How this is a shock to anyone is beyond me:
Peter Dutton has promised to listen to voters after the Liberal Party suffered a morale-crushing loss to Labor in the seat of Aston, becoming the first Opposition to lose a seat to the government in a federal byelection in 103 years.
In a result, the size of which neither major party predicted, Labor’s Mary Doyle enjoyed a primary vote swing of 8 per cent, with about two thirds of the vote counted.
This gave her a two-party-preferred swing of almost 6 per cent, to be leading the Liberal candidate Roshena Campbell by a projected 53.4 per cent to 46.6 per cent. The actual TPP as counting continued was 56-44.
Knock me down with a feather.
If you lose an election in a thumping swing owing to troglodyte policies on climate, progressiveness, energy, and corruption and the first thing you do in opposition is…exactly the same thing, then this is the result.
Did Dutton even notice how Albanese got elected? By agreeing with everything that the Coalition was doing but changing the symbolism.
Dutton has done the opposite. He has opposed climate action, opposed Voice, embraced the gas cartel, and talked up his corporate mates.
Worse, when presented with the opportunity to retain conservatism to his advantage he has gone soft.
As defence minister, Dutton was prophetic about war with China but because the LNP lost three Beijing-controlled seats he went soft on the enemy.
As home affairs minister, Dutton was hawkish about mass immigration but all he has done as a leader is demand more on top of already crazy levels.
Consider the field day the opposition leader should be having with Albo’s collapsing living standards. Rents gone mad. Prices out of control. Wages crushed. House prices falling. Paul Keating and the Labor divisions over China. Premiers bending the knee.
Instead, it’s OMG Voice!
This is opposition symbolism and policy gone dramatically awry. A zig every time a zag was required. The political instincts of a bollard.
Which brings me to appearance. It does not have to matter. But it does when it does.
Duttons’s nob added to the disastrous combination of values, symbolism, and policy blunders is everything going the wrong way all at once.
That is how you lose Aston.
