Opinion
Dutton drags Albanese into the trenches, but the real battle is yet to begin
Sean Kelly
ColumnistA year ago, just after Anthony Albanese had become prime minister and Peter Dutton had become opposition leader, the two men were publicly quite nice about each other. Dutton said they had a good relationship and that he thought Albanese “would say that we’ve got a respect for each other”. Albanese seemed to confirm this, saying he had a much better relationship with Dutton than with Scott Morrison, and that “Peter Dutton has never broken a confidence that I’ve had with him”.
Publicly, at least, that relationship seems to have been deteriorating for some time. A month ago, Albanese said Dutton was making statements “unworthy of the alternative prime minister of this nation”. Last week he repeated this, adding that Dutton’s new comments about the Indigenous Voice to parliament were “devoid of empathy” and “without a heart”. Dutton, for his part, had accused Albanese of being “tricky” and displaying “contempt towards Australians”.
In high school we were taught about the “pathetic fallacy”: the way, say, rain in a novel could seem to meaningfully reflect the moods of the characters – falsely, of course, because rain is just rain. Last week, Canberra had its own pathetic fallacy. There was a cold snap, which seemed to capture the mood. In a column, journalist David Speers wrote that, during the bitterness of the recent housing debate, something between the Greens and Labor had “snapped”. Something between Dutton and Albanese had seemed to snap too.
And then there was the way most MPs and journalists seemed suddenly to snap out of the feverish madness that had come upon them the previous week, consumed with the various disputes around denied allegations of sexual violence and parliament.
Last Monday it felt like people had stood up and dusted themselves off, as though after a spell of hypnotism: a little embarrassed, a little confused about what exactly had possessed them. But this snap was less decisive because the truth is that episodes as nasty as this do not simply vanish. The anger and bitterness of last week felt like spillage from the previous one; as so often happens in life, the emotions lingered, even if the precise battlegrounds had changed.
Interestingly, the method of battle had changed too. Twice recently Peter Dutton made the same mistake. He pushed too hard on various race-based topics. Then he pushed too hard in the battle over Katy Gallagher. He had chosen murky topics and gone for broke, putting himself at the centre and letting the world believe this was all the Coalition cared about.
Last week he shifted. Speaking to Coalition MPs, he made a clear and sensible statement: cost-of-living should be the party’s number one issue. In parliament, the opposition did just enough to make it look like this was the case: early questions tended to focus on economics. But this was surface only. The opposition’s main attack in question time last week was on the Indigenous Voice to parliament. Dutton’s subject of attack remains questionable. Politically, though, he has clearly learnt a lesson – which should worry Labor. The main task of an opposition leader in the first year or two is not unity or taking paint off the government. It is learning fast from your mistakes.
Dutton’s approach should concern Labor at a simpler level too. Dutton has done enough to claim his own focus is on cost-of-living. His aim, though, will be to make it look like the Voice is the government’s main focus. If he succeeds, the government is in real trouble.
The government has many challenges in the months ahead but two main political ones. It must make sure voters know it is acting on the economy, which looks increasingly awful. And it must win the Voice campaign. The second will seem to many as though it is the most important. The truth is the two issues can’t be separated.
If the government fails to convince voters it is looking after the economy it has no chance on the Voice. Labor hardheads have understood this for some time: it is part of the reason the first half of the year was so focused on wages and payments. But voters have short memories. With the economy trending down, voters will want to know what is being done now. If Dutton persuades voters the government is only interested in the Voice, he hurts it on the economy and on the Voice as well.
Here we come to the great difficulty for the government. It is good at creating the general impression it is getting on with things. But is it good at convincing voters it is acting on specific issues? Recent polling found that in a series of areas Australians did not feel the government had yet made much difference. A year in, that is not a large criticism. But it raises the question: how does the government make voters notice what it is doing on the economy? It does not like picking fights. Attention-grabbing initiatives are not its style. It seems inclined to bring any big reforms to an election, which means implementing them in a second term.
An important question hovering over this government is whether it can win drawn-out public arguments. Now the government may have to win two at once: one about the Voice, the other about cost of living. This is not all good news for Peter Dutton because there are two large arguments Labor definitely did win: the election and the Aston byelection. Both depended, to a fair extent, on successfully tearing down the leader of the Liberals: first Morrison, then Dutton. And Dutton has another reason to beware. When Albanese was nice about Dutton last year, he had an important caveat: “I’ll treat Peter Dutton with respect if we can get some agreement from him.”
Today is the ten-year anniversary of Julia Gillard’s removal by Kevin Rudd. Gillard, when recalling that day, often quotes Paul Keating, who told her, “love, we all get carried out in a box”. One wonders if, sometime in the past fortnight, both Albanese and Dutton felt the truth in that phrase, and decided to do their very best to make sure the other guy got carried out first.
Sean Kelly is an author and regular columnist. He worked as an advisor to both Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.
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