These second and third weeks of the election campaign may well be make or break for Peter Dutton. After a fumbling start, which saw the coalition cede its slim lead to Labor, Dutton needs to find his feet and get on-message fast.
He’s already working on turning a shocking negative into a positive: having been wedged into dropping the coalition’s plan to force public servants back to the office, Dutton is turning the wedge back on Albanese. I can admit to being wrong, is the message: Can the prime minister? More pointedly, Dutton is using his own fumble to remind voters of Albanese’s Great Big Lie from the 2022 election.
Peter Dutton says it is a “necessary part of leadership” to be able to recognise one’s own mistakes and apologise, trying to cast a difference between himself and Anthony Albanese after the opposition leader apologised for his public service work from home policy which he has now abandoned.
“The prime minister’s never apologised in relation to the broken promise around the $275 cut to electricity prices,” Mr Dutton told ABC TV.
The idea is clearly not just to contrast Dutton as a leader willing to admit mistakes, in contrast to Albanese’s stubborn refusal to ever cop to a broken key promise, but to hammer home the government’s biggest weakness: the cost of living crisis. Electricity prices, along with housing, are the key component of that crisis. Combine that with the blatant lie of Albanese’s ‘I’m a man of my word’, and the opposition has a potent message of a shifty PM whose policies are crippling households.
They just need to stick to that line and sell it. Hard.
Another seeming negative that presents Dutton an opportunity to spin into a positive for his campaign is external: the Trump tariff war. The government is trying to spin it as Dutton being a Trump clone: what Dutton must do is hit with two messages.
First, that he is better positioned to negotiate with Donald Trump. After all, the Albanese government and its hand-picked US ambassador both have a track record of insulting Trump and the White House isn’t letting them forget it. Albanese has no leverage with Trump. Dutton can present himself as a fresh start in the US-Australia relationship.
Secondly, Dutton needs to point out that Labor treasurer Jim Chalmers has spent whatever buffer Australia may have had going into a trade war and possible recession. This is an opportunity to play to the coalition’s greatest traditional strength: as better economic managers. History repeating, Dutton needs to point out that, before the GFC, Howard and Costello left Australia with a $17 billion surplus – Labor spent it all. Before the pandemic, the coalition had just a $0.7 billion deficit. Now, facing a trade war, Albanese and Chalmers have us $42 billion in the red and growing.
Thanks to Labor, Dutton needs to argue, Australia is in no position to ride the global shock waves.
For Peter Dutton, it is a chance to put behind him the false starts of the first week of the campaign and focus directly on what should be the coalition’s biggest area of strength, economic management. There are signs the opposition leader has got the message. He spent a large part of his press conference in South Australia on Monday reinforcing why the coalition would be a safe pair of hands in a crisis. He can point to a good track record of managing difficult times, including the pandemic response. “In uncertain times, our country needs strong economic management,” is the new message from Mr Dutton. “In this campaign, the choice is about who can better manage our economy to help you get ahead,” he said […]
The federal budget is in structural deficit, borrowings soon will hit $1 trillion and business is hamstrung by a series of debilitating changes to industrial relations laws. There is nothing to suggest a re-elected Albanese government would do anything other than continue the trend that leaves the hard work of economic repair to future generations.
Queensland will be a key battleground state. Labor has just handed the coalition a free kick in the Sunshine State, linking Albanese to the hated Labor state government that Queenslanders just chucked out.
One of the owners of a Labor-linked lobbying firm, banned as a lobbyist in Queensland after being caught secretly running then-premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s 2020 campaign, is playing a senior role in shaping Anthony Albanese’s re-election bid.
David Nelson, co-owner of lobbying firm Anacta Strategies, has been working daily in ALP campaign headquarters in inner Sydney since the prime minister in March called the May 3 election.
Labor insiders said Mr Nelson was in the “inner circle developing the campaign strategy” for the federal Labor government […] A spokesman for the ALP campaign did not answer specific questions about Mr Nelson’s role.
To add to that, former Victorian premier Dan Andrews is allegedly prepping Albanese for tonight’s televised debate, and there’s another opportunity to link Albanese to his ‘good mate’ and former flatmate. After Albanese’s awkward press conference in Melbourne yesterday, where he trashed Victorian premier, Labor’s Jacinta Allan, as she squirmed on camera right behind him, the last thing Victorians will want to see is ‘Dictator Dan’ meddling in the federal campaign.
That Labor are not as confident as they’re making out might be indicated by the fact that one of their most senior MPs is trying to play down her party affiliation.
Finance Minister Katy Gallagher says the design of her campaign corflutes without Labor branding and a pink – not Labor red – background is what she had been told is the “best way to put yourself out there”.
Senator Gallagher, a former ACT chief minister, told ABC RN that “people just tell me what the best way to put yourself out there is” when questioned about the signs.
Apparently, by not explicitly campaigning as a Labor senator.
