Australia’s political theatre has been in full swing before the campaign has even begun. In the pre-election dance, it’s not the facts that matter, but the story that sticks.
It’s a truism as old as democracy itself: Politics is all about perception, not facts, and our interminable wait for a Federal election has starkly illustrated that.
The last four months have been a political vacuum. On one hand, we’ve had a small target Opposition holding back on releasing policies for fear of the Government using its incumbency to pick them to pieces.
On the other, the Government has been trying to gather much needed momentum and lift its primary vote to give itself some hope of governing in its own right, while attempting to govern.
Prime Minister Albanese took a major misstep before Christmas by purchasing a $4.3 million clifftop home while a cost-of-living crisis was raging.
It’s not that politicians aren’t allowed to have nice things – Greens and independents top the Parliamentary register for numbers of properties owned – but Albo’s position as PM and perceived failure to pass something called a Pub Test set a bored media running.
As Australia awoke from its summer stupor, it became about Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s purchase of bank shares during the Global Financial Crisis. No matter that nobody could show evidence of insider knowledge or that nobody had noticed in the intervening 15 years.
The Opposition invoked the words “dirt unit” knowing full well that they would have done the same if they’d had the ammunition ready.
Days later, the focus shifted to the Dutton family’s property portfolio and their flipping of 26 investments in three decades. You can bet that the messages behind this one had been validated in focus groups of swinging voters.
It all builds a picture of an Opposition leader disconnected from the middle-class voters he seeks to court. The challenge is making people recall the issue when the election campaign starts for real.
More recent damage has been self-inflicted. Peter Dutton’s pre-Cyclone Alfred dash from his marginal seat of Dickson to the opulent Vaucluse pad of billionaire Justin Hemmes for a lucrative fund-raiser echoed Scott Morrison’s ill-timed Hawaiian holiday.
That it was four days before the day a downgraded Alfred crawled across the Queensland coast and Dutton was back before Prime Minister Albanese fled the target zone for Canberra didn’t matter.
The subsequent Newspoll showed that those voter perceptions of caviar and canapes could still do more damage to the Dutton campaign than a month of crappy weather.
Craig Regan, Senior Account Director, Primary Communication
