The approach Peter Dutton is now taking in prosecuting his attacks on Anthony Albanese has taken a notable shift.
The Opposition Leader is now trying to paint Anthony Albanese as loose with the truth.
It is the very same approach Albo adopted when attacking former PM Scott Morrison ahead of the 2022 election.
Back then Labor focus groups confirmed that in the wake of the bushfires Morrison’s honesty had started to come into question.
His subsequent obfuscation on many issues cemented the concern amongst voters, which duly showed up in Labor’s research.
It was a potent attack because it meant that anything Morrison said or did could be called into question as just another example of his untrustworthy ways.
The attacks worked because they reflected a feeling voters already had.
Once Labor cottoned on to that fact those feelings existed amongst voters, Team Albo pressed the point home at every opportunity.
I remember talking to the now-PM about the strategy and its success in the aftermath of the election victory.
Anthony Albanese slammed Scott Morrison’s character and won election. This week, Dutton began to turn the focus on Albo’s truthfulness
As Team Dutton looks to employ the same strategy against Albo now, the question is whether the tag will stick.
Do voters have anywhere near the same feeling about Albo as PM the way they did about Morrison?
It is hard to imagine that the Coalition would move in this direction – essentially attacking the character of the PM – if its focus group research didn’t suggest that voters were at least starting to distrust Albo’s words.
Even if that is the case, my sense is that concerns about Albo’s truthfulness are nowhere near where concerns about Morrison got to by the time he lost the 2022 election.
Such sentiments would seem to butt heads with the ‘good bloke Albo’ messages that previously leaked out of Liberal Party focus groups on the Labor leader.
Those finding dictated the decision months ago to target Albo’s competence, or more accurately, his incompetence.
The feeling in opposition circles was that their pathway to an unlikely victory – knocking off a one term government for the first time since 1931 – lay in asking voters to put to one side the fact they think Albanese might be someone they would like to have a drink with and instead judge him on what’s been a poor performance as PM.
The approach would target Labor on everything from cost of living pressures to rising inflation and high interest rates to the per capita recession Australians are being forced to endure.
Looks familiar! Dutton appears to be copying Albo’s character assassination tactics
The Opposition won’t be walking away from that strategy, but they have decided to add another line of attack into that mix: assassinating Albo’s character.
Targeting recent obfuscation by the PM on issues such as the disagreements between the government and the Reserve Bank and Albo’s verballing of the head of ASIO.
For instance, Albo this week omitted a key part of what ASIO boss Mike Burgess said when he quoted a TV interview the spy chief conducted about Palestinian refugees to Australia receiving security assessments.
Dutton accused the Prime Minister of ‘deliberate misquoting’ of his security chief.
Dutton said: ‘What the PM did here was he read out a sentence but excluded part of that sentence and he skipped over the words, which gave the qualification that Mike Burgess gave during his interview on the weekend.
‘I’ve never seen somebody in that chair as prime minister be accused of deliberately misleading the parliament, in my 20 odd years in this Parliament,’ he said.
‘And it’s without precedent that the Prime Minister of the day wouldn’t be standing up and fiercely defending his or her position.’
Albo said he simply wasn’t going to read out an entire transcript.
Perhaps the good bloke tag that seemed tethered to Albanese’s prime ministership is fading, whether that’s because of his approach to political debates or because voters are losing their patience in the context of tough economic times.
If Dutton is right and doubts about Albo’s truthfulness are starting to weigh on people’s minds, amplifying that doubt is an opportunity not to be missed.
Because by the time the election campaign starts such sentiments will undermine the PM’s capacity to sell himself to voters.
It would be in the same way such attacks on Morrison’s character turned him into the number one barrier to the Coalition’s chances of being re-elected.
Even if the strategy doesn’t ultimately work for Dutton, attacking Albo’s character will leave him damaged in the election’s aftermath.
Assuming he wins, but only wins ugly, and is forced into minority government, a wounded Albo might find it harder to stave off internal opponents, for example.
It would also put the PM on the back foot immediately after the election, even if he wins it. That was Julia Gillard’s experience after narrowly winning the 2010 election.
She lost all momentum in victory, allowing Tony Abbott to dictate terms over the following three years ahead of a booming 2013 election victory for the Coalition.
While Dutton is playing to win the next election, attacks on Albo’s (dis)honesty could well be an insurance policy designed to discredit the PM for what might become a two term strategy for the Coalition.
