Australia got punched in the face this week. It might help Anthony Albanese seal the election.
There’s a growing sentiment showing up in election research, Labor sources say, that some Australians are increasingly alarmed at what they see coming from Donald Trump’s American presidency on issues from trade to defence, and the general chaos. Many voters don’t want it here.
Australia being hit with a broad 10% tariff in the first week of the election campaign might normally spell crushing news for the prime minister, who wasn’t able to leverage Australia’s alliance to avoid the ire of Trump – especially when Peter Dutton has spent months talking up his strongman credentials, saying he would have more in common with the US president.
But a central question of this election campaign might be whether Australians want their leader to cuddle up to Trump, or to muscle up.
The fact that Albanese is so different to Trump – plain, no frills, slow and steady, compared with the chaos and confusion – might be his own trump card.
A report from Essential Research, which runs Guardian Australia’s Essential poll and is among several firms working with Labor’s campaign, found voters were divided on whether Dutton would add volatility to the Australia-US relationship or help set it back on course.
Some voters see Albanese as careful, considered and experienced, while others think he might not be bold or strong enough. Some back Dutton’s conservative streak and policy stances aligning with Trump, believing his bolder character might earn Trump’s respect, while others worry he might provoke Trump, foment uncertainty or bend Australian politics towards rightwing populism.
There’s a reason Labor is emphasising the “stability” they say they will bring in an “uncertain” world, emphasising the “chaos” of Dutton and warning against “Americanisation” of our politics. Sticking with a diligent and unsurprising government, in the face of unpredictability, will be a key argument for Labor over the coming month.
For some time Albanese has accused Dutton of “recklessness” – a word that must be testing well in focus groups, because Labor people are saying it a lot. On Friday the prime minister claimed Dutton’s tariffs response was “flippant”, that Dutton “doesn’t have the temperament” for the job.
On Thursday the deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, accused Dutton in the space of two sentences of “talking wildly”, “panic” and “dangerous thought bubbles”. The education minister, Jason Clare, accused Dutton’s Liberals on Friday of being “on Team Trump”.
“We’re on Team Australia,” he said.
Standing up to a bully engenders sympathy in Australia; cosying up to the bully usually doesn’t. In a calculated move this week, Dutton said he would “fight” Trump, not just buddy up. He calls Trump comparisons a “sledge”.
Dutton is not Trump. For all the “Temu Trump” tweets, the two men are not twins. Dutton is a hard-right conviction politician who instinctively reaches for culture wars, but he doesn’t engender a cult of personality and is nowhere near as unpredictable as the president. He isn’t Trump, the reality-bending convicted felon and showman.
But Dutton has sought influence, if not outright inspiration, from the modern slate of Trumpist policies. The “war on woke”, punching down on public servants, questioning education curriculums, the “government efficiency” push – Dutton grabbed them all.
Months ago it might have made sense, with Dutton’s noisy caucus and various media cheerleaders pushing for him to photocopy Trump’s playbook. The geopolitical sands were shifting, with progressive governments in the US, France, New Zealand and Canada all in turmoil, and rightwing alternatives in Germany, Japan, South Korea and Britain on the rise.
Incumbency was suddenly a curse, as cost of living, inflation and energy pressures gripped governments worldwide. Citizens were cranky, poor, looking for relief. The road to victory for Dutton, some said, was about leaning into discontent and riding the wave of unhappiness to The Lodge.
Only one problem: Australians have not yet got the baseball bats out for this Labor government.
That may change over the next four weeks, but at this stage Dutton has failed to weld cost-of-living pressures into a strong enough crowbar to prise Albanese from office. Albanese, after months of polls dipping, has bent the trend back upwards for Labor.
Is slow and steady, unflashy government a bulwark against the rightwing populist Trumpism sweeping the world? Again, check back in four weeks. But Labor think they’re on to something.
In a world of change, do Australians want more change?
Dutton’s first week on the campaign trail has focused on the negatives about the government, hoping to foment disdain, but has put forward few positives of his own. His main cost-of-living policies are a gas supply plan and a 25c cut to fuel excise, but his first week has – strangely – focused lightly on the details.
How much would an average family or business in McEwen or Paterson or McMahon save from lower power bills or cheaper fuel? We don’t know because unlike leaders of the past, Dutton didn’t come to those electorates armed with those facts – just vague promises, modelling he refuses to release and vitriol about Albanese’s weakness and wokeness.
Much of Dutton’s first week on the campaign trail has been red meat for his base, a greatest hits of woke schools, cutting the ABC and Canberra-bashing. The trouble is he doesn’t need to win his base, who aren’t going anywhere. He needs to win back teal seats and the outer suburbs that deserted the Liberals, including Bennelong, Chisholm, Pearce, Ryan, Goldstein and Curtin.
That he didn’t go near a petrol station for a week, despite the fuel excise cut being his budget reply centrepiece and central cost-of-living policy, was strange. The story writes itself, as it finally did on Friday, when Dutton dropped into a Parramatta servo to help fill up a Nissan ute and then paid for the man’s petrol (the only kink being when Dutton left his wallet in the car).
A Sky News interview, a Sky News forum, supporter events in his electorate of Dickson and Liberal party events in Perth – Dutton has leaned into his safe spaces so far. It will be interesting to see if he breaks out of the bubble he’s created for himself and takes some risks to win attention.
