Dutton is landing punches on a rattled Labor, and voters are noticing

When Jim Chalmers described Peter Dutton as the most divisive leader of a major political party in Australia’s modern history this week, it seemed like an inflection point.

Finally, the treasurer was taking the gloves off and going for the jugular.

Labor ministers from Anthony Albanese on down piled on to the opposition leader, who many in government still believe is unelectable. They’re wrong.

It was water off a duck’s back. Dutton rejected the charge and pivoted neatly to Labor’s handling of the economy.

Eleven years ago, almost to the day, Kevin Rudd described Tony Abbott as “one of the most negative politicians that the parliament has ever thrown up and also one grounded in divisiveness”.

The “divisive Dutton” strategy is a rerun of the attempt to brand Abbott as too divisive to be elected, and while it may appeal to finger-wagging progressives, there are serious doubts about whether it will work for Labor.

A month after that interview, Rudd handed Abbott the keys to the Lodge and the opposition had won 90 seats.

Dutton’s political tactics and steadily improving polling numbers have the government spooked; he is living rent-free in the minds of senior government ministers, as proved by the decision to dump new census questions about sexuality and gender to avoid a culture war – before one of those questions was restored less than a week later.

The decision signalled that at a time when the community is bitterly divided over the war in Gaza, and with Labor still licking its wounds after the defeat of the Voice to parliament referendum, the government is so afraid to pick a fight with Dutton that it would rather fold than fight.

Peter Dutton is living rent-free in the minds of senior Labor government ministers.Credit: James Brickwood

In a supreme irony, the decision to dump the census question caused an internal fight within Labor, rather than with the opposition, and meant the government spent a week talking about something it did not want to talk about – before it reversed course and reinstated one of those questions.

The opposition leader did not have to lift a finger – and Albanese was left looking weak.

Dutton’s opposition holds just 55 seats, and the polls do not suggest he is on track to win 76 seats and a majority. But with an election due by May next year, a hung parliament looks increasingly likely.

The last man to lead the Coalition back into government, Abbott, concedes there are some similarities between him and Dutton but adds that Dutton is his own man and tells me the next election is eminently winnable.

“He is doing a really impressive job, and he has the potential to be another long-serving prime minister like John Howard,” he says.

And he suggests that, like the historic Aston by-election win for Labor, so too is it possible that Albanese could be the first one-term government since Labor’s James Scullin in 1931.

“Just because a first-term government has not lost in nearly 100 years does not mean it can’t happen now because records are always being broken.”

Dutton has led Albanese as preferred prime minister in the last three Resolve Political Monitors, a survey conducted for this masthead.

The Coalition’s primary vote has been ahead of Labor for the last seven surveys since December last year. However, it must be noted Labor won the last election with a primary vote lower than the Coalition’s.

So, if Peter Dutton is so divisive, why do more and more Australians prefer him to Anthony Albanese?

This masthead spoke to eight current Coalition MPs, four Labor MPs and three current and former political strategists, some on the record and some off the record as they were not authorised to speak publicly, to gauge their views on Dutton’s political strategy.

There is a broad consensus that Dutton has planted a flag and said “no”, to differentiate himself from Labor, on three key policies: the first was the Voice to parliament, which Dutton forcefully opposed; the second was the opposition’s decision to back nuclear energy rather than embracing renewables; and the most recent was his call for Australia to stop accepting Palestinian refugees fleeing the Gaza war zone.

The Gaza decision, which dominated the last parliamentary sitting, fed into a broader narrative about Labor mishandling immigration and population growth, following the High Court’s NZYQ ruling which found indefinite detention was not legal.

All through the term, there has been a steady drumbeat of criticism of Labor’s economic management, which has played well for the Coalition, which is typically seen as stronger economic managers.

Coalition finance spokeswoman Jane Hume strongly denies Dutton has pursued a strategy of division to reap electoral gain, arguing he took the time to build a level of trust with colleagues when he became leader and has since chosen his battles wisely while working with the government to pass other laws.

Referring to the Voice to parliament, Hume says Dutton has “kept his eye on the ball, on what is important to people, he doesn’t talk about what isn’t important to them”.

“He has made it very clear that we are not going to be a small target opposition [a reference to the nuclear power policy], that we won’t simply wait for the government to mess up – though they’re doing a pretty good job of it – and that is his experience coming to the fore,” she says.

Another member of the shadow cabinet, who asked not to be named so they could speak freely, says that when Dutton became the leader, he first focused on consolidating the Coalition’s right flank against attacks from minor parties such as United Australia and Pauline Hanson and was now tacking to the centre as the election approached.

“We are now ruthlessly focused on middle Australia, the cost-of-living crisis and the security environment. The conventional wisdom in the press gallery was that our position on Gaza was a mistake, but even the Guardian Essential poll showed we were on the right track,” the shadow minister says.

“We instinctively thought we had the public onside, including a chunk of Labor people with us. Australians’ views on migration are as hard as they have ever been.”

So dire has the situation become, this person says, the Coalition is now war gaming whether a spooked Labor will seek a circuit breaker moment like the changes to the stage three tax cuts – such as promising big changes to capital gains tax or negative gearing.

“I think that’s what they’ll do and they’ll take to the polls and point to John Howard and the GST in 1998. But we are ready for that.”

The opposition’s failure to hold on to the Melbourne seat of Aston in April 2023 was probably the low point of this term for the opposition leader. It was the first time in 103 years that a government had won a seat from an opposition at a byelection.

Four days later, Dutton formalised Liberal Party opposition to the Voice. Further accusations of negativity were levelled at him, and prophets of doom began to circle around his leadership, especially when the very capable Julian Leeser quit his role as shadow attorney-general over the party stance.

But it was the Voice that was doomed and Albanese who was left damaged by the referendum.

Dutton’s call helped crystallise concerns over the Voice, and while it did divide the major political parties, a thumping majority of Australians backed the No vote, just as they seem to back the opposition now on visas for Gaza refugees. Time will tell if he has made the right call on nuclear power.

But the drop in Labor’s polling numbers and standing with voters is not all Dutton’s doing, as some Labor ministers are prepared to acknowledge privately.

A prime minister prone to meandering monologues and a government media strategy that can’t stay on message aren’t helping – see the recent $3.6 billion pay rise for childcare workers, which they seemed to stop talking about after just a couple of days.

“Albo is good at strategy, but he doesn’t like being told no,” one Labor minister says. “We’re not selling things again and again, we need to keep coming back to big announcements and explain them to people.”

Andrew Carswell, a former communications chief for Scott Morrison, says Albanese has time to recover and is seen as a nice guy, but his key “dis-equity” with voters is that he is seen as weak, a word that comes up again and again in focus groups.

From the get-go, he says, Labor has misunderstood Dutton as simply negative and gruff.

“Peter has adopted some of the tactics of Tony Abbott without having an over-the-top control on message; they are a bit freer, and he doesn’t want to sound like a robot, and he is not being loud and negative every day,” Carswell says.

“Labor need to be more visionary and more tangible with their vision about how they will tackle the cost of living. Just targeting Dutton is a poor strategy. Their handling of stage three [tax cut changes] was a masterstroke, they need to do something at that level.”

RedBridge Group director and former Victorian Labor deputy campaign director Kos Samaras says Dutton’s strategy is not division “though it may come across as that, but it’s actually taking a position that provides a contrast”.

“It is costing him in teal seats, but in other parts of Australia where people are under financial stress, it is sending a powerful signal that he stands his ground on the things that matter to them. And in the current economic environment, that has a lot of currency.”

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