Paul Erickson ‘completely comfortable’ with Labor’s Dutton ‘scare campaign’

Labor’s election mastermind is confident ads warning voters Peter Dutton would cut health services to pay for nuclear would “sail through” any truth in political advertising test.

Labor’s election mastermind is confident ads warning voters Peter Dutton would cut health services to pay for nuclear would “sail through” any truth in political advertising test, despite the Coalition branding the attacks a false “scare campaign”.

ALP national secretary Paul Erickson, the campaign director behind Labor’s historic 2025 victory, defended the party’s broadscale ad campaign linking Mr Dutton’s nuclear plan to the risk reducing Medicare services, despite the Coalition ruling out health cuts.

Labor national secretary and election campaign director Paul Erickson gives his Campaign Director's address to the National Press Club in Canberra. Picture: NewsWire/Martin Ollman

Liberals claim Labor’s false assertions Mr Dutton planned to shut down Medicare Urgent Care Clinics in order to fund nuclear reactors were a factor in their huge election loss.

But Mr Erickson said he was “completely comfortable” with Labor’s approach, as Mr Dutton had gone to the election “refusing” to outline what he would cut to pay for nuclear.

The Coalition had costed the plan to build seven nuclear reactors at $331 billion, but Labor used an inflated figure of $600bn in its attacks.

Mr Erickson said establishing rules around truth in political advertising was a part of Labor’s national platform, but there were some “very big questions” around protecting free speech to be considered.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the National Press Club. Picture: NewsWire/Martin Ollman

“But I’m sure that all of the ads that we ran in this campaign would have sailed through a truth in political advertising frame work, because we are really very comfortable with the argument we were putting forward,” he said.

Senior Liberal Senator James Paterson, who was the Coalition’s campaign spokesman during the election, said Labor ran a “devastating character assassination” of Mr Dutton.

“They painted him to be a caricature of what he is not, but we, as a Liberal Party, have got a responsibility to much more effectively respond to that in the future,” he said.

Speaking at the National Press Club on Wednesday, Mr Erickson said his party’s research in the closing week of the campaign found voters believed Labor was “more focused on the issues that mattered to them”.

ALP national secretary Paul Erickson, the campaign director behind Labor’s historic 2025 victory, has also highlighted public mistrust of Opposition leader Peter Dutton as a key factor in the party’s win. Picture: NewsWire/Martin Ollman

He said the polling also showed Australians believed Labor was the “best party to make them personally better off over the next three years”, by a margin of 12 points.

Voters also believed the Coalition had made “more promises they couldn’t afford” and had run the “more negative campaign”.

Mr Erickson said as Mr Dutton grappled with policy backflips and struggled to cut through, Anthony Albanese, who attended the speech, put in a strong performance.

“At a presentational level, the Prime Minister’s campaigning was exemplary,” he said.

Mr Erickson said Labor’s strategy over three years was to provide cost living relief, “weather the storm” of the global inflation surge, kickstart the shift to renewables and lay the groundwork for long term reform.

He contrasted this with what he saw as the Coalition’s strategy under Mr Dutton, which was firstly maintain unity “at all costs”.

“(This meant) internally the lowest common denominator always won out,” Mr Erickson said.

He said the second pillar of the Coalition’s approach was to oppose everything put forward by Labor in the belief it would be easier to prosecute the case the Albanese Government was not successfully dealing with major challenges.

And, thirdly, he observed the Liberals wanted to “trade in” their middle-class supporters in urban electorates for a path to victory build on “frustration with inflation in the outer suburbs and the regions”.

Originally published as Paul Erickson ‘completely comfortable’ with Labor’s Dutton ‘scare campaign’