What does Peter Dutton need to do to win?

Peter Dutton wins this election by maintaining the steady conviction that has defined his leadership. by david hughes.

First published in the AFR

Two years ago, Anthony Albanese looked unbeatable. Headlines like “Albanese on track for a second term” reflected public sentiment. At the time, Labor’s primary vote was about 40 per cent. Today it hovers around 30 per cent.

While there is an enduring obsession in election campaigns to focus on who “won the week”, we can’t lose sight of the shift in momentum that has occurred over the last two years. The fact we are contemplating a possible victory for Peter Dutton is quite an achievement.

So what must Dutton do to secure victory in five weeks? Numerically, the Coalition requires a uniform swing of 5.3 per cent to win at least 18 seats and secure a majority. In doing so, Dutton would be defying history given an Opposition has achieved a swing of over 5 per cent on just three occasions in the last 55 years.

Any swings to the Coalition will vary markedly this time around as the battle is fought on different fronts across the country.

To the main battleground – suburban Australia – where Dutton’s team are coordinating a push against Labor in about 20 outer suburban seats, focusing almost exclusively on the cost of living. Labor, now backed into a corner, and seen as the cause of cost-of-living woes, is falling back on a tried and tested tactic – a scare campaign on health.

The essence of Labor’s local campaign centres on a fight to “Save Medicare”. That’s why Albanese opened the campaign on Friday by asserting, without evidence, that Peter Dutton “will start by cutting Medicare”. This threat is as disingenuous as when Bill Shorten used it in the “Mediscare” campaign. As in 2016, voters didn’t know Medicare was under threat until Labor and their advertising agency told us.

Bulk billing rates have fallen by 11 per cent since Labor took office. With an absence of contemporary facts to support the scare campaign, Labor are banking on long-held perceptions that Labor is better placed to deliver health services. That’s why their campaign material features throwbacks to Bob Hawke to inspire a positive brand association among voters.

But what this particular scare campaign lacks in facts, it makes up for in emotional blackmail. Dutton’s challenge isn’t just to repudiate erroneous claims but to neutralise the issue itself.

To gain momentum, Labor will attempt to wedge the Coalition through announcements of new social and health spending, hoping to force Dutton into costly reactive commitments. His imperative is clear: exercise disciplined restraint, matching spending only when genuinely in the national interest, thereby preserving resources for core Coalition priorities.

On top of this, Peter Dutton has to contend with a growing list of third-party campaigners. At the last election, unions spent a staggering $37 million campaigning against the Coalition. While many who preach transparency talk about the influence of vested interests and billionaires in the political process, it is actually the Labor Party and Climate 200 who have the least diverse funding base in our political system.

This brings us to the next battlefront. Across the affluent suburbs of our major cities there is an entirely different contest being fought. Here, a vocal number of teal MPs and candidates, empowered with cash from disenfranchised millionaires, are seeking to unsettle the Liberal Party in its traditional heartland.

The teals gave the impression in 2022 that they were essentially progressive Liberals who cared about integrity. However, in office they have revealed themselves to be slightly more articulate versions of the Greens in designer attire.

That’s why the Coalition must successfully define teal candidates for who they are – part of a centrally controlled group of social activists. Peter Dutton has shown restraint in allowing some of his colleagues, who are closer to teal audiences, to deliver this message. Perhaps the blunt authenticity of an ex-Queensland cop would be a little too confronting.

Yet it’s exactly this authenticity that may just get Dutton over the line. He’s acted out of conviction on two defining policy issues, notably, the Voice referendum and the nuclear debate. It is why Dutton’s colleagues speak privately of his ability to unite people around a cause, often in the face of serious political threats.

It is precisely this authentic resolve and strategic clarity that can carry him across the finish line, turning an improbable challenge into a historic victory.

Peter Dutton wins this election by maintaining the steady conviction that has defined his leadership. If he remains disciplined and positive in the face of fear then there’s an abundance of shifting political momentum for him to harness.