Peter Dutton is running out of time as the PM holds the stopwatch
A grumpy electorate under immense cost-of-living pressure and disillusioned voters are not enough to oust Labor. Peter Dutton needs to go for broke.
It is clear from the polling and from the realistic appraisals within ALP ranks that the likeliest outcome at this stage for the next election is a minority Labor government reliant on Greens and independent support.
It is fair to say such an outcome is the least favourable in the national interest and this week’s potential pre-election budget is unlikely to shift the dial dramatically in Labor’s long-term favour, for all the electioneering on both sides.
All the major polls have the ALP’s primary vote just at or below the 32 per cent it was at the election in May 2022, enough to win the barest of parliamentary majorities with the largest number of Greens and independent MPs in history.
The polls are so tight and the margins so slim that much will depend on the electoral redistributions in NSW, Victoria and Western Australia.
The Prime Minister can correctly point to the two-party preferred figures in Newspoll in which Labor has never been behind the Coalition since the election, an achievement no other first-term government has reached in the history of Newspoll.
But for Peter Dutton the prospect of being able to turn Labor into a minority government after just one term as Opposition Leader, as Tony Abbott did in 2010, is cold comfort.
There’s no second prize in a federal election and the argument that some elections are better to lose is a sop for losers.
Unlikely as it may be, Dutton has to go for broke, take on Labor in the traditional stronghold of suburban Australia, entrench the Coalition in the regions and simultaneously fight to regain seats lost to the teal independents in the affluent city seats of Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.
A Coalition victory, improbable as it may be, is not impossible but a grumpy electorate under immense cost-of-living pressure, including a central housing crisis, and disillusioned voters tired of grand ideas and ideologically driven aims and targets are not enough to oust the first-term Labor government.
Dutton and his team have to demonstrate the Coalition is a viable alternative as a government, not just an effective opposition against a struggling government. Albanese’s mantra of Dutton and the Coalition being negative, not having a plan and just voting as a “No-alition” is calculated to press this point.
Notwithstanding the catastrophic referendum loss on the Indigenous voice to parliament, the contested by-elections indicate that, while voters are not happy with the Albanese government, they are not yet in a mood to change so dramatically that they would turf out a government after just one term.
Yet the budget sitting of parliament this week – with its central economic message, its political intent and a rush of legislative deals – shows Albanese is not complacent, and Jim Chalmers is determined to do all that he believes will reassure voters that Labor not only cares but also can be trusted with a second term.
This combination of dealing with the immediate pressures on households – such as a $300 energy rebate – and projecting an outlook of improving economic conditions into the uncertain years ahead is the key to election for both sides.
If the anger and frustration with the rising cost of energy, groceries, petrol and housing converts into doubt about Labor’s ability to handle the economy and cost of living – as some polling suggests – then support for Albanese could slip into even more dangerous territory.
The Treasurer’s new economic and political orthodoxy is designed to flip the traditional focus on interest rates to inflation, to project improved wages and conditions for the “truckies and tradies in middle Australia”, and to offer cuts to immigration.
Dutton’s response to Labor’s repositioning and grand plans is to offer a back-to-basics approach, an appeal to the security of Australia’s traditional strengths and to seek to attract back those same “truckies and tradies” to the Coalition as John Howard did in 1996.
In response to a budget that could be a pre-election offering despite Albanese’s insistence there will be another budget in March next year before the election, Dutton offered his own pre-election plan – albeit short on detail in the key areas of nuclear energy and taxation reform.
Dutton’s budget-in-reply speech and strategy were all about timing and targets: making sure he doesn’t put his policies out there too soon, in case there is a later election, and not too late in case there is an early election, which can be called from August.
On Friday Dutton sought to highlight the political differences and that there was a choice, declaring: “We’ve demonstrated there’s a difference between the Liberal Party and the Labor Party at the next election.
“It reflects what we’ve heard as we’ve moved around the country. People are worried about the cost of living, people are worried about the energy system, worried about higher electricity costs, worried about getting into a house, and hopefully we reflected a lot of that last night.”
The problem for Dutton now is he’s running out of time and Albanese holds the stopwatch and the starter’s gun. Dutton has to balance being a viable alternative prime minister with enough policy to be credible against offering so much detail so early that he exposes himself to prolonged government examination.
There’s no way Dutton is going to present a John Hewson-style Fightback prospectus with hundreds of pages of detail surrounding a new tax, but neither is he going to be able to get away with the paucity of detail Labor displayed at the last election. It’s a bit rich of Albanese to demand costings and cost-benefit analysis from the Coalition when his own – winning – strategy was so free of detail.
Dutton’s Thursday night speech, delivered nervously because of the weight of expectation, was a fair indicator as to where he is going, what the Coalition’s limits are and what more he is going to have to produce, early election or not.
The Back on Track plan is to take pressure off inflation, remove regulation and lawfare that is “killing mining”, remove the “hostility” of Labor’s industrial relations agenda, commit to “simpler fairer taxes”, help small business and provide affordable “non-weather reliant energy”, including more gas and nuclear.
The speech revealed Dutton’s general direction in policy terms and where he is aiming demographically and geographically.
Dutton is about middle Australia overturning decades of political orthodoxy, presenting the Liberal Party as the workers’ party that is against the “big CEOs and businesses” that have disregarded ordinary Australians. This is a theme that resonates not only because of the distress at high prices but also because of the big corporate support for the voice referendum that was so out of touch with shareholders and customers.
Dutton talked about middle Australia, small business, families, the regions and Western Australia, including saying that he wanted to see another “mining boom”.
Albanese and Chalmers have a vision of the Future Made in Australia but Dutton sees a chance to go back to the future with a simplified political rhetoric and vision that means ditching large-scale dreams using taxpayers’ money to fund grand green dreams.
It’s a no-frills approach appealing to simpler outlooks that don’t rely on $13.7bn “for corporate welfare” or long-term targets and ideological commitment.
An obviously difficult nuclear energy policy, long-promised and subject to internal debate, still has not been unveiled, nor has the crucial alternative tax package promised after the Coalition had to wave through Albanese’s new tax plan to replace its own stage three tax cuts for higher-income earners.
These critical policies signal the extra problem Dutton has in offering a credible alternative because he can’t do everything himself and his senior team lacks the ability to cut through on issues and demonstrate a grasp of policy and detail.
As opposition Treasury spokesman, Angus Taylor has to get serious about detail, present a more mature alternative in parliament and realise Chalmers – not the Prime Minister – is his opponent.
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There is no doubt that Anthony Albanese and Labor are in trouble after two years in government and now just 12 months from an election.