Dutton’s suddenly electable, but here’s why he’ll struggle to become PM

Peter Dutton on Thursday challenged Anthony Albanese to call an election immediately “to put Australians out of their misery and allow a competent Coalition government to get our country back on track”. This is classic opposition end-of-year bravado. As Albanese pointed out, it’d fire a political torpedo into the New Year holidays, hardly a winning tactic. The next federal election will be upon us soon enough.

Let’s forgo the Canberra fetish of speculating about the exact election date. The prime minister hasn’t actually decided it yet, so there is no more futile activity than guessing it. We do know that it’ll be somewhere between March and May.

Illustration by Joe Benke

So how are the parties positioning for the election? The tale of this term so far is a story in three parts, as sketched by the pollster for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Jim Reed of Resolve Strategic: “For almost the first year, Albanese was flying high.”

Until the Voice referendum. “That hit Labor pretty hard. They were seen to be distracted and less competent. The second year was the year of Albanese’s decline. It was pretty steep – he went from a net performance rating of positive 27 per cent last May to minus 11 this May.”

And the third year, so far, “is the story of Peter Dutton’s ascension. While Albanese has stayed in the minus teens, to just about everybody’s surprise Dutton has gone from a net performance of minus 21 per cent to positive 5.”

The damage to Labor from the Voice has endured and unhappiness over inflation has accumulated, while Dutton gradually has built a public perception of “strong values and strong communication”, as Reed summarises it.

“Perhaps the times suit him,” as most people suffer from inflation pressures. This, in turn, invites voters to act on the Coalition’s perceived advantage as economic manager. The old notion nurtured by the left, its security blanket that Dutton is unelectable, is now insupportable.

One critical advantage that Albanese holds? Nobody hates him. For all the reservations about his leadership, the “voters still think he’s a nice guy, they like him”, says Reed, who conducts focus groups – qualitative polling – as well as quantitative polling.

The Coalition has sorted through the anti-Albo slurs from its own focus groups and settled on two – “weak and incompetent”. From Labor’s focus groups, the party has drawn this conclusion: “Anthony is still seen as a regular bloke, a nice guy, but people want to see what he’s got to offer.”

This is very different to the 2022 election, for instance, when the then PM, Scott Morrison, was widely detested. No one wanted to hear what he might have to offer unless it was his resignation. This time, the people are not brooding with murderous intent.

Peter Dutton is neck and neck with Anthony Albanese as preferred PM, but he will need to win many seats to get the top job.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

What about the excited coverage of Albanese’s $4.3 million house purchase? It certainly wasn’t a positive for him, but neither party has detected any enduring damage to his standing as a result of this. “Man buys house” seems to summarise the event.

The coverage of his favours from Qantas made a bigger impact. Jim Reed thinks it has undercut his battler background image of being raised in public housing: “He’s used to the finer things in life.” Will it influence any votes on election day? Reed can’t predict.

Overall? “The net effect is that the main parties are neck-and-neck” in the election-deciding measure of the two-party-preferred vote, explains Reed. And the two leaders happen to be neck-and-neck, too, on the question of who’s the preferred prime minister. It’s currently a 50:50 matchup. This puts a premium on the campaign.

If Albanese had accepted Dutton’s dare and called the election immediately, we already know the slogan the Liberals would have been using today. They’ve been road-testing it for a few months now: “Can you afford another three years of Labor?”

Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Friday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

These eight words are a powerful rubric, freighted with a great deal of popular discontent. They convey the widespread unhappiness with falling living standards that inflation has imposed. It’s a slogan that also invokes the multiple elements of the cost-of-living crisis – unaffordable housing, expensive groceries, costly electricity. The Trump election win slammed home the heavy weight of incumbency in an era of inflation. Incumbency conventionally has been seen as a lifebuoy, but now seems a millstone.

One of the most influential epistles written after the US election was a piece in the Financial Times titled: “Democrats join 2024’s graveyard of incumbents”. Author John Burn-Murdoch wrote: “The incumbents in every single one of the 10 major countries that have been tracked by the ParlGov global research project and held national elections in 2024 were given a kicking by voters. This is the first time this has ever happened in almost 120 years of records.”

He cited the examples of the US, Britain, France, Japan and India and concluded with this counsel of despair: “It’s possible there is just no set of policies or personas that can overcome the current global anti-incumbent wave.”

Should Albanese start writing his concession speech now? There are several key points that argue against anti-incumbent fatalism.

First is to note that while the 10 incumbent governments all suffered setbacks, they didn’t all lose. India’s Narendra Modi lost his majority but formed a coalition and retained power. Likewise, the party that ruled Japan before the election still rules Japan, but the Liberal Democratic Party now rules in a coalition. Losing seats doesn’t necessarily mean losing power. It depends on the size of the swing.

Second, Labor is close to losing its majority but the Coalition is far from winning one. This paradox is explained by the numbers in the House. In a chamber where 76 seats are needed for a majority, Labor holds 78. If it loses a mere three seats it loses its majority. But the Coalition holds a notional 58. So Dutton needs to gain a swag of 18 seats to win a majority. So Albanese is close to the cliff’s edge, but Dutton is a long way from the top.

Put another way, the government would lose its majority with a uniform swing against it of a mere 1 percentage point in the two-party preferred vote. But the Coalition would need a uniform swing of at least 3.5 percentage points in its favour to win. That’s why, as things stand, the most likely outcome in Australia is for Labor to lose its majority but continue in power as a minority government.

Third, many of the 10 national governments that took a hit in elections this year were in their senescence. Portugal’s Socialists had been in power for nine years. Modi had been prime minister for a decade. Japan’s Liberal Democrats had been in power for a dozen years, and near-continuously since 1955. Britain’s Tories had been in office for 14 years. These governments were all in power during the pandemic. They could have expected big losses in any case.

Albanese is close to the cliff’s edge, but Dutton is a long way from the top.

Albanese will go to the people after only three years in office. And recall that for the past 92 years – since the Great Depression – the Australian electorate always has given a new federal government at least two terms. Precedents are not predictions, but they’re a guide.

Fourth, Labor is not sitting idly waiting for fate. Contrary to public impression, it’s been a very active government and will run a vigorous campaign. It’s starting-point problem is that while it has done a great deal, no one seems to know.

It’s already given tax cuts worth $23 billion a year, cheaper childcare, cheaper medicines, energy bill rebates, extended paid parental leave, free TAFE courses, higher wages for many workers, it’s opened new Medicare urgent-care clinics. But do voters give the government any credit? “No,” says pollster Reed.

In focus groups, “no one can name anything – I don’t think it’s got credit for anything it’s done at all. Occasionally, you’ll get little bits and pieces; a young mum will say childcare is cheaper. But it’s few and far between. It’s strange, it’s odd, perhaps it’s unfair. But perception is truth.”

It’s a startling failure of communication and messaging. A senior Liberal points out that the government likes to recite a laundry list of achievements but has failed to deliver a powerful punchline to drive home how its tens of billions of dollars’ worth of benefits has helped.

As a result of the government’s legislative blitz this week, winning parliamentary approval of 45 bills, Albanese will have much more to boast about. Including HECS debt relief, a crackdown on supermarkets, reform of the aged-care system, regulation of social media, housing help. But if Labor gets the same public-opinion payback as it’s had to date, it won’t make any difference.

Albanese this week tried out two lines. One to project his government’s care for voters’ welfare: “We’ve got your back.” And an attack on Dutton: “There’s no hope, just nope.” They’ll have to do better.

Labor has a two-part job ahead of it. Instead of telling the voters about its future plans, first it has to educate them on what it’s already done. This is reminiscent of its bungled Voice campaign, where it realised too late that many voters had no conception of Indigenous disadvantage. It needed to inform and then campaign, an impossible double task in that case.

Only after Labor has spelt out what it’s already done can it then talk about the future in the coming campaign. This makes it unnecessarily hard for itself; Dutton has the simpler task of just swinging the wrecking ball to demolish Labor.

Labor plans to run a campaign theme along the line: “We’ve laid the foundation and we have much more to do.” The government is in the process of figuring the “much more”, including offering some benefits along the wages-tax-cost-of-living nexus. “It’ll be a very immediate, bread-and-butter campaign,” says a senior Labor figure.

At the same time, it plans a campaign of attacks along the lines of “Don’t risk Dutton”, portraying him as an active risk to wages and cost-of-living help.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the state of play? The government gets blame for every ill and credit for none of its good works, yet it’s still a 50:50 proposition in the polls. Says Reed: “A lot depends on the policy front; people want to know what’s next.” Don’t we all.

Peter Hartcher is political editor.