Focus on policy, not personality

Anthony Albanese has done the right thing stepping in to pull rank on the Victorian Labor Party over its unseemly attack on Peter Dutton and his wife. Political leaders must account for themselves but their spouses rightly should be off limits.

The Prime Minister’s intervention came after the Opposition Leader called on ­Mr Albanese and Labor to show his family respect and avoid an election campaign dominated by personal attacks.

With support for Labor falling sharply in Victoria and the state Liberal Party electing a new leader with much in common with Mr Dutton, the Victorian ALP manipulated a five-year-old newspaper report to attack the federal Opposition Leader’s relationship with his wife.

Recent polling shows what is at stake, with a collapse in support for Labor in Victoria potentially being a crucial decider for the next federal election. Where a collapse in support for the Liberals in Western Australia helped to deliver government to Mr Albanese in 2022, the reverse could be true for Victoria in 2025.

The resort to personal attacks on Mr Dutton and his wife demonstrates the pressure the ALP is under. But there is too much at stake in the upcoming federal election for the contest to be lost in the sort of grubby personality sniping that passes for political debate online and in the minds of partisan political staff members. It’s time to focus on policy, not personality.