Peter Dutton finds a target for his troops to aim at

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton in question time on Monday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Anthony Albanese has sought to build on the political success of his jobs and skills summit with the claim that it was a sign of a changing mood in the way politics was conducted and a platform for future wage and cost-of-living relief.

Peter Dutton is having none of it. The Opposition Leader on Monday used the first question time of the second sitting fortnight to draw industrial relations and union thuggery into an inflation counter-attack against the government ahead of more mortgage pain likely to be delivered on Tuesday by the central bank.

While the Coalition has little to cling to considering its electoral predicament as revealed by the latest Newspoll, and demonstrated by the subdued performance in parliament, Dutton has at least found a target for his troops to aim at.

And he is being aided in this venture by the unions, with admissions by the United Workers Union that Labor’s favoured multi-employer bargaining model would assist in industry-wide strikes.

This is a legitimate line of attack for the Coalition while it fends off Labor’s accusation that it was a decade of Coalition government that had led to the economic challenges that the new government is now faced with.

While not the main game, the industrial relations landscape is a feature of the cost-of-living and productivity debate that is now about to get more serious for the Albanese government.

A fifth interest rate rise is set for Tuesday afternoon ahead of an abrupt end this month to the Morrison government’s temporary fuel excise cut.

These are two stark realities facing Albanese and his Treasurer, Jim Chalmers.

With no sign yet that the Reserve Bank’s monetary policy has had any impact on curbing household spending, more rate rises will be coming – another likely just in time for the October budget.

Mortgagee anger will begin to fester with every letter from the banks about how much more they will be paying every month.

At the same time, Dutton will be seeking to hang the end of fuel excise relief around the government’s neck like a cost-of-living albatross.

Chalmers on Monday accused the Opposition Leader of wallowing in his own irrelevance in his attack.

This may be a fair characterisation of the electoral disengagement with the Liberal and Nationals parties at such an early stage of the electoral cycle.

But it will be the Treasurer and the Prime Minister who will be eventually left to carry the can.

The blame-shifting to the previous government – and increasingly to the RBA – will have a limited shelf-life.