Dickson – Australia 2022

I agree with Furtive and that Dutton as Opposition Leader would be in the mould of Tony Abbott – he would be a good attack dog against Labor and would be seen as a more aggressive version of Morrison in terms of courting the religious and middle class vote.

However, that strategy would likely only work whilst the LNP is in opposition. Once the Coalition gets back into office Dutton won’t be that good anymore and a switch to Frydenberg or another moderate/softer figure would be beneficial, with Dutton remaining as a frontbencher.

I agree that Dutton as Opposition Leader would be an attack dog like Abbott, and I’d be surprised if the Coalition in opposition adopt anything resembling a small target strategy like what Albo and Labor have. Abbott though was aided by the fact that Gillard herself, and her government was also incredibly unpopular, and though the electorate never warmed to Abbott, he was seen as a lesser evil. Would a hypothetical Opposition Leader Dutton be aided by such an unpopular Labor PM or government?

Dutton is incredibly divisive. He’d go down badly with the moderate Liberal voter base in the leafy wealthy suburbs. Dutton would also go down badly in the more ethnically diverse electorates in the country, in Sydney, the Liberals got some big swings in more ethnically diverse suburbs. These areas clearly responded well to Morrison in 2019. Dutton on the other hand would go down badly in these suburbs. There’s too much anti-immigration and dog-whistling in him. The Liberals could go backwards in seats like McMahon and Werriwa where they’ve made some progress in making them less safe for Labor. Dutton as leader would be a drag on the ticket in seats like Bennelong, Reid, Chisholm and Banks as well.

Dutton has built himself up as a hard man on Immigration and Defence but he has zero profile on economics – where does he stand? We have no idea and that is where he will ultimately fail as has not enunciated an economic view. He has had a long time to do it and hasn’t. It is domestic policies that affect everybody’s lives and where elections are won and lost. But on the domestic front Dutton is nowhere . It is one thing to be toxic but another to have no policy ideas – together a recipe for electoral disaster.

Redistributed
Dutton has successfully held 6 yes SIX portfolio’s. The second of which was Assistant Treasurer under Costello. Would it be a stretch to imagine that having been handpicked by one of the 3 greatest treasurers in Australian history, his views, & outlook would be pretty similar ? It’s difficult to see what could be a better foundation surely ?
cheers wd

WD – 2007 is politically a long time ago. 15 years is plenty of time to make a mark. Googling “Peter Dutton Economic Policy” comes up with some pronouncements made during his PM campaign in 2019. They were described as populist and poor economics.

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I read Bagshaw’s article. What a superficial, negative, obviously bias, hysterical, piece of crap !
It actually wasn’t about economics very much at all, let alone Dutton’s economic ideas. In fact it was about::
1/ A royal commission into the energy sector. Which is absolutely needed, & with hindsight was insightful, if not visionary. Witness the obscene free for all of carpetbaggers in this sector. I watched Matt Kean on Friday & he has gone from vain, smug, conceit, to a state of acute diarrhoea, which is certain to progress to terminal dysentery ! The imminent Eraring power station closure hit that idiot hard.

2/iMMIGRATION. 65% of Australians want the level reduced. The supposed economic benefits are highly questionable & there are many spurious, & highly selective arguments for (the economic benefits of) high immigration. Ive always believed in a SELECTIVE immigration policy personally, driven only by money, & skills. Additionally i would shame , & coerce (by treaty) country’s such as Japan that take NO REFUGEES into financing our refugee program.

3/ finally an economic policy of selectively targeting a removal of GST on power bills. Hence absolute Masses of BOVINE EXCREMENT !!. Because these moronic Journos have no concept of financial structure, problem solving , Creative solutions they immediately make judgements, jump to conclusions, & seize on unfounded presumptions,( ( as fact !!)
. In short they have never faced & cannot conceive or even imagine the constant challenges of commerce & business. All the catastrophic, neurotic, speculation about the difficult cost, consequence, & disruption of this measure were complete nonsense. You simply make the GST ON POWER BILLS TAX DEDUCTIBLE PERIOD, END OF STORY. Easy, & with virtually no cost. DONE. As far as a populist policy I’ve seen plenty worse.

Mate please don’t send me anymore links to idiot journos in the SMH. Most really couldn’t find their own arse’s with both hands. That is why i read the OZ. Some of the journo’s there have the experience to realise what they don’t KNOW !
cheers wd

WD, my personal opinion of Dutton is that he’s a c*#@ and when he dies he’ll be a dead c*#@. But my opinion is irrelevant. I take your point about the need for a ‘hard man’ or a ‘head kicker’ to do the dirty jobs in government. Dutton certainly fits that description. However, don’t ya reckon party leaders need to be seen as somewhat above the fray to attract the women’s and trendy urban vote? I do. Dutton is simply unelectable for southerners – and I say that as a Q’lander. Albo lacking ‘real strength’??? Bullshit! Try sitting at an isolated desk ‘out the back’ at NSW ALP party HQ for years while being ostracised by the powers that be. That takes character, courage and resilience. Look at the way he handles himself in parliamentary debate. No-one can best him in tactics or debate. He doesn’t indulge in serial lies or put his own position above what’s best for party and country. He’s not the best orator, but he’s a statesman, not a salesman.

The ‘hard man’ or ‘head kicker’ has the useful job of deflecting criticism from the leader. It also means that they can occasionally be dispensed with when it gets too hot in the kitchen. However, Dutton becoming leader means that all the hostility (and years of residual hostility) will focus on one person. Dutton would be toxic for the Libs in much of Sydney – anywhere north of the Bridge – and almost all of Melbourne. Even in the future he will carry too much residual hostility.

GST on power bills tax deductible? What if you don’t pay tax? Sounds incredibly regressive and some degree of power consumption is discretionary so you are just favouring people who can’t be bothered to turn their lights off.
And what good would a Royal Commission into the energy sector be? At best a delaying tactic and as everybody knows the governments sets the terms of reference and will largey get the answer they want.

The Liberals would be wiped off the map in Victoria if Dutton was their leader.

Aston might be the only seat they don’t go dramatically backwards in, because it’s the most socially conservative. But even that would have a negative swing.

A Dutton leadership could genuinely result in double-digit swings across Goldstein, Kooyong, Higgins, Flinders, Chisholm etc and a good 5-10% in seats like Menzies and Deakin.

And at state level, any advantage the state Liberals may enjoy as a result of going into November with an ALP federal government where voters had already got their anti-LNP anger out of their system in May, would be totally cancelled out because in their minds the LNP brand would equal Dutton which would harm the state Libs even more than if Morrison is still PM in November.

He is absolutely unelectable down here.

For that reason, if Labor do win in May, I actually hope Dutton does become the opposition leader because that’ll help wipe the state Libs off the map in November WA style too.

Trent,
I agree, hence my desire for the ALP to divert resources to electorates other than Dickson. Assuming a Labor win in May, having Dutton around in any capacity is the best guarantee of Labor’s re-election in 2025.

‘I agree, hence my desire for the ALP to divert resources to electorates other than Dickson. Assuming a Labor win in May, having Dutton around in any capacity is the best guarantee of Labor’s re-election in 2025.’

@Drongo

Yeah I saw people posting nonsense like this and getting ahead of themselves last election. What happened? Not only Peter Dutton held he’s seat but Scott Morrison won the election.

I want to see Dutton gone period as his attacks on Labor with China go too far. And are threatening Australia’s security interests. Labor also needs to win every marginal they can get to form a majority.

This seat will be tough. The primary vote 32 – 34% Labor had in the poll needs to be higher for Ali France to be a chance in my opinon.

People write off Dutton as leader also wrote off Tony Abbott who became Prime Minster. Abbott was helped by certain events but he was amazing in tearing something down. He even admitted after his leadership that Labor’s Malaysia solution was the right policy but voted it down all in the name of obstruction. In some sense its really quite sad.

I’m happy to acknowledge though Dutton is not well liked in the southern states and even his appeal in Queensland is quite overrated.

WD, “This seat will be tough….” and “I’m happy to acknowledge though Dutton is not well liked in the southern states”. You’ve just endorsed my arguments! I’m not suggesting the ALP should run dead, but I wouldn’t waste too many resources on Dickson when other seats would be better value for the same money.

PN, not WD.

Dutton’s started a gofundme for the floods Instead of using the billions lying around in the gov’s Emergency Response Fund. As of ~3:30 on Feb 27 he still hasn’t personally donated to it as far as I can tell.

lol

https://www.gofundme.com/f/pine-rivers-flood-relief?member=17664231&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer

Since Dutton’s known for being a litigious bully, I’ll clarify that it is theoretically possible that he could be one of the anonymous donations, but that’s not apparent from the gofundmepage right now.

If he has donated why would he not advertise this widely?

It doesn’t really matter what Dutton’s personal views are. He’s constrained by being on the front bench. Even if he were of a different and superior breed to ScoMo, there’s no chance we’ll see it.

In my opinion, find an independent or minor party you can live with. For example:

DicksonIndependent.info

Judging by the billboards, Dutton is massively outspending Labor’s Ali France. At least in the northern half of the seat.

Same across the border in Petrie.

Given the sitting member and this electorate’s margin I would figure it’d be too tantalizing for Labor to ignore, although perhaps close but ultimately fruitless efforts gone by have caused them to be weary. I have not been to Brisbane in general for quite some time so I can’t comment on the campaign much but as other users here have suggested it seems Dutton is putting his resources to good use and ensuring Labor can’t get a word out.

Prediction: Barring an extraordinary TPP not shown in any polls, and even if Labor wins comfortably nationwide, I expect Dutton to retain his seat.

Peter Dutton clearly outspends his opponents when an election is called As a resident on the northside of Brisbane I don’t see him in the electorate that much outside of that. He has huge election signs in prominent locations saying that he is working hard for the electorate, but one promise he hasn’t fulfilled is to complete work on duplicating the Linkfield Road overpass in the current term of federal parliament.

The federal government has the power to put the funding to the Linkfield expansion yet they keep blaming and bullying our premier for it not being done. Voters didn’t buy it at the last state election that it was the state government’s fault. Howarth and Dutton should reap what they sow for not fulfilling their own campaign promise!

Where has Barnaby Joyce been these days? He’s the minister responsible for this kind of stuff.

I live in Petrie division near the border and it’s very noticeable that the Liberals are spending far more here than Labor. In the state election I received mailers from Labor constantly and saw a lot of signage and roadside campaigning. This time I’ve received nothing from Labor but a reasonable amount from LNP.

I suspect that Labor’s actual on the ground spending is very targeted to the 75-80 seats they believe will bring government and they’re leaving seats like this to the fate of the national swing. We can’t be sure without seeing internal party plans but that’s my impression. If that’s the case Labor are happy to lose these seats and only plan to win them under landslide conditions.

The other possibility is that they’re keeping their powder dry but that’s just bad strategy when you have this much ground to make up.

Dutton is probably the biggest fundraiser for the Liberals other than Morrison and Frydenberg, and he always litters the landscape with corflutes and billboards, but that doesn’t necessarily mean Labor aren’t spending big in Dickson. As far as letterboxing goes, unless you’re actually in the electorate or you’re talking to volunteers working for her campaign (or you’re volunteering yourself) you’re probably not going to know how much they’re putting out.

From casual observation of her social media, Ali France’s seems to have galvanised quite a sizeable volunteer base actually. As I said before, she’s popular with the base and honestly one of the best candidates the ALP has. If she doesn’t win it’ll in all likelihood be down to the strength of the Dutton campaign and the intransigence of the electorate’s demographics, as opposed to Labor dogging it.

I am not seeing much talk about Dickson being in play, but surely if the polls are anywhere near accurate it would be at least extremely close. Lots of talk about a potential large swing in neighbouring Ryan and Brisbane, is there any reason to suggest that Dickson wouldn’t go in the same direction?

Last election it continued the trend of becoming more favourable for labor than the average Queensland seat.

I heard that in 2019, while Labor got plenty of media hype for Dickson as a winnable seat, Labor’s ground campaign was quite poor. Not seeing much difference from these comments, except there’s less media hype this time.

Labor hack FriendlyJordies has already planted the seed in one of his videos that Labor are underresourcing this campaign because they’re diverting resources to sandbag Griffith. A fairly run of the mill anti-Greens Labor talking point, but if Labor are already testing excuse lines for losing Dickson, that doesn’t bode well.

I’m thinking an LNP retain. I don’t think Labor figured out why they did so badly in Brisbane last time. All the focus on them doing badly in “Queensland” focused on Central and North Queensland. Labor’s 2019 campaign review was more of a document designed to justify Labor moving right than a thorough autopsy.

Labor’s campaign in Dickson in 2019 was strong and indeed a bit over the top. Resources were diverted from other campaigns towards Dickson and there was of course a huge Get Up campaign. I suspect that did more harm than good. I suspect that that is one reason the profile is much lower in Dickson.

Also the demographics of Dickson are very different to neighbouring Ryan. The North East section is industrial- pretty much as full on industrial as Brisbane gets, except for the port area, so it is totally different to Ryan. Then there is the the wealthier South East (northern part only) which shares some similarity to Ryans’s western zone, but is still much more urbanised. The lower half of this area is fairly standard brisbane suburbia. Finally you have the rural areas which are quirky. Not one booth that gets 40% Greens and 38% ALP

@John I would suggest that Labor are also sandbagging neighbouring Lilley which already has a vulnerable margin. There’s no real expectation of a swing towards LNP in a seat of Lilley’s profile but they want to lock it in as a reliable seat.

I suspected this was coming but pollbludger’s finally confirmed that Qld Labor are massively rowing back expectations in outer suburban and regional Queensland, now only holding out hope for Longman, Leichhardt and Brisbane, with an outside chance in Ryan. Quite a climb down when they were talking about winning everything from Bonner and Forde to fucking Flynn and Capricornia mere weeks ago. Dickson’s another seat they’ve apparently written off. I’m guessing that now the election season’s actually begun that polls are showing undecideds are breaking massively in favour of the LNP over Labor, exactly like what happened last time.

I have to say the new target list is a much more sensible one, and they should have realised it a year ago. YEARS ago. The 8% swing to Labor was always an absolute fantasy and it certainly wasn’t coming from social conservatives, even with Labor’s embarrassing, craven simpering towards the coal lobby. All that campaign money spent in coal mining seats that will never vote ALP again will just end up swirling down the drain (except if you count a second ALP Senator as a win, but that wasn’t much of an ask to begin with and could have been achieved regardless imo)

I’ll maintain that Ali France is a great candidate, she’s everything that Peter Dutton isn’t and if I was ever going to cheerlead for an ALP politician it would be her, but I don’t think Dickson is winnable for Labor in any realistic scenario on current borders. If Ryan or Brisbane don’t flip then maybe she can run there (I think she lives in one or the other anyway).

Let’s see how Albanese’s new housing policy plays out. I think it’s dumb but it’ll probably be massively more popular than any housing policy the LNP come up with. The election is still very much winnable for Labor, especially since the Libs are now at panic stations over their blue ribbon seats interstate.

PS to Maverick: That one booth way out with the 80% Labor vote is Mt Nebo. It’s sort of an eco-touristy area with lots of forest walks, although I’m not sure there’s any sort of actual accommodation or amenities. It’s more of a day thing. It’s popular with motorcyclists too who like riding around the winding bends.

@Furtive I think there was some foul play by Labor Right hacks with fossil fuel links in their campaign review. Needing to win coal seats back is a good excuse for moving right and further weakening climate policy, even though weakening policy doesn’t actually stop attacks, not is it particularly helpful in “winning the centre”.

If Labor’s best hopes include the two Liberal seats where the Greens are highly active, something is seriously wrong with their campaign strategy. There’s no reason Labor can’t win suburban seats Dickson, Petrie, Bonner, Bowman and Forde in an election where they’re poised to win suburban seats in other states.

Anyway I can see it now – Labor fails to gain any ground in Queensland and blames the Greens for “forcing” them to divert resources to Griffith.

If Labor are actually diverting resources from marginal LNP seats to protect one of their own seats from the Greens, they are extremely foolish. They will only win government by taking seats from the LNP and need to compete hard for any that are in play. Saving their own numbers from the Greens does not increase the odds of Albanese becoming PM, as the Greens will only make a deal with Labor for confidence and supply, not the Liberals. I know the major parties prefer majority government to minority government, but if that causes them to take actions reducing their chances of forming a government at all, well, maybe that’s the “letting the perfect be the enemy of the good” stuff that Labor supporters often claim the Greens are doing.

John, I don’t know about how winnable outer suburban Brisbane is, as I’ve said before a lot of those new voters in Dickson are CUBs and rich retirees so I question how persuadable they are. OTOH there’s a chance that the property market is stays permanently FUBAR and forces younger voters to live further out of the city and commute in. Longman at least is a possibility. In any case there was absolutely no chance that throwing money at central Queensland, where seats were swinging by near double digits last election was anything other than a complete waste.

I haven’t read Labor’s election autopsy but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was a whitewash of Labor Right wishful thinking. I watched that friendlyjordies vid against my better judgment and yes it was ridiculous. He wrote an article similarly attacking the Greens that was even stupider. Someone said on twitter that there’s a market in just taking the good research he occasionally does and making new videos without him in it.

I was never optimistic about Labor’s chances in regional Queensland. For months now I’ve been predicting we could even see a further swing to the LNP in regional Queensland and it looks like that intuition may have been correct. In addition, I had also suspected that Labor’s only three shots in Queensland are Brisbane, Longman, and Leichhardt, as the only other one that would make sense based on the margin is Dickson which Dutton won’t lose. LNP will retain this seat with a small seat against them, and as for those three seats Labor is hopeful for I believe they will pick up Brisbane and Longman and Leichhardt could go either way IMO but I will keep both in the LNP column. I’d expect the statewide 2PP in Queensland to be around 54.5-45.5 or so, nothing like the 50-50 BS some polling shows.

I was never optimistic about Labor’s chances in regional Queensland. For months now I’ve been predicting we could even see a further swing to the LNP in regional Queensland and it looks like that intuition may have been correct. In addition, I had also suspected that Labor’s only three shots in Queensland are Brisbane, Longman, and Leichhardt, as the only other one that would make sense based on the margin is Dickson which Dutton won’t lose. LNP will retain this seat with a small seat against them, and as for those three seats Labor is hopeful for I believe they will pick up Brisbane, whereas Longman and Leichhardt could go either way IMO but I will keep both in the LNP column. I’d expect the statewide 2PP in Queensland to be around 54.5-45.5 or so, nothing like the 50-50 BS some polling shows.

fixed for grammatical error

@Wilson it’s foolish but they do actually do it.

In 2019, Victorian Labor diverted resources to Higgins, and specifically to the strong Green voting areas in the North of Higgins (not the more Labor vs Liberal middle class suburbs in the south). Not only didn’t they want Greens to win, but they didn’t want it to be the Greens that beat the Liberals in that seat. Meanwhile hey failed to gain slam dunk seats like Chisholm and Pakenham.

I’ve never seen Labor campaign as aggressively in my life as when I lived in Batman/Cooper.

Loss aversion is a powerful motivator and Labor fight tooth and nail to avoid losing “their” seats. A Labor minority government is scarier to Labor’s donors and embedded revolving door lobbyists than a Liberal government. FriendlyJordies in his video flagged that Labor would rather not govern than govern in minority. It’s designed to scare people who are thinking about voting Green, and I don’t think Labor’s MPs will turn down the chance to be in government but I don’t think it’s entirely made up either.

@Furtive I completely agree with you that Labor’s carefully scripted play towards coal districts by making a big song-and-dance about their “top-bloke” candidate in Hunter and similar candidates throughout Central Queensland are a waste. It is just coming across as desperation. It comes far too late, their elabourate and tangible plan of transition for these communities should have already been part of their previous election bid. The lack of plan last election has ended up being a massive oversight that destroyed trust of these punters in Federal Labor for a lot longer than three years.

I doubt they are making any in-roads either with social-conservatives around the fringes of South East Queensland by simply shutting their mouths on social topics. The horse has already bolted, the Labor brand is irreparably ruined amongst the social-conservatives and it will not be patched over this election by Albo’s insistence that he is “not woke” to the tabloid press. Their credibility in Queensland with suspicious punters that might have nostalgia for the old Hawke era of Labor is just not there. Recent history also tells us that Labor need an ecstatic home-ground campaign like Kevin ’07 to win over much of Queensland.

I’m not saying that it’s a terrible play that Labor are trying to occupy the “sensible center” in politics, but they are also doing it without establishing any discernible points-of-differences with the Coalition (discernible to disengaged voters). Almost all Labor promises are being matched in Queensland by LNP and vice-versa. Reviewing some of the transcripts from both Labor and Coalition campaigning in Queensland so far, while blindly ignoring who provided the statements, it is very hard to tell who delivered them. The only giveaway comes with who they eventually start whinging about.

Labor are banking on winning over voters with a no-target campaign (this really is the smallest target campaign I’ve ever seen them run), by saying they are “not Scott Morrison” and “we could have done it better”. I think most disengaged punters, especially in Queensland are going to be just opting for the status-quo in this circumstance. “The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know”. I also think its understated just how forgiving the most disengaged punters are to Morrison given the exceptional crises he’s faced in office – fire, floods, pandemic and more recent economic headwinds. Anecdotally, a lot of impartial/marginal punters have been going to bat for Scomo, thinking that he’s been given a really tough term with not much of it under his control and are waiting to make more of an impression of him when he is not facing a crisis (if ever). Scomo’s insistence that particular things aren’t under his control is being bought punters. I get the impression that the time-poor and disengaged swing voters aren’t as bothered by “Scotty-from-Marketing” as the time-rich, hyper-engaged punters who watch wall-to-wall coverage of “smirking Scott” or consume the political-satire enthralled (not positively) by him.

By attempting to occupy the shrinking “sensible center”, Labor are just giving a free-bat to the progressive “teal-indepedents” and Greens to take on the moderate Liberals in affluent seats. And now that they are recognising they are ceding too much ground in these affluent urban seats, they are getting worried and diverting resources to sandbag without even changing their message or vision.

I also think its a joke that federal Labor have seriously not even attempted to make a dent on the apathetic safe LNP seats of the Gold Coast (Fadden, Moncrieff, McPherson) in over 10 years! The tide has naturally being going out here on the LNP primary-vote for the last 20 years but this seems to be ignored by Labor. Every election they line up one of their fresh-faced junior-burgers with absolutely no prospects or campaign resources and allow LNP to coast home on some of the lower turnout-rates in the country. A more concerted effort could have narrowed it to marginal battleground and put LNP on their toes enough to divert more resources to GC. There has been so many forces in the Gold Coast area that could have made it more competitive:

1. Increasing urbanisation and affluence – these are no longer the “Howard battlers” from 20 years ago.
2. Nationally significant population growth has been composed of interstate migrants, perhaps with differing social and political attitudes to the existing population of retiring boomers and their millennial children.
3. Unionised and Labor-sympathetic workforces like Health Care & Social Assistance and Education makes up a huge and growing share of employment composition on the Gold Coast.
4. State Labor have been making significant in-roads in this region, picking up Gaven (within Moncrieff) and turning Coomera (within Fadden) and Currumbin & Burleigh (within McPherson) marginal.
5. Same-sex marriage survey in 2017 suggests that the Gold Coast, particularly Moncrieff, is after a more “socially-progressive” politics. Moderate liberals are currently taking advantage of this here but it might bode well for Labor’s brand (or even “teal-independents”).
6. The alternative culture of the Northern Rivers is bleeding into the beach communities of McPherson as the urbanisation has taken shape. The shanty beach units and homes of “formerly-aspirational” retirees are being knocked down and redeveloped into dense modern apartments. The new apartments have been attractive to affluent “entrepreneurial” types, young-families and “sea-changers” that were seeking a “vibe” similar to Byron Bay. Byron Bay of course, facing a housing supply crisis was off the table. Bohemian boutique shops and cafe resembling the shopfronts of Northern Rivers continue to blow into McPherson while the dense urban sprawl of the Gold Coast creeps below the border into Richmond. The two are homogenising. Coalition have recognised the progressive headwinds in McPherson and has seeked to make Karen Andrews more of a high-profile MP. They’ve done this by handing her a cabinet position to sandbag this division from the rising progressive vote (Greens primary well here comparatively to the rest of the Gold Coast).

The Gold Coast was also ripe for a visit from the leaders over the Easter school holidays. It probably also would have fit in on the weekend Albo appeared at Bluesfest. The city was packed with tourists from all over the country. Being present at the beach or one of the major tourism operators alongside a figure like Palaszczuk, optimistically pitching how Queensland is “now open for business and recovering from Covid” would have attracted a lot of eye-balls on the ground and played well in local media. It might have also attracted attention from the holiday-goers from marginals all over the country that would have been otherwise checked-out and enjoying their holidays, not thinking about the election. I get the impression that Albanese is being cautious to sell a positive message or story on Covid-recovery however. It seems like he wants more of a negative image of Covid recovery to linger and remind people “about Morrison’s mishandling of it”. Whereas Morrison seems to be banking on an amnesia of Covid on election day.

Midnight Citizen
Has picked up one of the technical difficulties with Tallyroom. I would like to be able to edit immediately after posting. Fixing up grammar spelling and other minor errors shoild not need reposting whole of post.

SEQ Observor completely agree Australian Labor Party have got to make up their mind are they pro mining or anti mining, are they do family values or moral degeneracy, are they a working class party or a party of middle class perverts. They have got to decide is sexism worse than homelessness
The LNP has very similar problems.
Both have got to realise that a failure to allow balues to determine policy will lead to a bigger loss of votes than principled debate loses.

Agree @Andrew that both of the major parties are going through somewhat of an identity crisis that they are too afraid to sort it out because they believe they will lose particular subsets of voters. By remaining vague and non-committed, the majors think they will hold onto a broad coalition of different voters. Instead they are just losing voters to independents and micro-parties anyway that do a better job at narrow-casting their brand to specific niches. The population is increasingly fragmented into these niches and it isn’t just a political phenomena.

John, I don’t believe for a second that Labor will actually sit out of government rather than strike a deal with the Greens. There’s simply too much at stake for them. If they’d only had one term in opposition, it might be plausible, but three is far too much for Labor’s liking.

Dickson would be in Labor’s second tier list to win seats in Queensland. While Dutton is a divisive politician, he should just hang on with the voters in new housing developments tending to be slightly more aligned with the Coalition.

You want fringe theories? Here’s mine. Labor don’t need Dickson to get to a majority and they’d rather have Dutton as Opposition Leader.

Either way, it feels like I’m seeing about 5 yard signs for Peter Dutton to every one sign for Ali France. I’ve not seen a single Labor commercial billboard, either. And this is in the sort of area that gets a mid-60s 2PP for Labor at state level!

@AlexJ I hope not. Echoes of Hillary Clinton’s “pied Piper” strategy that ended with president Trump. Dutton has actual fascist, anti democratic tendencies and he needs to be stopped ASAP

Dutton has no fascist tendencies and is not anti democracy.

I wouldn’t describe Dutton as “fascist”, but many of his views and policies that he has implemented are certainly illiberal and anti-democratic. The increasing affinity of the Liberal Party towards such views and policies is the main reason I don’t vote Liberal despite being right-of-centre myself.

My view is that Labor’s done a good job of neutralising the issues of religious freedom and climate change/emissions targets. If anything, the Coalition has been wedged on these issues this cycle.

As for Dickson, after the effort put in 2019 it doesn’t feel like it’s much on the agenda this time. If there’s a big Labor swing in Queensland this will probably be gravy for them, but there’s been relatively little talk of it being a potential pivotal seat like in the past.

Dutton is a good enough political operator, who is one of the few politicians who I think would relish becoming Opposition leader.
It’d be very foolish of Labor to underestimate him as an opponent. His capacity to hold this seat during down periods for the Coalition is testament of this.
Not agreeing with much of his philosophy, I think he will be even more cunning and opportunistic than Abbott and probably what the LNP needs to stop the bleeding of members and support to ONP/UAP/LDP.
From what I’ve seen, whilst Frydenberg is popular with larger swathes of the media, I don’t think he has the mongrel or ticker to take it to Labor even with Albanese as leader.
The new government is about to walk into an economy perilously engulfed by high inflation and not much left in terms of savings. Albo isn’t a strong communicator and clearly has already alienated one of his biggest threats in Plibersek.

Not being from Queensland but having Dutton as leader will I think help claw back and possibly flip some SE QLD seats in 2025, which will inevitably happen when the swing adjusts.
Knowing Queensland also has a habit of often over correction and not doing things in half measures. Eg state elections and more recent Federal elections.

I want to reiterate that Dutton got very, very lucky with a redistribution for 2007 (Dickson picked up a bunch of what is now Somerset region), you can see on Ben’s boundary-adjusted chart that on current boundaries that would’ve been a loss.

2016 was an incredibly hard-fought campaign.

From here I agree the end swing will probably be fairly closely related to the state swing.

Daniel
From the bill boards on the Highway I thought Dutton and Howarth have been responsible for building and maintaining all roads on the North side of Brisbane. I agree that Libs are outspending in Dickson and Petrie but I think Australian Labor Parties Petrie candidate is out campaigning Howarth in DBay and on Deception Bay road. I saw one of Dentons ALP Corflutes politically defaced on D Bay Rd. In recent years political defacement has been replaced with theft or destruction.

https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/representatives/dickson/peter_dutton

All you really need to know about this guy and why is is an unacceptable MP.