Peter Dutton forgot Opposition 101: never oppose a tax cut

Peter Dutton’s declared opposition to Labor’s promised tax cut was a precursor to the Coalition’s ‘under­whelming, untidy and contra­dictory’ election announcements.

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As each day passes, Anthony Albanese inches closer to the 76 seats he needs to form majority government. And maybe beyond.

Not only do his polling numbers continue to improve, they are improving in all the right places. This is true even in Victoria, where the Labor brand has been tainted by a state Labor government that remains well and truly on the nose. Further, the early voting exit polling published by News Corp mastheads on Thursday were ominous for the Coalition.

I previously suggested on this page that the big turning point was President Donald Trump’s tariffs policy, which is eating into the superannuation accounts of most Australians. But on reflection it all started to turn south when Peter Dutton declared the Coalition would oppose the Albanese government’s promised tax cut. This was madness.

I’ve seen this movie before. In the 2005-06 budget John Howard and Peter Costello announced significant tax cuts for most Australians worth $21bn across four years. I was in the budget lockup with my Labor colleagues, poring over the budget papers. Some of my colleagues concluded the tax cuts were weighted too heavily in favour of higher-income earners. They argued we should oppose them on equity grounds. I begged them not to but I lost the argument. What followed was a disaster, particularly for opposition leader Kim Beazley.

Politics 101: when in opposition, never oppose a tax cut. It’s no way to win friends. Dutton was a minister in the government at the time and he should have known better.

We should have realised in budget week when the Coalition announced it would oppose Albanese’s tax cuts that its election announce­ments would be under­whelming, untidy and contra­dictory. A problem no doubt made worse as it tried to pivot in the wake of the tariff announcement.

That pattern continued when the Coalition’s much anticipated defence announcement finally arrived this week. It left us all wondering who thought it was a good idea to commit to spending an additional $21bn without the capacity to say how it would be funded or what capability it would fund. More madness. A mistake not helped by an untidy press conference dominated by Coalition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie’s past views about women in combat roles.

Peter Dutton, Opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie and Senator Michaelia Cash. Picture: Richard Dobson

It is a tough business, politics, certainly no place for the faint-hearted.

Throughout the course of the campaign I’ve been saying the opening of early voting this week would be a problem for the Coalition, truncating the time Dutton had to run the Prime Minister down. It now seems early voting may assist the Opposition Leader, cauterising some of the bleeding.

Despite all of this, I’m not yet ready to predict with confidence a majority Labor government. A hung parliament is still a possibility. Despite Labor’s momentum, with one week to go things can still go wrong for both sides.

While the pollsters are becoming better at their trade, and there is a significant uniformity across the results of polling organisations, they are a moment-in-time prediction of the result only.

Further, late in a campaign and influenced by the polls, people often start to vote tactically. Some may not want a minority government, others may not want Labor to win too easily. Some even may cast a sympathy vote.

Maybe I’m too cautious but the seat-by-seat arithmetic hasn’t changed. Labor has too many seats on skinny margins to hold them all and may find it difficult to win enough seats to offset the losses.

Anthony Albanese is joined by, from left, Chisholm MP Carina Garland, Deakin candidate Matt Gregg and Treasurer Jim Chalmers during a visit to the Liberal-held marginal Victorian seat of Deakin. Picture: Mark Stewart / NewsWire

The Labor-held seat of Bennelong (NSW) is already in the Liberal column following the redistribution. Gilmore (NSW) and Lyons (Tasmania) are Labor-held with margins of less than 1 per cent, followed by Lingiari (Northern Territory) on 1.7 per cent, Robertson (NSW) on 2.2 per cent and Tangney (Western Australia) on 2.8 per cent.

In Victoria, where Labor is least popular, Aston (won in a by-election) is now in the blue column post redistribution and two seats – Wills and Macnamara – are under threat from the Greens. Chisholm is on 3.3 per cent and McEwen is Labor-held with a 3.8 per cent margin. On the other side of the equation, the Liberal-held seat of Menzies is in the red column post redistribution.

To offset any losses, Labor still hopes to pick up several seats including Brisbane and Leichhardt in Queensland, the new seat of Bullwinkel (WA) and Sturt (SA).

I spent some time on pre-poll booths in the Hunter Valley in NSW this week. The mood seemed OK for Labor.

We shall see. Either way, the Albanese government will be returned. The only question is: Can it rule with a majority?

Here’s a fun fact: In the spring of 2026, Albanese will become the Labor Party’s second longest serving Prime Minister. He’ll displace Paul Keating for second spot but still will trail Bob Hawke. That’s a significant achievement.

Joel Fitzgibbon was Labor member for the NSW seat of Hunter, 1996-2022, and the defence minister, 2007-09.