Dutton not only should win the Dunkley byelection, he needs to win it

If Peter Dutton is to have any hope of realising his ambition to resurrect the Liberal Party at the next federal election, he needs to win seats like Dunkley. The coastal electorate in Melbourne’s south-east is, after all, the sort of territory marked out as future Liberal heartland to replace the inner-urban seats lost to independents and the Greens.

Ignore the spin and the dampening of expectations in the lead-up to the March 2 byelection. Dutton not only should win it, he has to win it.

Credit: Illustration: Dionne Gain

The Liberals have a lot going for them in this seat with its mix of down-at-heel and well-heeled. Interest rates, inflation and cost of living pressures remain high. Tax cuts have been promised, not yet delivered, so the prospect of votes in advance of receipt are low. On top of that, the conservative group Advance, which honed its techniques in the Voice to parliament referendum, last week zeroed in on Anthony Albanese to become the “loudest voice” on social media in Dunkley, urging voters to tell him he had to do better.

The Greens are also running a candidate, determined to keep the pressure on Albanese on housing by running a personalised attack to force him to change negative gearing.

Adding some spice to the mix is Barnaby Joyce, looking quite comfortable lying on a busy Canberra footpath cursing into his phone, reminding exasperated colleagues how much time they have spent over so many years at such a great electoral cost, making excuses for his poor behaviour. Senior Coalition figures readily concede the damage caused to all politicians, but doubt the latest Joyce indiscretion will cost votes in Dunkley.

While there is no anger against the government over the byelection itself, caused by the death of a much-admired local member, Peta Murphy, that does not mean Labor will go unpunished. There is still frustration with the Albanese government.

The late Labor MP Peta Murphy during a hearing into online gambling.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Giving incumbents a boot up the backside at a byelection to get them to lift their game, like getting booed at a sporting fixture, is a time-honoured tradition. It usually works against governments, unless the alternatives are so bad voters cannot bring themselves to vote for them.

Labor holds Dunkley with a margin of 6.3 per cent, which psephologist Dr Kevin Bonham writes is the average swing over 40 years against governments at byelections in seats they hold. The ABC’s election analyst Antony Green has noted that at eight byelections in Labor seats during Labor governments, the average swing was 8.2 per cent.

In the overall scheme of things then, the swing required for Dutton to win, is eminently gettable.

If he fails, after reading the official talking points (it’s Victoria, it’s the tax cut bribe, the margin was too great), chills will creep up the spines of opposition MPs.

If Labor loses, it will trigger another period of malaise. It would not necessarily spell doom for the government, unless Albanese falls into another funk. Either way right now there is little appetite in either of the two parties for a leadership switch. Not so in the Nationals.

Confidence is high in some, not all, quarters of the government that they will hold Dunkley. There are good reasons to be circumspect, despite the parallels with what happened 23 years ago when the Liberals hung on in the Aston byelection.

Aston signalled John Howard’s comeback after a shocking few months. The popular local member had died, voters were seething after the introduction of the GST and false assurances over petrol prices. Tax, the cost of living and Howard’s character had dominated debate.

Opposition leader, Kim Beazley, snookered by a smarter outfit, couldn’t cut it in the campaign then lost the general election a few months later. Note, these are parallels not a prediction and word on the ground is that Advance is making a difference.

Despite the shambles over supervision of released detainees, again raising questions about the competence of Immigration Minister Andrew Giles, Albanese has been re-energised. With the battle lines drawn last week on tax and industrial relations, he was goading the opposition to vote against his tax package. He sounded as if he would like nothing better than to fight the byelection, then a double-dissolution election later this year on his tax cut for every Australian taxpayer versus the Coalition’s package favouring higher income earners. It would have been a gift.

It was fair enough for Dutton to try to brand Albanese as the biggest liar ever to occupy the Lodge as he desperately tried to work out how to break free from the jaws of the steel trap that Albanese and Jim Chalmers had set for him.

Refusing to support the tax cuts would have invited annihilation, so accepting them while continuing to swear fealty to the original stage 3, was a feat worthy of French spiderman, Anthony Andolfo, who scaled a Melbourne skyscraper without harness or parachute. Facing an additional cost of $9 billion a year to fulfil this promise, Dutton either has to find massive spending cuts or increase other taxes or risk sinking into deficit (and you can bank on there being another surplus in Chalmers’ May budget).

Anyway, seeing as most people believe all politicians lie as soon as their lips move – and the perps are too numerous to mention here – who knows who will be seen as the most credible at the next election. Punters pay on results. Think about it. If the Coalition had been re-elected, would stage 3 have been delivered as is? Not bloody likely. Whoever was prime minister would have faced the same dilemma Labor confronted. The Coalition can argue they would have managed the economy better but given their profligacy breathed life back into the inflation dragon, maybe not.

Niki Savva is a regular columnist and author of The Road to Ruin, Plots and Prayers and Bulldozed, the trilogy chronicling nine years of Coalition rule.

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