‘Gutter politics’: Peter Dutton forces Anthony Albanese to order Labor post be removed

Anthony Albanese has been forced to order a highly personal attack against Peter Dutton and his wife be scrubbed from the ­Victorian ALP’s social media ­accounts.

Liberal leader Peter Dutton with his wife Kirilly, and part of the Labor attack ad. Main picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Anthony Albanese has been forced to order a highly personal attack against Peter Dutton and his wife be scrubbed from the ­Victorian ALP’s social media ­accounts.

The Prime Minister’s intervention came after Mr Dutton called on ­Mr Albanese and Labor to show his family respect and avoid an election campaign dominated by personal attacks, after the Victorian ALP targeted him and Kir­illy Dutton in a “gutter politics” social media post.

With Labor’s polling share falling sharply in Victoria ahead of next year’s federal election, the Victorian ALP manipulated a five-year-old newspaper report on the Duttons to attack them.

The post went up about 11am on Monday under the heading “We all know that one couple” and a secondary line stating “Justifying dating your new partner to your friends who don’t like him” above a 2019 newspaper photo quoting Ms Dutton saying of her husband: ‘‘He is not a monster.’’

The original Queensland-based Sunday Mail newspaper front page was headlined “My Pete’s no monster’’.

Victorian ALP Facebook social media post. Picture: supplied

With the election to be called within months, and possibly as soon as the end of January, the Opposition Leader vowed that his campaign would be clean and would not target family members such as the Prime Minister’s fiancee, Jodie Haydon.

“I can assure you: the Liberal Party I lead will not be targeting Jodie Haydon,” he said in a statement. “I respect and like Jodie but she is not an elected official and will not be the subject of humiliation, attack ads or public smear by the Liberal Party.

“I would ask the PM to equally respect my wife.”

The post was taken down from the Victorian Labor Party’s social media feed less than an hour after Mr Dutton’s statement.

A spokesperson for Mr Albanese on Monday night said: “When the tweet was drawn to his attention, the Prime Minister demanded it be taken down.

“Families should be off-­limits.”

Victorian ALP secretary Steve Staikos defended the post, ­declaring it was “not a personal attack at all”.

“It’s supposed to be a comedic meme,” Mr Staikos said.

When asked whether the post used a doctored screenshot, Mr Staikos said: “I don’t agree.”

Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson, a senator from Victoria, described the post as “grubby gutter politics from a desperate government slipping in the polls”.

“We all know Labor’s plan for the election next year is negative personal attacks on Peter Dutton; this is just a preview,” Senator Paterson said. “When you run out of ideas to tackle the cost of living and have no second-term agenda, that’s all that is left.”

James Paterson. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The Melbourne-based state ALP headquarters is understood to have full responsibility for posting social media content.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan’s office declined to comment on Monday about the Facebook post on the party’s account, which also features prominent photos of her together with Mr Albanese.

The latest three-month Newspoll, compiled for The Australian and reported last week, revealed the federal Coalition for the first time has drawn level with Labor in ­Victoria, where the state Labor government has lost ground heavily in polling, with the federal two-party-preferred support now split 50-50.

The three-month total represents an almost 5 per cent swing against the Albanese government since the 2022 federal election ­result.

Labor’s primary vote fell to a new low of 30 per cent in ­Victoria in the October-­December analysis. This represents a three-point fall over the past three quarters.

Labor’s Victorian primary vote is now lower than the 32 per cent support it has in NSW and is only a point higher than its primary vote of 29 per cent in Queensland.

The poll also found that Labor had lost ground across key demographics, and given up its edge in the two most-populous states of NSW and Victoria.

The Australian also reported that while the two major parties were tied nationally on a two-party-preferred basis, the high cost of living had pushed Labor down into second place among 35 to 49-year-olds.