How Dutton and the Liberals lost the voters of Aston

About that transfer of votes from Liberal to Labor – how might it have come about? Allow me to speculate. You’re someone who’s voted Liberal in Aston for a while. The leadership chaos that engulfed Labor in the Rudd-Gillard days put you off the ALP. Tony Abbott seemed a bit out there, but he was politically effective. You were OK with backing him in 2013, although he ran off the rails early on, going back on some promises, and when Malcolm Turnbull knocked him off in 2015, it was a relief. You voted Liberal at the 2016 election.

Two years later, climate change was still a big issue. Turnbull got swamped by it, which seemed to happen to most prime ministers, and Scott Morrison, who you’d heard of as treasurer but not paid too much attention to, stepped in and stopped Peter Dutton taking over.

It’s not good that the leaders keep changing but at least Morrison seems like a normal, suburban bloke. You get behind him at the 2019 election. After that, Tudge loses his bearings. There’s a scandal. Is he still education minister? Hard to say. The government seems to have lost its way: for every good decision it makes on the pandemic, it makes a poor one. You’re not quite sure what its purpose is. Your Liberal-voting neighbours say they won’t vote for Morrison and Tudge again at the 2022 election, but you do, without much conviction. Maybe it’s time the other crowd had a go. You’ve been ambivalent in the past but climate change and wages do need more attention.

Dutton takes over. You find out that Morrison was up to all sorts of bizarre stuff, giving himself ministries. Hardly any of his colleagues seem to be outraged.

Meanwhile, Dutton and his frontbench and party room embark on opposing everything. It doesn’t matter what it is, they’re against it. Problems have been mounting for a while. The world is changing. You might not like some of it, but you can see it, why can’t the Liberals?

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Dutton keeps blaming Albanese for the rising cost of living. You know it’s more complex than that; he’s hardly been in office long enough to either cause it or fix it. This is just a continuation of the lack of direction under Morrison. On Saturday, disillusioned, and unhappy that you’ve had to vote for the third time inside 11 months because Tudge decided to head off into the sunset, you put a “1” next to Doyle’s name on the ballot paper. At the least the Labor Party under the unthreatening Albanese seems to have some ideas and goals. That’s how you stop voting Liberal.

Dutton has made great play since Saturday night that he has kept the Liberals united since the election. To what end? The voters of Aston provided the answer to that.

Shaun Carney is a regular columnist.