts, he wasn’t earning enough to benefit from the increased tax thresholds and he wasn’t an innovator – he was just an everyday Australian who was trying to pay down his mortgage and look after his children and ensure they had a brighter future.