This was published 4 months ago
Opinion
Dutton and Ley have created a foolproof what-not-to-do election guide
Niki Savva
Award-winning political commentator and authorRule number one: if you really want to win an election, it’s a good idea to turn up. Take note Peter Dutton. Rule number two: if you do turn up, don’t make a dill of yourself and a nasty one at that. Take note Sussan Ley.
Thanks to their behaviour in the lead-up and aftermath of the Dunkley byelection, the leader and deputy Liberal leader risk being cast as the toxic twins of federal politics.
Peter Dutton and Sussan Ley.Credit: Illustration: Dionne Gain
Dutton should have been in Dunkley on Saturday. He should not have left it to others to make the excuses on the night then to recite the talking points on Sunday and Monday while he avoided cameras and microphones for three whole days.
Win, lose or draw, the leader has to front. He owes it to candidates, campaign staff, volunteers, voters and his MPs. He needs to be honest about what happened and why it happened, accept responsibility, then say what he plans to do about it.
Instead, on Saturday night it was left to the women, some more artful than others, to put Kardashian-style false eyelashes and lipstick on a pig. The exuberance was excused as a reaction to losing Aston last year, meaning even a slight swing had the smell of victory about it. True, everything is relative, nevertheless the result still stunk.
Not on any planet or in any universe could a barely average result qualify as success. Arguing otherwise shows no respect for people’s intelligence.
One reason given for Dutton’s absenteeism (apart from not wanting to get booed at booths) was to allow the candidate, Nathan Conroy, to shine. Labor fixed that with giant photos on mobile billboards featuring the ugliest pic of Dutton they could find, declaring a vote for Conroy was a vote for Dutton.
It is folly to think a leader can get away with hiding in an election. It only accentuates the problem. Usually, a party gets the leader to change, perhaps by prodding him to do more than beat up on refugees or question the judgment of Australia’s top spook. Or they change the leader. MPs still say Dutton is the best they’ve got, but they are not blind to his faults. He needs to get cracking on policies and broaden the range and frequency of his media engagements.
As written here previously, Dutton had to win Dunkley. A 6.3 per cent swing was not too much to ask with a good candidate and the right campaign in a byelection during a cost-of-living crisis and anaemic economic growth. It would not have meant the Coalition would win the next election, only that they could.
They squandered the gift of a parliamentary sitting week on a relentless attack over released detainees rather than voters’ economic pain. After two tough years for voters, the Coalition failed to get voters to blame Albanese.
By all accounts, the Liberals’ on-the-ground campaign was well executed. Beyond their control was the smash-and-grab style of conservative campaign group Advance, which both sides believe damaged the Liberals because it either distracted from their messaging or amplified their negativity. Advance might eventually realise it should concentrate on attracting the centre – which would then pose a real threat to Labor – or it will continue to damage Liberals by measuring its success on how far right it can drag them.
Enter Sussan Ley, whose two standout contributions this year – and it’s only March – have been pledging to roll back the stage 3 tax cuts even before they were announced, and then penning a tweet dripping with bigotry, warning about foreign criminals released from detention assaulting Australian women, that was designed to stoke community disquiet on crime and on foreigners.
This followed the arrest of a released detainee over a sexual assault. Police later admitted they had arrested the wrong man. But rather than withdrawing her tweet, Ley doubled down, as if facts no longer matter. Ley has a habit of pulling the pin on hand grenades then holding them until they explode.
Liberals hoped the sizeable swing back in Mount Eliza was a sign the teal seats of Goldstein and Kooyong were reclaimable. Zoe Daniel and Monique Ryan are not complacent but say the negative campaigning in Dunkley won’t work in their electorates. After spending six hours at a community forum on Sunday, Ryan reported that while her constituents were unhappy with the government, they don’t trust Dutton or Ley.
Even before Dunkley, opposition MPs were grumbling about the lack of policies, their ire mostly directed at the shadow treasurer, Angus Taylor, for failing to cut through on the economy. Dutton finally appeared on Tuesday to flick the switch to nuclear and announce a reshuffle.
Liberals think nuclear is a goer this time around because reactors will be located at retired coal-fired power stations and that young people will support it because they don’t remember the horrors of Chernobyl. Good luck with that.
Albanese responded to Dunkley without hubris and with assurances to stay focused on cost of living. If he doesn’t, he will feed the dangerous narrative promoted by his opponents that he chases celebrities and freebies.
The swing against Labor could have and should have been worse, but it was mitigated partly by the reworked tax cuts, which Treasurer Jim Chalmers pushed and Albanese accepted. The day will come when there is rivalry between them, but it isn’t here yet. Their effective relationship is critical to the success of the government.
Dunkley has led Labor to believe it is “within the realms of possibility” it can retain Higgins and win seats like Deakin and Menzies, where sitting Liberal Keith Wolahan was the first on Saturday night to call for an accelerated release of policies.
Much depends on the redistribution and changes to boundaries, but it will most likely have to do better in Victoria to retain majority – or even minority – government.
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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