Will Dunkley give Albanese a birthday gift, or back Dutton’s suburb strategy?

Talk to people on the ground in Dunkley, and you get a sense people have plenty they want to say. The big question is whether the government is doing enough to ease the pain, and the extent to which the federal government is to blame.

Belyea, a community sector worker from Frankston, says the message about the July 1 tax cuts is getting through.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese campaigning with Labor candidate Jodie Belyea in Carrum Downs on Friday.Credit: Wayne Taylor

But she insists if she wins she will be pushing the Albanese government to provide more immediate relief in the May budget, which is now just weeks away.

“It is about me continuing to promote the work that the Albanese government has already done, and also advocate to the Albanese government about what other measures we might be able to introduce, particularly with the May budget,” Belyea said on Friday. “Keeping my eye on that because I’m hearing about it every day out here on the hustings.”

Liberal candidate Conroy, who came to the race with an existing local profile as mayor of Frankston City, agrees that cost-of-living pain is the number one issue. He says the government’s July 1 tax cuts will barely touch the side for many struggling voters.

“I think people are not focused on the tax changes at all because it’s $14 [a week extra] on average for the people of Dunkley, in five months’ time,” Conroy said.

“People are one pay cheque, one mistake away from having to sell their homes or leaving their rentals. But there are no homes for them to go to. When you allow 600,000 people into the country in a housing crisis and a cost-of-living crisis you just add to inflation, and just adds to the stress of people who are living in Australia.”

Frankston mayor turned Liberal candidate Nathan Conroy, 31.Credit: Eamon Gallagher

On the penultimate day of campaigning, political strategists from both sides were seeking to manage expectations about the result.

One Liberal strategist, who asked not to be named so they could speak freely, argued that a swing of more than 3 per cent of the primary vote away from Labor and towards the Liberals would be a blow to Albanese.

“I don’t think we will get over the line,” the source said. “We are battling with the fact that our primary at the last poll was 32.5 per cent. But we have put resources in and Nathan has a good following locally.”

A Labor strategist predicted the lion’s share of the One Nation and Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party vote – the parties are not running candidates – would flow back to the Liberals, while there was no “Scott Morrison factor” this time either. The source suggested the Liberal primary vote would return to the historical average of about 40 per cent, in a seat the party had held continuously from 1996 to 2019.

“It’s too close to call,” the Labor strategist said. “Our primary vote may not necessarily fall, but they will consolidate the vote on the right.”

“All the Liberal Party and [right leaning campaign group] Advance Australia messaging has been that this won’t change the government, so send the prime minister a message.”

ABC elections analyst Antony Green predicted the Liberal vote would rise because of the lack of One Nation and United Australia Party candidates – between them, those two parties had captured 7.9 per cent of the vote in May 2022.

He added that for the Liberals to win they would need a primary vote of at least 40 per cent, and then for everything to go the party’s way with preference flows. Other analysts suggested a primary vote of at least 42 per cent – an increase of 10 percentage points from the federal election – would be needed for the Liberals to snatch an unlikely victory.

“Of all the Labor seats, Dunkley is one they wouldn’t want a byelection in. But for the Liberals it’s a seat in which to test their outer suburban seat strategy– but Victoria is not the state they would want to test it in,” Green said.

The Australian Electoral Commission said that by 11.30am on Friday, about 25,300 people had voted before polling day, while another 14,872 postal votes had been returned. Both tranches of votes will be counted on the night.

In an electorate with 113,517 people enrolled, that means that more than a third of voters have already decided.

Both leaders will be sweating on the result.

For Dutton, after a disastrous loss in the Melbourne seat of Aston last year, a decent swing towards the Liberal Party will be interpreted as proof positive that the opposition leader’s political strategy is working.

Albanese will no doubt be regularly checking his phone during his 61st birthday dinner with son Nathan and fiancee Jodie Haydon – and hoping the voters of Dunkley deliver him a reprieve.

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