The Albanese government is desperately targeting suburban women in order to avoid defeat

The election result will hinge on whether Labor can stop suburban women following their husbands and partners out the door or whether Dutton can convince them he won’t be an ogre.

It’s Victoria! It’s a state seat! It’s a by-election!

And anyway the Liberals tanked!

Labor folk wanting to downplay Saturday’s results in the People’s Republic have lots of arguments for why the terrible Labor performance has no federal implications.

And some of those arguments even have some merit.

Opposition Leader Brad Battin with new MP Rachel Westaway who won the Prahran by-election on Saturday. Picture: Valeriu Campan

In many ways Victoria is ‘different’, not only does Labor always win a majority of its federal seats, barring four years in the 2010s it’s had state Labor governments for more than 25 years.

And it is indeed the case that election results against unpopular long-term state governments don’t often translate into votes at a federal level.

Likewise you need to be careful extrapolating by-election results to a general election, let alone state by-election results to a federal election.

It’s true too that at the time of counting that while Labor’s primary vote was down by 16.7 per cent, only 3.7 per cent of it had gone to the Liberals.

Barring four years in the 2010s Victoria has had state Labor governments for more than 25 years. Picture: Valeriu Campan

But there’s one number in the Werribee result which should be scaring the living daylights out of federal Labor’s campaign HQ – their terrible primary vote.

At the time of writing at 28.7 per cent this will be Labor’s lowest ever winning primary in Victoria’s history.

There are three reasons why this should be scaring them.

The first is that by a strange coincidence it’s almost exactly the same as the 27 per cent which pollster RedBridge reckons is currently Labor’s primary in outer metropolitan areas around Australia.

Labor’s terrible primary vote in Werribee should be scaring the living daylights out of federal Labor’s campaign HQ. Picture: Ian Currie

The second is that on the evidence of Saturday, while Labor people can console themselves with the thought that although the voters in this outer suburban seat might be off them at least they’re not sold on the state Liberals, this isn’t true for Peter Dutton.

According to RedBridge, Dutton’s primary vote in outer metropolitan areas at the moment is a whopping 46 per cent, which even if you doubt translates into a two-party preferred vote of 55 per cent to 45 per cent – as the pollster does – would still see a swag of seats fall to the Coalition.

The third reason for federal Labor folk to be worried is that if RedBridge is right, their situation in outer metropolitan areas has become a lot worse in recent months.

Back in November at 32 per cent, Labor’s outer suburban primary was sort of holding up while the Coalition’s was ‘only’ on 40 per cent with Greens and Other on 13 per cent Green and 15 per cent, respectively.

Peter Dutton’s primary vote in outer metropolitan areas at the moment is a whopping 46 per cent. Picture: Martin Ollman

So in just three months Dutton’s primary has leapt a massive 6 per cent – 4 per cent of it from Labor and 2 per cent from Other.

As they say in politics, what matters is the trend and if the trend is your friend.

I’ve written before that for a party staring down defeat after only one term in government, Labor’s brains trust was taking its sweet time finding its line and length on Dutton.

But only weeks until polling day this might finally be changing.

In the past week Labor has released two TV ads targeting the Opposition Leader and I have to say they’re not bad.

The first starts with a blank screen which turns into a grid made up of all the things Labor has done to help people with the cost of living. These then flip around to reveal a picture of Dutton, who, it reminds voters, opposed every single one of them.

Not having a huge single achievement to point to the ad makes a virtue of necessity by pointing out “every little bit helps”.

The ad’s unstated message is “sure we might not have done enough on the cost of living but if you put them all together we’ve actually done more for you than you might think and if Dutton had his way you wouldn’t have got any of them”.

The final line is “You’ll be worse off under Dutton” which is a better and more direct version of Scott Morrison’s “Life won’t be easy under Albanese”.

The second released on Sunday, is the long-awaited ‘memories’ ad made up of the greatest hits of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments which focuses heavily on Peter Dutton’s time as health minister in which he tried to make people pay to see the doctor.

The focus on health in both ads is one level unsurprising – as I wrote recently – if Labor could make every election about Medicare it would – but it also speaks to the voters the government is desperately targeting in order to avoid defeat – namely suburban women.

In private, Labor insiders concede that at this point the battle for the blokes is largely over and unless something extraordinary happens Dutton has won it.

On the other hand Labor has younger tertiary educated women in the bag.

The election result will hinge on whether Labor can stop suburban women following their husbands and partners out the door or whether Dutton can convince them he won’t be an ogre.

Originally published as The Albanese government is desperately targeting suburban women in order to avoid defeat