Peta Credlin: Polls can’t predict it: Election still wide open

With four weeks to go to the federal election no one can predict the outcome. It’s all up grabs, writes Peta Credlin.

With four weeks to go anyone who says they can predict the outcome of the federal election now is kidding themselves.

In 2010, Tony Abbott lost every poll but won more seats in the end than Labor - although Julia Gillard won the crossbench negotiation in that hung parliament.

Scott Morrison, too, never won a poll in 2019 but won the election. Believe me, it is all up grabs.

Both Dutton and Albanese are on the election campaign trail but it was Dutton’s campaign that hit top gear last Friday with a media event at a servo in Western Sydney.

It reinforced the key contrast between the two sides: the Coalition will cut the petrol tax in half on day one; but all Labor will do is take 70c a day off your tax in 15 months’ time.

It was savvy call from Peter Dutton to cut fuel tax rather than match Labor’s piddling tax cut, because there are few places where cost of living pressure is more obvious than at the bowser.

Unlike the inner-city where car use is declining, the seats that Dutton must win are the places where people spend a lot of time in their car on the daily commute or getting kids around, it’s where ute-dependent tradies live, and where two-three car households are the norm. Better yet, the more you drive, the more you will save.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton will cut the petrol tax in half on day one. Picture: Thomas Lisson/NewsWire

This is going to be a powerful message, especially in outer-metropolitan and regional Australia. With a 12 per cent swing required, the outer-Adelaide seat of Spence looks like a herculean task for Liberal candidate Daniel Wild.

But not only is this the Labor seat with the biggest No vote in the Voice referendum (over 70 per cent), it’s also the most car-dependent seat in the country. Some 72 per cent of Spence residents drive to work, 54 per cent of households have two cars, 20 per cent have three or more, and fully 98 per of their cars have petrol or diesel engines.

Properly pushed by a strong grassroots campaign, this fuel tax cut should make Labor’s traditional working-class seats vulnerable.

Peter Dutton aims to win seats where people spend a lot of time in their car on the daily commute. Picture: Max Mason-Hubers

Can the Coalition make the message simpler to cut through? Yes, and that’s starting to happen.

● Cut the fuel tax in half.

● Fix the energy mess.

● End Labor’s Big Australia

● A fair go on housing, and

● The strong leadership Australia needs

Watch Peta on Credlin on Sky News, weeknights at 6pm

Originally published as Peta Credlin: Polls can’t predict it: Election still wide open