What does it all mean? An array of Dunkley takes

There was no shortage of heated rhetoric in the lead-up to the weekend’s Dunkley by-election, with the future of both major party leaders apparently under serious threat from a sufficiently bad result. As it turned out, Liberal candidate Nathan Conroy secured a swing of about 3.6%, far below the 6.3% required to take the seat off of Labor, whose candidate Jodie Belyea will now replace the late Peta Murphy.

So what did the outcome tell us? Well, it depends on who you ask.

A ‘devastating outcome’ for Albanese…

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, the day before the election: “People say that the swing of two or three percent would be a devastating outcome for the prime minister because that would be without historical precedent.”

Deputy leader of the Liberal party Sussan Ley on election night: “The people of Dunkley have sent Anthony Albanese a strong message and it’s not ‘Happy Birthday’, it’s ‘do something about the cost of living crisis.’ A swing of this size at the next election would see us win 11 seats from Labor. This is a terrible result for the prime minister”.

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…or completely average?

David Crowe, The Age: “The ABC’s chief election analyst Antony Green says the average swing against governments in byelections since federation is a little under 4%. When Green looks at results since 1983, he calculates the average swing is 3.5%. The outcome on Saturday was, in a word, average.” 

A repudiation of the fear campaign around asylum seekers…

The opposition and its supporters attempted to work up an issue out of the court-mandated release of asylum seekers who were being held in indefinite detention. After it was announced that police had charged one of those released with an assault, Ley tweeted that if Frankston residents had a problem with “Victorian women being assaulted by foreign criminals”, they should “vote against Labor”. The biggest of many problems with this tweet was that the police had made an error and swiftly dropped the charges. Ley was taking up a line that far-right campaign group Advance had been running, calling the former detainees “rapists, paedophiles and murderers”.

What did the result tell us about that approach?

Education Minister Jason Clare: “Sussan Ley spat out a lot of bile in that tweet and it’s all blown back in her face … I think she, in her heart of hearts, would be very embarrassed by that. She probably wants to take the tweet down, but someone’s told her that she can’t do it.”

Psephologist Kevin Bonham: “The biggest losers here are Advance, who spent heavily on Willie Horton tactics to zero visible effect.”

…or did that not even cross voters’ radars?

Shadow finance spokesperson Jane Hume: “I’ll be honest with you — the only people who have been talking about [Ley’s] tweet are either journalists or Labor staffers. I didn’t hear anybody talking about it on the booths yesterday.”

Certainly nothing says “cut through issue” like absolute dead silence from voters.

A really good result for Liberals…

Shadow immigration minister Dan Tehan called it was a “very good result” for the Coalition, which put it “in with a chance” at the next election.

Hume: “The primary vote for the Liberal Party increased. It was the best primary vote that we’ve seen in about a decade in Dunkley … this is a very positive result for us now.”

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Dennis Shanahan, The Australian: “It also means that Dutton’s political strategy and tactics in a tough atmosphere for the Albanese government may be starting to work as an opposition but now he has to take the next step of becoming a credible alternative government make bigger inroads at the next election and entertain any hope of winning.”

…or proof their current approach isn’t working?

Jennifer Hewett, The Australian Financial Review: “This will undermine internal confidence in Dutton’s strategy of gaining sufficient strength in outer suburban seats to counter losses to the teals and other independents in their traditional Liberal stronghold seats.”

Michelle Grattan, The Conversation: “The government’s easy retention of the Melbourne seat of Dunkley at Saturday’s by-election is a poor result for Peter Dutton.”

Or does none of this mean anything at all?

Peter Brent, Inside Story: “As with all federal by-elections seen as contestable between the major parties, this one … has gone from being cast as a useful indicator of how the parties are ‘travelling’ to something incredibly important in its own right: massive tests for the prime minister and opposition leader.

“Whenever I write about a by-election I devote some words to explaining why these events are useless predictors of anything and why they only matter because the political bubble believes they do.”

What do you make of the result in Dunkley? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.