Election 2025: Peter Dutton’s seat under ALP frontbench fire

Peter Dutton is campaigning across Australia in an attempt to unseat Anthony Albanese and Labor from government. But what’s happening on the ground in his own electorate?

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen with Labor candidate Ali France in Peter Dutton’s electorate of Dickson on Thursday. Picture: David Clark

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Anthony Albanese and Labor are throwing frontbench firepower at Peter Dutton’s electorate of Dickson while the Opposition Leader is forced away from Queensland’s most marginal seat to hit the hustings across the country.

The Prime Minister, Jim Chalmers and Health Minister Mark Butler started the first full day of campaigning alongside Dickson’s Labor candidate Ali France at an urgent care clinic on Saturday, while Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen joined Ms France for a hyper-local commitment of $1.6m for a nature refuge on Thursday.

LNP strategists insist neither the party nor Mr Dutton are worried about Dickson – which he holds by 1.7 per cent – but the ­Coalition dirt unit has been busy circulating material about Climate 200-backed independent candidate Ellie Smith’s history of environmental activism.

The Courier-Mail on Wednesday reported Ms Smith broke into a coal-fired power station near Kingaroy to chain herself to a coal conveyor belt in 2008, when she was a 24-year-old university student. In a separate story, social media posts from Ms Smith in 2013 emerged showing she had publicly defended a stockmarket hoax by an anti-coal activist.

Ms Smith said the tactics showed Mr Dutton and the LNP were more worried than they were letting on. “People are noticing that Peter Dutton is absent. They’re reading he wants to move to Sydney, and then they’re seeing all the negative dirt-digging that he’s doing against a local community-backed independent … Peter Dutton has been the MP for Dickson for 24 years and Labor has run the same candidate against him for the past (six) years,” Ms Smith said.

Anthony Albanese at the Murrumba Downs Medical and Dental Centre with Labor candidate Ali France, and resident Jamie Martin on Saturday. Picture: Jason Edwards / NewsWire

An LNP strategist said Mr Dutton had “nothing to worry about … In Dickson, he’s even more popular than the national swing (to the LNP) because ­people are voting for him to become prime minister.”

In Eatons Hill on Thursday, Mr Bowen said a re-elected Labor government would spend $1.6m to upgrade the Kumbartcho nature reserve, matching a funding commitment from Moreton Bay mayor Peter Flannery, whose council runs the wildlife sanctuary backed by 88 volunteers.

Mr Flannery said he had asked Mr Dutton and the LNP for the same amount of cash but was yet to hear back.

Ms France, a former journalist who is contesting the outer-­suburban electorate for the third time, said she had been knocking on doors in Dickson for seven years.

She said voters were concerned about the cost of living, and the Coalition’s policy to build seven nuclear reactors, including two in Queensland.

“Peter Dutton, he talks a lot about representing the people of Dickson, but he rarely delivers,” said Ms France, who secured a two-party-preferred swing of 2.94 per cent towards her at the 2022 election.

Mr Bowen said Mr Dutton was on a “very, very tight margin” and Labor was “campaigning to win this seat”.

“It’s a matter for him, where he campaigns and what he does, but we’ll be here,” he said.

Labor strategists said while Mr Dutton was perceived as a strong local member, it appeared he had lost momentum in March after it emerged he had flown to Sydney for a political fundraiser with billionaire Justin Hemmes days before Cyclone Alfred was forecast to hit his electorate.

Mr Dutton flew into Brisbane immediately after Mr Albanese called the election last Friday, but he did not campaign in Dickson. He spent Wednesday and Thursday in Western Australia.