Election 2025: Anthony Albanese’s personal attacks on Peter Dutton may backfire in debate
If there is one political plan Anthony Albanese and his ministers have stuck to in the 2025 campaign it’s been to attack Peter Dutton personally.
From well before the formal campaign began, Labor’s strategy was to point to tax cuts and a trend in an improving economy, spend billions on infrastructure and attack the Opposition Leader’s personality and character.
The big question for the Prime Minister is whether he can afford to stay on this “nasty” personal path when he’s standing opposite Dutton on national television and risk being seen as nasty himself rather than concentrating on fundamental issues.
Insults, put-downs or clever ripostes during televised debates have sometimes worked well but sledging and not-so-clever repartee can turn voters off.
A negative campaign run by the usual attack dogs in a campaign can appear differently one-on-one.
There’s no doubt a lot of Labor’s negative campaign has hurt Dutton – helped by some own goals – but it’s a fine balance to strike between empty abuse, calm leadership and being seen as distracted by vindictiveness.
On Monday Albanese declared: “Peter Dutton can be really nasty … really nasty”. The PM has described Dutton as “aggro” and “angry” and a danger to our diplomatic relations.
On Tuesday Jason Clare, Labor’s campaign spokesman, said Dutton was a con man trying to con the Australian people, was telling flat out lies and had previously been responsible for a “Texas chainsaw massacre” in health and education.
Murray Watt said Dutton was trying to give himself “the worst face lift in history” and “trying to pretend that all of a sudden he’s a different guy to what he was two weeks ago”.
At a joint press conference on the economic impact of the US tariffs, Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher both attacked Dutton.
Chalmers said: “The Peter Dutton Coalition is an absolute bin fire of cuts and chaos which would make Australians worse off. There could not be a worse time to risk wages and tax cuts and secret cuts in a world which is this uncertain.”
Dutton also “represents an unacceptable risk to our economy and to household budgets”.
All of these attacks follow months of painting him as a “friend of Trump” and having “a problem with women”.
All of this appears to be borne out in the public polling showing a slowing of support for the Coalition in the latest Newspoll.
But, curiously, the biggest shift in the latest Newspoll numbers was in favour of Dutton in the contest against Albanese as preferred prime minister with a three-point change and he maintained his lead over Albanese as a “strong and decisive” leader.
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