Anthony Albanese will happily bank a relatively comfortable win in the seat of Dunkley as a down payment on Labor’s stocks improving into this year.

A 3.6 per cent swing against the government will produce nothing like the euphoria of the remarkable swing towards it to win another Victorian byelection in the seat of Aston less than a year ago. But it will provide Labor a great sense of relief that its slide down the polls has steadied, well short of electoral damnation for the government, or salvation for the Coalition.