If Dutton can ride the wave of blame building against Labor, he’s in with a shot in Aston

Peter Dutton learned he would face the first significant electoral test of his opposition leadership in early January, when the besieged Alan Tudge told him he wanted out of political life. Anthony Albanese found out on Thursday morning when Tudge came to see him.

This test will play out in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne in a byelection triggered by the departure. The Victorian electorate of Aston is classic commuter country, and since taking the leadership of the Liberal party after the terrible voter excoriation last May, Dutton has appointed himself the high priest of suburban angst.

Taking his cue from Tony Abbott, the opposition leader has pitted himself against Labor’s agenda. Dutton’s political calculation has been obvious from the get-go. It’s a simple rule of threes. One: Scott Morrison was a central reason why the Liberals got thumped last May, and I’m not him. Two: May 2022 was the apotheosis of “new politics”. Three: Australia’s progressive moment will ebb as life gets harder, and with it Albanese’s honeymoon.

Dutton’s objective has been to push Albanese in the direction of having to barter with the Greens on the government’s signature legislation, light a match under cost of living, and make climate action a proxy for that hip-pocket debate. Knowing that Tudge would be gone by the end of the first week of parliament, Liberals came back from their summer holidays armed with a campaign question crafted for the mortgage belt: why does everything cost more under Labor?

The bumper-sticker catchphrase was the coda of this week’s question-time attack. The day before a shattered Tudge bid politics farewell at the dispatch box, Dutton was out in the opposition leader’s courtyard rehearsing his appeal to the good voters of Aston. “I don’t think we realise in Canberra at the moment how difficult it is for families in the suburbs,” the Liberal leader said. “They are really struggling, and they don’t need extra costs and extra budget items and additional expenditure imposed on them by the Labor party and the Greens.”

Hmm. Yes. Perhaps now is a good time to visit the world of facts.

Why does everything cost more is … let me find the right word. Audacious? Only last December, the Coalition voted against measures intended to reduce power bills for low and middle-income earners. Before the Liberals said no to lower prices, the Morrison government was advised power prices were going to spike, and chose not to tell the voters about it before the May election. Before declining to tell the voters about the imminent power bill shock, the Liberals presided over rising inflation and the first interest rate rise in the current inflation-busting cycle. Before that, the Coalition perpetrated for a decade the public policy equivalent of a multiple-car pile-up in Australia’s energy market, which is one of the factors behind everything costing more under … sorry, who was that again?

So Dutton’s j’accuse is a distance short of compelling.

But the suburban angst Dutton is mining is salient. Things do cost more, and people are struggling with the sudden return of inflation when inflation was thought to be past tense. Dutton knows exactly what the next few months look like. The Reserve Bank of Australia has signalled interest rates rises (plural) are on the way. Interest rates rises (plural) could push the economy into recession. And as the RBA noted this week, monetary policy operates with a lag. Fixed rates are shielding some mortgage holders from the increases, but that shield won’t be in place forever. There’s a big squeeze coming; significantly worse than $10 lettuces.

Remember when John Howard predicted the times would suit him? Dutton is similarly aspirational. There’s a difference though. Howard could afford to wait 10 years for the times to suit him (that’s what it took ultimately) but Dutton doesn’t have a decade. If he wants to be prime minister, he’ll get one shot – the election in 2025 – perhaps two if he can land a decisive blow during that contest. Dutton’s short runway probably heightens the incentives to chase the knockout blow. A leader with a longer shelf life might use his moment in the spotlight to grow more gently into a well-rounded political figure. Dutton – a high-profile veteran of a government voters repudiated – knows he’s on the clock.

Which brings us back to Aston. Dutton’s best chance of holding the seat rests with him defining the question of the byelection. If the question is “why does everything cost more under Labor” he’s in with a shot. Dutton also needs to win the framing battle because his leadership doesn’t add value. He’s not an asset in the contest.

To be scrupulously fair to the current Liberal leader, Dutton will be more of an asset in the Aston campaign than he would be if there was a sudden byelection in Kooyong or Higgins. But the rightwinger from Queensland is not a positive in the most progressive state in the country. The signs from the recent Victorian election are also pretty ominous for the Liberal party. The primary vote was under 30%. Labor also held a great chunk of territory in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs – Aston territory – that the Liberals wanted back. As a Liberal friend put the on-ground sentiment to me recently, people seem to have gotten used to voting Labor.

Because the leader isn’t a positive for the campaign, the Liberals will need a compelling candidate in the field, preferably yesterday. Depending on the timing of the byelection, that could involve the state admin committee having to parachute someone in, which could cause some angst, because the default in Victoria is grassroots preselections. There seems to be a consensus that the candidate should be a woman, with decent local connections.

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While Dutton wants Aston to be a referendum on the cost of everything, Labor could stage a referendum on naysaying from the opposition

People who have watched politics for a long time might find themselves harking back to another high-stakes byelection in Aston, in 2001, when John Howard snatched a morale-boosting victory and held government in the national contest at the end of that year. But I think a more relevant comparison is more recent: Eden-Monaro in July 2020. Like Dutton, Albanese faced an unexpected byelection in a marginal seat in his first year as opposition leader. It’s forgotten now, but back then Morrison was at the height of his popularity and the public weren’t sold on the Albanese alternative. Because of that, holding Eden-Monaro was going to be a tough fight.

Labor’s formula to hold Eden-Monaro was preselect a highly capable woman, a proven campaigner with deep local connections in the electorate, which is what sensible Liberals are contemplating for Aston. But Dutton will be bringing a very different leadership style to this byelection than Albanese fielded in July 2020. Albanese didn’t meet that moment with a barrage of negativity about his opponent – he was then in slipstream mode. Be constructive. Limited shirtfronting. The style he presented to voters was softly-softly. Labor’s comprehensive evisceration of Morrison was yet to come.

While Dutton wants Aston to be a referendum on the cost of everything, Labor can also stage a referendum on naysaying and negativity from the alternative prime minister. If Albanese can make Aston a ballot on Dutton’s abrasive leadership style, what are the consequences for the Liberal leader if he loses? While Dutton is overwhelmingly supported by colleagues, and the moderate wing was all but decimated last May, not everyone loves the strategy.

So there’s a lot on the line.

Thus far I’ve framed the byelection as a test for Dutton, but Aston is also a test for Albanese and Labor. The government is through the transition and the honeymoon, so it is only a matter of time before voters battling high food and energy prices and higher borrowing costs become impatient. Voter impatience will be exacerbated if Albanese looks to be preoccupied by, or prioritising issues other than the hip pocket.

The government is worried enough by interest rate rises (plural) to be distancing itself from the Reserve Bank and making a show of empathising with the public. Former Labor leader Bill Shorten was the exemplar of the art form this week when he declared the RBA’s decision to increase rates made mortgage holders “the meat in the sandwich”.

Once upon a time politicians in Canberra tiptoed carefully around the econocrats cloistered in Martin Place, invoking the doctrine of central bank independence in reverential tones. Nobody is tiptoeing now, because the Albanese government can see a wave of blame building.

The only question is, when will it hit?