Labor had a hip-pocket agenda on chips and Oreos. Dutton and war cut in

As the world moved towards the first anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attacks and the Middle East spiralled toward ever greater conflict this week, federal Labor tried desperately to keep the focus on domestic issues. It knows voters care deeply about the high cost of living and it had the perfect symbols as proof: allegedly overpriced Oreos and half-empty chip packets.

But with the year-long conflict in Gaza expanding to Lebanon, Labor’s hopes of a ceasefire taking the heat out of the issue in Australia withered. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton instead managed to force Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to take what he framed as moral values tests.

Peter Dutton laid a political trap that Anthony Albanese walked right into this week.Credit:

Will you expel the Hezbollah-supporting Iranian ambassador? Should a Hamas sympathiser be denied a visa as a matter of course? Will parliament be recalled to pass even tougher laws against hate speech, even before the current ones have been tested?

As with other issues such as social media controls, Dutton is setting the terms for Australia’s national discussion.

Keeping discussion on the Middle East suits the Coalition because Albanese is walking a very difficult road as he tries to satisfy members of the public who support Israel’s actions as well as those wholly against them. September data from this masthead’s Resolve Political Monitor shows Albanese’s personal popularity is slipping, putting him level with Dutton. The many Australians who do not prioritise issues in the Middle East are still left watching Labor ministers duck and weave.

On Monday, Albanese briefly addressed the Middle East in generic terms without mentioning Hezbollah before moving on the next day to the kind of “announceable” this government likes to use set the agenda. In the past, it has been childcare worker wage hikes and housing equity schemes. This week it was more money for the consumer watchdog to take on supermarkets’ unit pricing strategies, tying the government to the regulator’s popular lawsuit over allegedly fake discounts on things like Oreos.

But Albanese and his office seemed unaware he already had one foot laid in the Coalition’s trap. Debate on local support for Hezbollah was already two days old. While the Palestinian question is totemic for many Muslim voters, Israel moving into Lebanon, where tens of thousands of Australians have relatives, has made the politics even more diabolical for the government.

In the Tuesday press conference in Melbourne, Albanese’s preamble was devoted to “shrinkflation”. He addressed the protests and widening Middle East war only when asked. In the prime minister’s answer, he said terror symbols were unacceptable and leant on Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke’s threat to cancel visas of any protester spreading “hate”.

Burke, however, had downplayed that threat in an ABC interview earlier that day, claiming his threat was simply a response to a newspaper inquiry.

As Albanese tried to focus on day-to-day domestic affairs, world leaders including the UK’s Keir Starmer were giving set-piece addresses to their nations about the war.

Albanese spent two days in Melbourne this week, visiting a childcare centre and talking to young families as debate raged about the widening war in the Middle East.Credit: Chris Hopkins

By Thursday, Labor ministers were still sticking to talking points and Albanese’s social media posts were showing chip packets with more air in them than crisps. Shrinkflation at work.

If Labor hardheads thought they could win the week by sticking to voters’ top concern, the cost of living, and speaking as little as possible about the conflict, persistent front pages on the Middle East suggest they were wrong.

Dutton’s unwavering support for Israel is not without risk for him as he tries to grow the Coalition’s base in migrant communities, with a chance his strategy could be seen as cynical. In a recent sitting week some Coalition MPs grumbled about Dutton’s lack of focus on the economy. Senior Coalition figures reassured them, saying voters would only remember the government getting stuck in the Middle East trap, not who laid it.

It is hard to remember Dutton ever urging Israel to hold back in its operations, despite thousands of casualties. Conservatives like NZ’s Christopher Luxon, Donald Trump and the UK’s David Cameron have all been critical of Israel at times.

Labor has a case to make when it questions if Dutton’s “kerosene” aligns with ASIO’s pleadings to avoid inflaming tensions over the war. But his support for Israel is sincere. And Dutton has signalled he believes any risks are outweighed by the benefits of tarnishing a first-term PM.

“There’s a real contrast now between the weakness of the prime minister and the approach I have taken,” Dutton said in an August interview with Melbourne radio presenter Neil Mitchell.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong has been trying to build up the government’s pro-Palestine credentials, as she did in a UN speech last week, while using strong language against the malign influence of Iran. Yet without direct language and a clear moral stance from the top of the Albanese government, the Coalition’s attacks will continue to stick.

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