Dutton is placing all his bets on an issue not crucial to voters

Treasurer Jim Chalmers had a sharp line in parliament this week when he ridiculed the Opposition Leader for asking so many questions about Palestinians. Chalmers had good cause for some targeted mockery: while Australians are caught in an economic crunch, Peter Dutton spends all his time talking about a foreign war.

“All we get from those opposite is another day of doubling down on divisiveness and diversion,” Chalmers said at the end of question time on Tuesday. The treasurer highlighted a demonstrable truth: that shadow treasurer Angus Taylor had been mostly silent while Dutton had made every question about people fleeing the war in Gaza. That followed an earlier jibe from Chalmers – that Dutton will not even give Taylor a turn on the dog whistle.

Opposition Leader Peter DuttonCredit: Sydney Morning Herald

“Every single question was on the Middle East and not one single question was on middle Australia,” Chalmers said on Tuesday. He was right. The Coalition has barely mentioned the cost of living in parliament this week.

We know Chalmers got under Dutton’s skin because the Opposition Leader tried to shut the treasurer down. He moved that Chalmers “be no longer heard” – a motion used to silence someone. Dutton lost the vote, 53 to 92, and drew derision from the Labor ranks for being so sensitive. After a few minutes for the vote, Chalmers played for laughs. “That break was actually useful,” he said. “It was a good opportunity to clean up the little shards of the Opposition Leader’s glass jaw over there.”

The big question for the coming election is whether this will matter. Will this relentless focus on Gaza work for Dutton? Will it help Greens leader Adam Bandt, who calls the major parties complicit in genocide? Or will it help Prime Minister Anthony Albanese appeal to Australians with a moderate message?

There were no great revelations from the questions in parliament. Albanese confirmed the government had cancelled some visas it had previously issued to some Palestinians, but we already knew this. This masthead revealed it in March.

Illustration: Simon LetchCredit:

So what has Dutton gained from his focus on the war and his inquisition about Palestinians coming to Australia? He has certainly jabbed Labor on migration and border control, where it has lost some skin over the past year. He has cemented his support for Israel. And he has sent a signal to people who worry about the arrival of more Muslims.

Bandt, meanwhile, galvanises the opponents of Israel. He has condemned Hamas, but his message is overwhelmingly about the suffering of the Palestinians.

So the Liberals are the party of Israel. The Greens are the party of Palestine. Labor tries to straddle the middle. No other foreign war has done this to Australian politics in recent times. Nobody can be sure if Labor will suffer a painful squeeze from both sides, shrinking the Labor primary vote, or whether it can expand the middle.

Gaza is a defining global issue: more than 1000 Israelis dead from the Hamas terrorist attack, more than 40,000 Palestinians dead at the hands of the Israeli Defence Forces, and justified fear of a regional war. Like other countries, Australia rightly stands for a ceasefire and a two-state solution.

But this does not make Gaza a defining issue for the Australian election. When voters are asked to name their most urgent priority, 53 per cent say the cost of living. The latest Resolve Political Monitor showed that all other issues, including national security and migration, barely rate by comparison.

This means Dutton placed all his bets on an issue that does not count much to the voters he needs. When the Lowy Institute asked voters about foreign policy in March, 70 per cent said cyber attacks were a critical threat and 59 per cent said the same for a military conflict over Taiwan. Only 41 per cent rated conflict in the Middle East as a critical threat.

This is the essential context for the relentless argument about Gaza – the attacks on electorate offices, the boycotts, the grandstanding. The engaged minority are no guide to how this plays out for the disengaged majority.

Jim Reed, who runs the Resolve Political Monitor for this masthead, says most Australians without a connection to the Middle East do not see it as a priority and do not want the conflict brought here. The problem for Labor, however, is that the argument about Gaza makes the government look distracted. “I don’t think the issue is doing them any favours at all,” Reed says.

There is a calculated risk for Labor in issuing almost 2922 visas to Palestinians who are fleeing the war. This help would have gained bipartisan support in times past – as it did for Afghans, Yazidis and Ukrainians seeking shelter. After all, most of the Palestinians coming to Australia can only do so because they already have family here. But Dutton exploits this in a way we have not seen in recent times.

This is new and ugly territory for Australian politics. Labor and the Liberals were at odds over the invasion of Iraq in 2003, but that was about sending Australian forces rather than siding with Saddam Hussein against America. The gulf over Gaza is far deeper.

Dutton is being egged on by the conservative media, while Bandt plays to an activist base on social media. The feedback loops will probably convince them both to go harder. Albanese, meanwhile, looks lonely in the middle. Until everyone wakes and realises the choice in 2025 is all about the economy.

Prices are up, real wages are down. Households are more likely to worry about schools and hospitals than the hatreds on the other side of the world. Dutton has just wasted time in parliament asking only about Palestinians when he could have challenged Albanese about the cost of living. Every Coalition question from Wednesday last week to Wednesday this week was about the visas. They kept that up on Thursday.

And Chalmers rebuked them, again, for losing focus on the “main game” of the economy.

Labor knows the tactics in parliament mean nothing to millions of voters who have tuned out of national politics. Albanese is planning a series of domestic policy announcements in the real world once the shouting is over in Canberra. This makes sense.

Yes, Dutton has gained ground in the polls and nobody can be certain about the way Gaza will shift opinions at the ballot box. But one thing is for sure: when the election comes, victory will not go to the leader who can appeal to the angry few about a war on the other side of the world.

David Crowe is chief political correspondent.

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